ESL learners' semantic awareness of English words

Abstract

This study investigates ESL learners' semantic awareness of English words by attempting to estimate a threshold beyond which ESL learners can be said to have reached native-like semantic knowledge. The Vocabulary Levels Test, originally designed by Nation (1990) and later revised and expanded by Schmitt (2000), was used to operationalise this threshold. Version 1 of the test by Schmitt was adopted. The Chinese-speaking ESL learners were divided into two groups (high-level vs. low-level), depending on whether they had achieved the 5000-word level. The Semantic Knowledge Test, self-developed by the researcher, was used to measure the participants' semantic development in English vocabulary. Native speakers of English also participated as the comparison group to the ESL learners. The Semantic Knowledge Test scores were analysed to compare the performances of the participants. The results indicated that even high-level ESL learners performed significantly worse than the native speakers of English. The 5000-word level thus was not high enough to be considered as constituting the semantic threshold level for the Chinese-speaking ESL learners. The researcher also examined the relationship between selected ESL learners' background variables and their semantic development. Pedagogical implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• semantic awareness
• semantic acquisition
• vocabulary acquisition
• threshold vocabulary

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Dr Michael E. Everson of the University of Iowa for his valuable advice on the design of the study and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Notes

∗∗ p < .01.

∗p < .05;

∗∗p < .01.

∗∗ p < .01.

∗ p < .05;

∗∗ p < .01.

1. In the present study, there was no way to know whether this was a typical distribution of the number of Chinese-speaking ESL learners at the 3000 and the 5000-word level at the research site.