English as a second language learners’ size of receptive vocabulary knowledge and the listening comprehension skill

Abstract

The present quantitative research work aims at exploring the relationship between the receptive size of vocabulary knowledge, and the listening comprehension skill of intermediate Chilean university students of English as a foreign language. The specific objectives were to measure the participants’ receptive size of vocabulary knowledge and to assess their listening comprehension skill, in order to identify relationships between these two variables. The data was collected by using two instruments, form B of the updated Vocabulary Levels Test (Webb, Sasao & Ballance, 2017), and an IELTS listening comprehension test adapted by the research group from the “Cambridge IELTS Academic 17 Book” published by Cambridge University Press & Assessment (2022). The participants of the study were 34 intermediate second-year students of the four-year programme of English Linguistics and Literature offered at Universidad de Chile. The data analysis was processed, on the one hand, by using descriptive statistics and, on the other hand, by means of two statistical methodologies, Spearman’s and Pearson’s correlation coefficients. The results of the study reveal that the students’ listening comprehension skills presented a moderate positive correlation with the 3,000, 4,000 and 5,000 word frequency levels test. The findings of the present research work indicate that the students' exposure to the English language during three semesters in the academic programme could have had a positive impact on their lexical knowledge and listening comprehension skill development.