The Impact of Vocabulary Size on the Receptive Skills of Saudi EFL Learners

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the impact of vocabulary size on Saudi EFL learners’ reading and listening skills. Thirty-eight undergraduate Saudi EFL learners participated in the study. The study tools consisted of vocabulary size test (VST) developed by Nation and Beglar (2007). The test was developed to provide a reliable, accurate, and comprehensive measure of a learner’s vocabulary size from the 1st 1000 to the 14th 1000-word family of English word-level tests. A paid reading and listening comprehension tests were used. Both tests were obtained from ETS, TOEFL official application. The results revealed that the vocabulary size of the Saudi EFL learners in the tertiary stage was 2790 words. Furthermore, the study found a positive relationship between the scores of the vocabulary test levels and the score of the reading and listening test. This indicates that a higher level of performance in the vocabulary test may lead to a higher level of performance in the reading and listening test, and these relationships were statistically significant at the level of 0.01. Because of this, it was recommended that teachers and learners use different approaches and styles for teaching and learning vocabulary.