어휘크기와 깊이가 영어 읽기이해 능력에 미치는 영향

Abstract

The present study investigates whether the size and depth of the vocabulary knowledge of KoreanEFL university students affects their reading comprehension. For this purpose, vocabulary size test(VLT) and vocabulary depth test (WAT) were employed to measure students’ size and depth ofvocabulary knowledge respectively. And a reading comprehension test was administered. A total offorty English education major students in Gyeongsang province took the two vocabulary tests andthe reading comprehension tests. A descriptive statistics shows that the vocabulary size of thestudents is 7039, and the vocabulary depth score is 120 out of 160. A correlation analysis showsthat the scores of VLT, WAT, and the reading comprehension were highly correlated except for theacademic level vocabulary test scores in VLT. The stepwise multiple regression results report thepredictability of the scores for the reading comprehension. One of the results to note is that theR-square for the VLT score at 3000 level was the highest and this suggests that students should atleast master the words at 3000 level. Vocabulary depth was also a meaningful predictor for readingcomprehension and this means that the learners should be given more opportunity to increase theirvocabulary depth knowledge. The study results suggest that the vocabulary size and depth are bothimportant factors to improve reading comprehension and thus teachers need to consider investingmore time for helping students improve vocabulary knowledge in the field.