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Article: Students fall short on Vocabulary | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 129 of 319 14 April 2014 at 10:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Well, the remark was based on this thread and several others. Cheating is a harsh word, but I think it's warranted here. And especially if one crams for a test and forgets the material shortly after passing, then to me such a use of your short-term memory isn't different from having a physical cheat sheet. Edited by Serpent on 14 April 2014 at 10:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 130 of 319 14 April 2014 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I agree. That was the basis for my earlier comment about "the goals of the student". Would you rather have a C2, or be a C2? I'd rather be one. Whether I ever take a test for me isn't important as I generally don't find tests and certifications motivating at this stage in my life. I am interested in learning though. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 131 of 319 14 April 2014 at 11:03pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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One of the reasons I think much of this vocabulary size debate is a waste of time is that nobody talks about all
the other stuff that goes into language proficiency. The thing about vocabulary is that it is measurable, or seemingly so with, in my opinion, some dodgy methodology. And, of course, bigger has to be better. A 10000 word vocabulary must be better than 2000. Go for a C2 exam with only 3000 words? You must be out of your head. But in the midst of all this mumbo-jumbo. no one says a word about mastery of tense and verb aspect, mastering hypothetical statements, how to ask questions, logical connectors, intonation, word order, noun derivation, affixes, fluency, etc. The funny thing is that these are the very things that examiners are looking for. Everybody is so hung up on vocabulary size, but none of language the tests actually measure vocabulary at all. So why are we worrying about vocabulary? As I keep repeating, I have never said that vocabulary is not important. I have never said that you should not learn more than 1500 words. I'm simply drawing attention to the importance of learning how to use words rather than wasting time counting them. Edited by s_allard on 14 April 2014 at 11:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 132 of 319 14 April 2014 at 11:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Most of these aren't level-specific, you just need to have some knowledge already at A1-A2, and by C1 be nearly perfect. Some advanced things are not needed before B1-B2, and small gaps in the basics are okay at this time, too. The division of grammar into levels is largely artificial and exists for the sake of classes. Also, many people on HTLAL actually love learning grammar. It's much easier to assess on your own too. Edited by Serpent on 14 April 2014 at 11:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5563 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 133 of 319 14 April 2014 at 11:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Without actually disagreeing with you, aren't the divisions of grammar quite important
in CEFR exams (as they are actually examined, rather than the initial competences tables). My impression from going through the various DELF or Goethe Institute books is that there is a set order of grammar functions that you have to know at each level. You may be correct to say that this is for classes - but this order seems to be embodied in the exam structures that the national examining bodies set. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 134 of 319 14 April 2014 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
This is the argument that always comes up. You have to have a huge receptive and productive vocabulary because you never know what will show up on the exam. Maybe you'll get a topic on medical advances and you don't know what "metabolic and endocrine disorders" are because you spent all your time studying for the biology of deforestation. Or maybe you know nothing about option trading in the world of finance and you get a question on how puts and calls are used by sophisticated investors. But the exams don't work that way. Put yourself in the shoes of the examiner. At the C2 level, you have a candidate who claims to be able to interact with you at a level that is somewhat close to your native level. What are you observing? How would you react if somebody out of the blue asked you what is a naked call option? That is a very unfair question. The test questions are not designed that way. They are supposed to elicit responses that demonstrate the candidate's ability to handle a wide range of questions in a fluent and coherent manner with great control over the language. You will probably get a question more like: what are some of the great challenges facing the world over the next 50 years? How much really specialized vocabulary do you need to talk about this? Well, you probably have to say something about population explosion, climate change, inequalities between nations, aging populations, immigration, etc. I would think that anybody who dares go up for a C2 examination has done a lot of reading about current events and some ideas about these topics, The words themselves are not that fancy and specialized. This is where I come back to my hobby horse about really mastering some simple material. Do you have be a meteorologist in order to talk about climate change? The examiner himself may not know that much about climate change. But that's not really what the exam is about. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4663 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 135 of 319 15 April 2014 at 12:25am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
If I can take the exam on Monday and pass then I'm a C2 and that's it. (Unless the C2 exam expires after a while; I've not checked). If I forget enough stuff that I wouldn't be C2 by Tuesday then maybe the exam isn't as rigorous as it could be. But I'd think that's a bit of an extreme case. In practice if I get a C2 certification in (say) Spanish today and don't use it for 5 years, I'm likely to be quite rusty. But in practice I'll be able to go from "rusty" back to C2 in a far shorter time than a beginner can get to C2 for the first time. If I can trivially "game" the exam, then the exam has a problem. Any technique that doesn't involve obvious fraud (use of forbidden materials, use of forbidden in-exam communication, having a substitute sit the test in my place) is perfectly OK. There's no requirement (that I know of) that I study for a certain amount of time or in a certain way or that I retain anything after the exam. I've just looked up "to cheat" in the OED and (unsurprisingly) all of the (non-obsolete) meanings involve fraud or deception. Studying as little as possible for an exam is efficient. It's also obviously a risky strategy. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4663 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 136 of 319 15 April 2014 at 12:48am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Well this thread seems to about vocabulary so I'm not surprised that it is centre stage here. I've not seen anyone argue that mastery of grammar, sentence patterns, reasonable pronunciation, fluency etc. don't matter, nor have I seen anyone argue that they matter less (or more).
And there was I thinking it would be hard to convince you :-) But seriously, if you mean a passive vocabulary then surely you'd agree that's going to leave you at a loss for words compared to the successful candidates? Given that there is evidence of candidates passing with 1500 words, I presume you'd agree that walking into the exam with an active knowledge of 1000 words would be likely to lead to disappointment?
These things all matter. The candidate who somehow masters all of those but has an active vocabulary of 1000 words is going to fail. The candidate who masters an active vocabulary of 10,000 words but doesn't bother will all that "grammar stuff" is going to fail. The candidate who manages both is going to sail through. Somewhere in that multi-dimensional map you can draw a (fuzzy) surface around an origin (of zero for the absolute beginner) and (almost) everyone well within that surface will fail and (almost all of) those beyond the surface will pass. I just think that you've picked too short a distance along the vocabulary axis. I expect that you have to have a minimum vocabulary to go with a minimum level of grammar to go with ...
They don't explicitly measure it but some amount of it is clearly required. We're just arguing about how much (where's OScar Wilde when you need him?)
I'm sure that there are many things that you need to be able to do in order to pass a C2 exam. Vocabulary is one, grammar another, correct usage yet another (assuming you don't lump this in with grammar), reasonable pronunciation and so on. Vocabulary size is reasonably easy to get a handle on. I'm not sure how you would measure grammar. Pronunciation is probably not too bad these days (record something, throw it onto youtube and wait for opinions). Correct word usage: practice on Lang-8 etc? So I disagree that word counting is useless - it helps you measure how far along an important axis you have travelled. I can't believe that there are people out there who measure their passive vocabulary on a weekly basis, but then I don't believe that there are people out there who measure their "grammar knowledge" regularly either. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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