Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4095 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German
| Message 25 of 319 07 April 2014 at 12:19am | IP Logged |
Jeffers wrote:
We can talk about how bad language learning is in other countries, but the study
actually compares them. For students at B2 level, EFL learners in Greece and Hungary
have about twice the vocabulary of French learners in England. |
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According to their table, EFL vocab is good at B1 in Greece (3000 words). But then the
growth slows down dramatically. Only 500 words extra per level after that. Only 4500
words at the C2 level.
It leads me to believe that the vocab level at B1 for EFL in other countries is not due
to better education, but due to something else.
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Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4321 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French
| Message 26 of 319 07 April 2014 at 12:49am | IP Logged |
cpnlsn88 wrote:
I blame some ideological influences such as the emphasis on 'natural learning' and
communicative approaches. I am not against communicative approaches but the incline on vocab is simply a lot
steeper than most people imagine, hence why progress is somewhat limited in may cases. |
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Is this the fault of the communicative approach? I don't know much about what came before it so I'm happy to be
taught something.
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Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5578 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 27 of 319 07 April 2014 at 1:12am | IP Logged |
FSI style methods came before communicative approach, that or BBC course driven evening classes ;-)
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emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5545 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map
| Message 28 of 319 07 April 2014 at 2:39am | IP Logged |
Gemuse wrote:
According to their table, EFL vocab is good at B1 in Greece (3000 words). But then the growth slows down dramatically. Only 500 words extra per level after that. Only 4500 words at the C2 level. |
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The last time I saw this "4,500 words at C2" number, I actually dug up the original research paper and read through their methodology carefully. It turns out that they only checked the most common 5,000 words. So all that number means is that C2 students knew 4,500 of the 5,000 most common words. But they may have also known a lot of words which aren't in the most common 5,000 as well.
If I were going to test the vocabulary of C2 students, I'd use a dictionary with 30,000 to 40,000 headwords and test them on a random sample, then extrapolate from there. If the research at testyourvocab.com is to be believed, well-read adult native English speakers often know 30,000 to 35,000 dictionary headwords.
According to IELTS research page, a C2 diploma is equivalent to an IELTS score of 8 or 9. According to testyourvocab.com, that corresponds to an average vocabulary of 13,000 to 26,000 words. This seems roughly right, based on the DALF C1 and C2 practice exams, and my scores on French vocab tests. Certainly it's much more plausible than that "4,500 at C2" number that keeps getting thrown around.
Edited by emk on 07 April 2014 at 2:40am
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7218 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 29 of 319 07 April 2014 at 2:55am | IP Logged |
Gemuse wrote:
It leads me to believe that the vocab level at B1 for EFL in other countries is not due
to better education, but due to something else. |
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Cognates?
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Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4095 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German
| Message 30 of 319 07 April 2014 at 6:43am | IP Logged |
Thanks EMK on that check.
With such an egregious error, can the article I posted be trusted as all? Perhaps it is
all nonsense. My apologies.
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Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6595 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German
| Message 31 of 319 07 April 2014 at 7:02am | IP Logged |
Jeffers wrote:
We can talk about how bad language learning is in other countries, but the study actually compares them. For students at B2 level, EFL learners in Greece and Hungary have about twice the vocabulary of French learners in England. |
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Any comparison between EFL learners and learners of any other language is pointless. English is the language of everything and most kids actively want to learn it. Any European citizen is constantly exposed to English via movies, advertising, music, computer games and the Internet. Most songs in the Eurovision Song Contest are in English, and the ones who sing in their native language never win (except when their native language is English). I know continental Euro kids don't get as much exposure to English as Swedes do, but it's still a helluvalot more than UK kids get to French.
Quote:
Ari's example sounds pretty familiar. On the other hand, he's writing about a third language! (Ari, what's the normal second language in Sweden?) |
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The second language is English, of course, but I wouldn't say English is a "foreign language" in Sweden. If anything, one would expect third language learners in Sweden to proceed faster than second language learners in the UK, since we already have two languages under our belts.
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beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4635 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian
| Message 32 of 319 07 April 2014 at 9:13am | IP Logged |
Do Swedes actively choose to read in English? I remember being in a large bookstore in Oslo (ok, not
Sweden, but close enough) and I would say the books were a 50/50 split between English and Norwegian,
just mixed together on the shelves. In other countries, there might be a small corner section with English
titles. In places like Italy and Germany you would rarely see a native reading an English book on the bus or
train. I guess if Scandanavian people are reading English materials, even if it is just standard novels, this will
help shoot up their vocabulary levels.
Edited by beano on 07 April 2014 at 9:16am
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