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Article: Students fall short on Vocabulary | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 3870 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes  Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 313 of 319 12 May 2014 at 10:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
Agree with s_allard. 3 posts are enough. For advanced language usage, I look not for the vocabulary size, but at how the writer manipulates the language, constructing sentences which act as conduits in which ideas flow effortlessly. Often, the sentences which make me go "man I wish I could write like that" do not contain any vocab that I myself could not use. But the way the sentences are created is of a complexity that is far above what I can generate. Edited by Gemuse on 13 May 2014 at 9:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6385 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 314 of 319 13 May 2014 at 12:14am | IP Logged | |||||
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This just means that you already have a decent vocabulary and want to use it more elegantly. We all have different strengths.
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| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4453 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 315 of 319 13 May 2014 at 12:24am | IP Logged | |||||
I'd agree that a handful of posts (each of say 100 words or so) would probably be enough to pigeonhole you both as advanced speakers (well, writers, I suppose). Beyond that you'd start to pick on the occasional typo or slip up, and native speakers make plenty of those too. Conversely, you can probably spot a weak writer in just one or two posts of reasonable length. I, for one, would struggle to reproduce this simple post in French, for example. Make me write 200 words and you'd soon spot my rather poor French writing skills. With a speaking test of, say, 20 minutes, you are naturally limited in how many words you can use: surely it would be painful to listen to someone rattle on, no matter how eloquently, at 150 wpm for 20 minutes? That's only 3000 words. Throw in thinking time and getting a word in edgeways and you are down to 1000. Now cull the repeat offenders and you'll be lucky to get over a a few hundred. I suspect that, as with the "read the posts" test, your ballpark score is determined in the first few minutes. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5218 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 316 of 319 13 May 2014 at 8:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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It seems to me that the size of the sample of oral or written sample necessary for the assessment of a candidate's
language proficiency is shrinking. After a couple of paragraphs the reader has an idea of the writer's skill; after a minute or two of speaking, the listener has an idea of the speaker's level. We may read and listen more to make a final assessment but it seems curious that most of the assessment requires a relatively small sample, especially for the experienced examiner who has heard many candidates. Remember, again, that we are assessing linguistic ability and not literary skills. Edited by s_allard on 13 May 2014 at 2:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6993 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 317 of 319 13 May 2014 at 11:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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If the test is meant to have any prestige, the test can't permit easy gaming in which someone can be rated at a level far above what they can do in the real world. Take the FSI for example, although we can say something similar about a CEFR rating. If a diplomat arrives at his/her post and cannot use the language effectively, the embassy will be upset that they have a new employee who cannot do the job. Similarly, if an employer sees a high CEFR level which was the result of a brief test, they could find out over the course of a day or a week that the employee doesn't have the vocabulary or ability to communicate with the nuance necessary for a postition. If that were the case, the CEFR would lose credibility.
Edited by luke on 13 May 2014 at 11:18am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5218 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 318 of 319 13 May 2014 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think the idea of gaming the CFER tests is far overblown. How could a B2 level candidate speak with examiners at
a C2 level for 20 minutes? Does anyone believe that you can recite some memorized texts in a discussion and convince people that you are better speaker than you really are? So, the question is: how large and varied do test samples have to be to allow us to determine accurately a candidate's language proficiency? I'm sure that this question is still keeping researchers busy. We've seen that using the example of posts here at HTLAL, the answer ranges from three to 100 posts for the assessment of writing ability. Does anybody have other suggestions? Edited by s_allard on 13 May 2014 at 2:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4232 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 319 of 319 24 May 2014 at 3:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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Today our family had some visitors from the US. The 2 kids have taken some Mandarin classes but when
asked to say a few simple words they were silent. Regardless which language you're learning the bottom-line is not only to keep up with regular classes but to make extra efforts to read books, listen to the radio & TV programs regularly. Personally I have a routine of watching certain # hours of programming in French & Mandarin. Since English is my strong language I would restrict my TV viewing to only the news. I don't know all the Chinese characters in a newspaper but I can recognize at least 80% to get the context of an article. 100 years later we would be having this discussion and I'd be saying the same thing. The more exposure you have in a language initially the further ahead you'd be later on. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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