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300-word High Proficiency Kernel Concept | ||
Tags: Number of words | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5225 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 1 of 80 27 September 2014 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I want to take a CEFR C2-level conversation Spanish class at a local university starting next week. But first I must
pass a placement test. This test consists of a short telephone conversation with the instructor. I estimate that I have a few minutes to convince this person that I have C2 speaking capability. I do not know what questions the teacher will ask but I suspect they will be some very general questions to see how I can handle the language. Fluency and grammatical precision will be paramount. How to prepare for this test in the next four days? This, I believe, is an excellent opportunity to test the efficacy of my 300-word High Proficiency Kernel Concept. I recently got into a heated debate over my claim that one doesn't need more than 300 unique words to have a high-level conversation in a language like French, Spanish or English, the languages I'm familiar with. More specifically, I claim that using 300 unique words will allow you pass a B-level CEFR exam, and even a C-level. What a crazy idea? My seemingly crazy idea is based on the observation that nearly all conversations on a given topic use less than 300 unique words, and often way less. Of course, different conversations use different words. So to have many different conversations on varied topics you will need many different words. This has lead most people to conclude that at the very high levels of proficiency where you don't know the subject in advance, you need a huge speaking vocabulary to cope with any eventuality. You may only use 300 words in a specific conversation but you must have a large pool at ready just in case. This is undoubtedly true for reading or listening tests but I argue that when it comes to speaking it's not the same situation. My observation is that if you take a specific genre of conversations such as the CEFR C-level speaking tests, speakers use two groups of words: 1. A small number of words that all or many speakers share and are typical of the genre (not the subject). 2. The words specific to the topic. What I suggest is that we can put the first group consists of a set of around 300 words that speakers of the genre will tend to use as the vocabulary base of their speaking strategy. In other words, this set is customized by all users according to the topic. Words can be swapped in and out or even supplemented, but the total count will rarely go over 300. The major implication is that it is extremely important that the user master this 300-word kernel. In a sense, this is the tip of the iceberg. This is the foundation of speaking fluency and grammatical precision. This does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that I'm saying that you need to know how to use only the same 300 words to pass a C-level test. I'm saying that around 300 words or less consisting of the customized kernel will be enough to deal with any situation. The proof is in the pudding, but I believe that this idea of a high-value lexical kernel can be implemented in all languages and works for the following reasons. 1. Many of these words are used in different contexts with different meanings. The sum total of semantic units is much greater than 300. 2. There is a major multiplier effect as many words, especially verbs in French, English and Spanish, through various grammatical transformations. In French and Spanish, for example, many verbs have a pronominal form in addition to the base form. Many words also enter into compound forms, 3. Many words enter into idiomatic expressions that are very important for demonstrating high proficiency. For example, my preparation for the placement test consists of a systematic review of a 300-word Spanish set that I will present in the next post. In addition to this, of course, I'm listening to and shadowing a number of recordings plus doing some reading. The next step: an example for speaking Spanish. Edited by s_allard on 27 September 2014 at 2:20pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6377 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 80 27 September 2014 at 5:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Would it be fair to say that you spend as much time and effort to master all variants of these 300 words as a learner with a more quantitative strategy would spend on 3000 words?
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4328 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 3 of 80 27 September 2014 at 6:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wonder though whether the real point of the disagreement is not whether you will get into your C2 class, but whether you'll manage to cope with it once there.
Anyway all the best of luck! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6392 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 4 of 80 27 September 2014 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Besides, if it's a C2-level class, then the people aren't at C2 yet. If it's a new semester of an existing class, you just need to prove that you aren't considerably worse than others, who may well be even below C1. It may even be possible for a B1 who knows C1-level grammar to take such a class.
And surely you aren't telling us that you only know 300 words in Spanish? It would be great to see your scores from the Leipzig test or similar. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Lemberg1963 Bilingual Diglot Groupie United States zamishka.blogspot.coRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4034 days ago 41 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Ukrainian* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Polish | Message 5 of 80 27 September 2014 at 7:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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300 words may be enough to stumble through a specialized situation, e.g. if you know that
you will only talk about motorcycle repair. It's a bit ambitions to try to do the same with a 300 word corpus in any situation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7000 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 6 of 80 27 September 2014 at 7:35pm | IP Logged | ||
I too wish you the best on your C2 preparation and examination.
You make this claim every weekend, which is why someone asked, "how much do you drink"? Although Georges St-Pierre may drink NOS, that doesn't mean that anyone who drinks it will become an MMA champion. However, NOS may be a good substitute for your beverage of choice. It won't make you an MMA champion or help you pass the C2 exam, but it might prevent the 300 word theme about passing a CEFR B/C level exam from making its reprise next weekend. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4925 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 7 of 80 27 September 2014 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Any conversation class that I've attended hasn't been about vocabulary. Vocabulary will come as you run into new words.
Passing a conversation test just to get into such a class would most likely be more about actual language use: full use of tenses, moods, syntax, proper use of pronouns and adverbs, etc. I think you're in for a surprise if you think that your telephone conversation test result is going to be determined by the number of words used. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Maecenas23 Triglot Newbie Ukraine Joined 4406 days ago 21 posts - 56 votes Speaks: Ukrainian*, Russian, English Studies: German | Message 8 of 80 27 September 2014 at 8:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am sorry to inform you, but even an A1 level requires more than 300 words.You are
making a doubtful assumption that a single word is a basic unit of language, but I would disagree and say that the basic and most important units of language are certain unchangeable combinations of words, phrases and idioms. It's pointless to see the language as a set of words, where you have a free choice of juggling them whatever way you wish, the language is much more constraining and intricate in its nature than you suppose it to be. 7 persons have voted this message useful |
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