Korean college students’ vocabulary profiles as predictors of English reading and writing proficiency

Abstract

The present study aims to identify the association between Korean students’ vocabulary profiles and their reading and writing proficiency. For the purpose of the study, 107 college students from two universities in Seoul were asked to write an argumentative essay on the following two topics: English Only Classes (EOC) and the Additional Point System for conscripts (APS). In addition to the writing tasks, the students took a reading comprehension test. Then based on their scores on the reading test, the students were assigned to a high proficiency group (n=17) or a low proficiency group (n=17). The students were also classified into a high (n=26) or a low proficiency group (n=29) based on their performance on the first writing task (EOC). A Lexical Frequency Profile (LFP) was then used as a measure of vocabulary knowledge to examine the relationship with other variables, such as writing topic, writing proficiency, and reading proficiency. The findings indicate that the students’ written essays on the two topics displayed significantly different vocabulary profiles. Interestingly, the students’ vocabulary profiles did not differ according to their writing proficiency whereas their use of academic words differed according to their reading proficiency. The findings are discussed in greater detail, along with pedagogical implications.