Investigation of the Relationship of Receptive Vocabulary Size and Speaking Skills: A Study of IELTS Test Takers in Pakistan
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Abstract
Past studies have highlighted the importance of correlating vocabulary size with language skills. It was observed that these studies were unable to examine this relationship among IELTS Test Takers. This study aimed at investigating the relationship between receptive vocabulary size and the productive language skill i.e., speaking skills of IELTS Test Takers in Pakistan. It followed the model of a correlational study. So, to test the hypothesis, measures of band scores of IELTS speaking tests were collected from a sample of 125 undergraduate IELTS Test Takers. The data was analyzed statistically by using SPSS. Receptive vocabulary was calculated by using VST (Vocabulary Size Test) by Nation and Beglar (2001). These measures of IELTS test scores and Vocabulary size test were analyzed through simple linear regressions. T-test showed a statistically significant relationship between male and female test-takers. Females performed better in VST as compared to male test-takers. Mann-Whitney test for speaking skills showed that the results were not significant and there was no statistically significant relationship in the speaking scores of males and females. The relationship between VST and speaking skills was found to be non-significantly regressed with a 33.6% variance in speaking skills.
Keywords
Receptive Vocabulary Size, Productive Language Skills, IELTS Test Takers, Speaking Skills, Simple linear regression
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