THE IMPACT OF PROFICIENCY LEVEL ON RECEPTIVE AND PRODUCTIVE VOCABULARY OF EFL LEARNERS

To know a word means both recognizing and using it correctly (Pignot-Shahov, 2012). The scarcity of the research and the inconsistent reports about the nature of the relationship between receptive (R) and productive (P) vocabulary knowledge indicate the complexity of this issue. Therefore, the present study investigated the relationship between these two types of English vocabulary knowledge as a whole and also in different frequency bands, across two proficiency levels. Version A of the R and P Vocabulary Levels Tests were distributed among 100 EFL learners of two proficiency levels. It was found that R vocabulary size was always greater than the P one, and that the gap between them widened as the frequency of words decreased. Although the participants progressed in R and P vocabulary knowledge, the proficiency level did not make any significant difference in the nature of the relationship between R and P vocabularies. It was concluded that the EFL context can be an important factor that hinders the turning of R vocabulary into P one.