The present study aims to investigate the direct and indirect contributions of Korean EFL college students’ L2 receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge to their L2 writing performances by using a structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis with a goal to explore the pathways of vocabulary knowledge to writing. Data from 178 students were collected through tests of receptive and productive vocabulary breadth and depth, a writing test and a reading test. In testing a hypothesized model on the roles of receptive and productive vocabulary in writing, the results of the SEM analysis reveal the direct role of productive vocabulary in writing. The indirect role of receptive vocabulary on writing was observed through the mediating role of productive vocabulary or reading ability due to the direct contribution of receptive vocabulary to both productive vocabulary and reading and that of productive vocabulary and reading to writing. Findings from the study shed light on the relations of L2 receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge with L2 writing abilities, suggesting potential benefits of both receptive and productive vocabulary learning for L2 writing.

This article reports on a study that compared EFL freshman university students’receptive and productive recall vocabulary knowledge and their ability to use that knowledge, as it remains unclear in the literature to what extent knowledge of vocabulary, especially productive knowledge, is indicative of learners’ ability to use vocabulary to communicate. The study first measured the vocabulary size of 169students from 24 majors. Next, deeper meaning word knowledge and vocabulary userelated knowledge were assessed by administering depth tests to 51 of the students who completed the size tests. The study found that the participants were able to use only 60.3% of the words that were known receptively and productively on the size tests, and that receptive deeper meaning vocabulary knowledge was 43.0% greater than productive knowledge. Finally, the study results support the concept of a vocabulary knowledge continuum, but highlight the importance of including both receptive and productive knowledge, as they were found to develop in a dissimilar manner.

The realization that there is a mismatch between the vocabulary level presented in the Korean National Curriculum, and the required vocabulary size for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) high school learners to take the high-stakes Korean College Scholastic Ability Test stimulated the researchers of the present study to administer an assessment of Korean high school learners’ vocabulary sizes. Measurement of vocabulary knowledge was conducted with the adaptation of Nation’s bilingual vocabulary size test, receptive and productive, by improving construct validity of the items. Learners were tested for the 1st ~ 10th 1,000 word bands to ascertain learners’ vocabulary size at each level. The assessment of vocabulary size demonstrated receptive vocabulary knowledge to be as large as 6,000 words. However, unforeseen rises in the EFL learners’ vocabulary sizes at some word bands were observed, which seem to have emerged from the educational milieu and the predominant focus on receptive lexical knowledge and the testing of them. Suggestions are proposed for the revision of word list of the National Curriculum, which would become the blueprint for controlling vocabulary level in the development of national textbooks of English.