Relationship between EFL Learners’ English Proficiency Levels and Three Types of Word Knowledge

[[abstract]]本研究旨在探討南台灣高雄地區一所科技大學應用英語系學生的英語能力 與其三項字彙知識之關聯性。此三項包含了單字能力、字詞搭配能力、及成語使 用能力。本實驗總共有六十四位在科技大學主修英語的學生參與，根據他們的托 福紙筆測驗成績，此六十四名學生被畫分成三個能力等級（包括了中級、中高級 以及高級），且分別接受了三項不同的測驗，包括:單字測驗、字詞搭配測驗和成 語測驗。 研究結果顯示，首先，受試者在單字測驗的優良表現確認了教育部所頒布的 一千基本英文單字表的效用，但是統計分析指出受試者的單字能力及其英文能力 的優劣並無顯著關聯。而就字詞搭配能力而言，實驗結果顯示中級及中高級受試 者的字詞搭配能力有顯著差異，並且此顯著差異也存在於中級及高級受試者的字 詞搭配能力比較中。另外，統計結果也發現三組受試者的字詞搭配能力及其英文 能力較有顯著的關聯性。此外，測驗結果指出此三組受試者的成語使用能力並無 顯著差異，且其成語使用能力及英文能力亦無顯著關聯。總結來說，本研究的主 要結果顯示，受試者的字詞搭配與其英文能力強弱的關聯性似乎較為明顯，而單 字能力及成語使用能力與其英文能力則較無顯著關聯性。根據本研究結果，學生 的字詞搭配能力似乎能被視為其英語能力的指標。[[abstract]]ABSTRACT This study aims to examine the degree to which the knowledge of words in isolation collocations and idioms is related to the subjects’ general English proficiency The participants were sixty-four English majors in a mid-size university of science and technology in Kaohsiung city Taiwan They were divided into three groups based on their proficiency levels (including intermediate high-intermediate and advanced levels) as measured by TOEFL (paper-and-pencil version) Based on the Ministry of Education (MOE) 1000 English word list the researcher designed three tests i e Test of Vocabulary (TOV) Test of Collocations (TOC) and Test of Idioms (TOI) to measure the participants’ knowledge of words in isolation collocations and idioms respectively The results revealed that the efficacy of the MOE1000 English word list was confirmed because of the averagely high scores of all three levels measured by TOV In addition it was found no significant relationship exists iii between the subjects’ knowledge of words in isolation and their English proficiency The findings of the study also indicated that there was a significant difference in the performance of TOC between the intermediate level and the high-intermediate level as well as between the intermediate level and the advanced level Besides the students’ performance on TOC and the TOEFL score was found strongly correlated in all three levels Furthermore with regard to the performance on TOI no significant difference among the three proficiency levels was found; likewise the results showed that the subjects’ knowledge of idioms was not correlated with their English proficiency To sum up major findings of the study indicated that the subjects’ knowledge of collocations seemed to correlate with their English proficiency whereas no significant correlations can be found either between the students’ knowledge of words in isolation and their English proficiency or between their knowledge of idioms and English proficiency The findings of the study suggested that collocational knowledge could be an appropriate indicator for the students’ English proficienc