A Proposal for Recalibration of a Vocabulary Levels Test as Diagnosis of Late Bilinguals’ L2 Proficiency

Abstract

his study explores the recalibration and adequacy of a measure of vocabulary size – the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) – as a predictor of Brazilian Portuguese-English speakers’ ability to access grammatical representations through their non-dominant language. Such endeavor concerns a specific part of the test (composed majorly by cognates) which has been blurring the results when participants are natives in Latin-derived languages, such as Brazilian Portuguese. A new test (nVLT) was designed, with a novel version of this problematic part (level 4) present in the older test that, now, avoids the proliferation of cognates. Both versions were applied to a number of Brazilian participants and the results were correlated with another proficiency measure, taken from an acceptability judgment task designed according to the model reported in Souza et al (2015). When the low-proficiency participants took the VLT, there were a decreasing pattern in their scores from the first level of the exam all the way to level 3 (because each level is harder than the preceding). But, when they got to level 4, which is “harder” than level 3, their scores increased surprisingly, and then decreased again in level 5. When they performed the nVLT, which has a level 4 recalibrated (without latin cognates), the decreasing pattern was maintained evenly through the whole test. These results from nVLT show an internal coherence of the test due to the recalibration.

Autonomous learning of vocabulary of English as a foreign language using multimedia resources

“…Lo anterior indica que la presencia de los cognados en los distintos niveles también impactó el resultado general. Soares-Silva et al (2021) realizaron un reajuste de esta prueba para evitar la proliferación de cognados específicamente en el nivel 4 000. Al aplicar la prueba original, reportaron resultados similares a los del presente estudio, pero cuando resolvieron el nivel 4 000 ajustado (sin cognados), el patrón decreciente se mantuvo de manera uniforme durante toda la prueba, con lo cual se verifica una coherencia interna del instrumento, además de que los cognados impactan en los resultados cuando los participantes son nativos de idiomas derivados del latín.…”