Relationship between productive vocabulary knowledge and speaking performance

Abstract

The significant role of vocabulary knowledge in second language (L2) learning has been acknowledged by various studies conducted by researchers with different purposes. Of the previous research conducted, hardly any attempted to examine how well productive vocabulary knowledge predicts the speaking performance of L2 learners. Therefore, the current study was conducted with the purpose to systematically investigate how well productive vocabulary knowledge predicts the ESL speaking performance of Malaysian pre-university students. Seventy Form Six students from a Malaysian secondary school participated in the study. A productive vocabulary knowledge test and a speaking performance task were carried out onto the participants and the results were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The finding revealed that productive vocabulary knowledge has a weak positive correlation with the speaking performance of the students which is not statistically significant. The result thus suggests that productive vocabulary knowledge is not a good predictor of the speaking performance of ESL pre-university students.