1. Introduction

As is known to all, there are a variety of tests, such as testing of linguistic elements, tests of linguistic skills as well as up to date tests of communicative competence. In particular, recently, more and more scholars and researchers have begun to center on the study of vocabulary test. Vocabulary testing is now receiving the attention it deserves, with studies of the construct validity of some vocabulary tests, examination of the effectiveness of particular item types (Schmitt, Nation, Kremmel,2020; Laufer and Nation,1995), and a comprehensive examination of the field of vocabulary testing (Read,2013). Although there are so many achievements of research on vocabulary test, learners pay few attentions to the study of the vocabulary test for students in specific period especially for beginners like students in middle school.

The study of the vocabulary test for students in middle school has much practical value. Firstly, it can help L2 learners in this period acquire words efficiently, lying a good foundation for their future language learning. Secondly, it can provide more reliability for teachers, so as to gain sound knowledge of their vocabulary size or level and help them offer target ways in teaching. This paper will focus on the vocabulary measuring instruments and compare different vocabulary test approaches with each other, analyzing the features of L2 learning beginners so as to find out the efficient way to acquire words.

2. Vocabulary Test

2.1 Vocabulary Size Test

2.1.1 The Width of Vocabulary

The width of a word refers to how many kinds of meaning a word can have. Measuring the vocabulary size in isolation refers to think about the process of completing a word recognition test. Cameron resorts to some of this checklist test.

¹ Ex.2-1:

1 □obey2 □escape3 □graduate4 □expect5 □large

6 □accident7 □common8 □shine9 □sadly10 □check

A number of points can be made about the checklist format. But a checklist test has no direct demonstration of knowledge and there is always the chance that examinees will overestimate their vocabulary knowledge, i.e. check items that they do not in fact know. And decontextualized presentation of a word in a test does not imply that an examinee makes sense of the test word in a decontextualized mental void.

2.1.2 The Depth of Vocabulary

The depth of vocabulary means how well words are known. This is useful because it may indicate areas of weakness in vocabulary development that deserve more attention. There are three categories (form, meaning, use) with spoken, written, word parts subdued to form and with form and meaning, concept and referents, associations subdued to meaning. Use can be divided into three parts (a grammatical functions, collocations and constraints on use). Although Richards did not set out to create an all-inclusive description of vocabulary knowledge, others have characterized it as such and have built upon it to create a more complete vocabulary knowledge framework. Perhaps the most comprehensive descriptions of word knowledge were those proposed by Nation who listed eight different types of knowledge that are necessary to know a word, but later revised it, adding a ninth aspect, “word parts”.

2.1.3 Productive Vocabulary

In Productive Vocabulary Size Measures (also called PVLT), Laufer & Nation (1995) used the words and frequency banding from the form-recognition version of the VLT to create a form-recall version.

² Ex.2-2:

1. Every working person must pay income t_____.
2. The differences were so sl______ that they went unnoticed.
3. There are a doz______ eggs in the basket.

This method varies its items on the test in both their formal characteristics ( number of letters), and the defining power of the context sentences as indicated in example2 which lack a strong collocation and enlarge the difficulty of blank-filling. However, it doesn't lay so much emphasis on the output of vocabulary as real productive mastery. It is more likely to recall the link of form and meaning.

2.2 Vocabulary Level Test

2.2.1 (1) Lexical Frequency Profile

The frequency counts used were ones commonly available: Words were taken in a stratified sampling from the Thorndike and Lorge list, with reference to frequency data from the GSL (the General Service List). The only exception to this is the2000 section, where words from the1000 level and the2000 level were sampled at a1:2 ratio. The following illustrates the format of a noun cluster.

³ Ex.2-3

Parts of the Vocabulary Levels Test

The2000 word level

1 copy ( ) end or highest point

2 events

3 motor ( ) this moves a car

4 pities

Academic Vocabulary

1 area ( ) written agreement

2 contract

3 definition ( ) way of doing something

4 evident

(2) Dimensions (components) approach

It involves specifying some of the types of word knowledge one can have about lexical items, and then quantifying participants’ mastery of those types. The most outstanding potential advantage is its possible comprehensiveness. It can produce a very rich description of vocabulary knowledge, and simplifying effect of breaking complex behavior into its more manageable components for analysis. Nevertheless, it has limitations as well. It is impossible in practical terms to measure all word knowledge aspects. Besides, researchers are not sure whether receptive and productive knowledge forms a continuum so that the movement of vocabulary from receptive to productive level can not be well understood.

2.3 Lexical View

2.3.1 Lexical Richness

Measures of lexical richness should allow us to distinguish between the language of more and less proficient learners. This has been done by analyzing differences in the type-token ratio and the word frequency of items in texts. It might also be done in other ways such as looking at the relationships between the words in a text and counting the number of lexical errors. A measure of lexical richness should also be able to indicate strengths and weaknesses of a learner’s productive vocabulary.

The type-token ratio is calculated using the following formula:

type-token ratio = number of different words (types) / total number of words in the text (tokens) *100

The three examples below are all made up of four types and five tokens, but the second and third examples consist of less frequent words that may provide a much more precise description. The text length and the number of types and tokens are identical in each example, so measures of lexical variation would not differentiate between them.

Ex.2-4

a: The man saw the woman.

b: The bishop observed the actress.

c: The magistrate sentenced the burglar.

Another issue is how to treat errors. If words are mispronounced, misspelled, or used incorrectly, should they be included in measurements of lexical richness? Most studies lack details in the way that errors are treated.

2.3.2 Lexical Organization

(1) Test of the Lexical Association (TLA)

One method is writing the first word you think when you see each of the following words. Another different approach to analyzing associations related to Graph Theory concentrate on the interconnectivity of the responses. The participant is asked to indicate the strength of any connection they choose such as quiet-morning, quiet- peace, and quiet-sound. This method discriminates native speakers from non-native speakers, and supports the notion that organization is a viable independent construct of vocabulary knowledge except size.

(2) Test of English Derivatives (TED)

The aim of TED can be included in the test of lexical association. But the test method is quite different.

⁴ Ex.2-5: philosophy

Noun She explained her ______ of life to me.

Verb She was known to ______ about her life.

Adjective She was known as a ______ person.

Adverb She discovered her life ______.

This can be informative because Schmitt and Zimmerman (2002) found that even relatively advanced learners (students studying in processional courses preparing to enter English-medium universities) typically did not know the main derivatives of target words in the Academic Word List.

3. Vocabulary Test in Middle School

Multiple choice test have been favored hot, since it is simple to carry out and flexible to test many aspects of vocabulary knowledge. Apart from questionnaire to ask students’ learning strategies, the vocabulary test volume should also be creditable by emphasizing different correlated parts.

3.1 Test to Correlate with students’ Cognitive Strategy

3.1.1 Receptive Multiple Test in Context (Guessing, Dictionary and Semantic or Contextual Encoding Strategies)

Stewart (2012) took a multiple choice vocabulary test and found out that students still prefer to learn vocabulary in the way like rehearsing and note-taking and that the dictionary strategies and rehearsal strategies (list words out or repeat words) are negatively related to vocabulary test scores.

⁵ Ex.3-1:

Single: She is still a single, even if she has been35 years old now.

1. unmarried
2. only for one person
3. not returned

When looking up in the dictionary, you can find the following sentences:

A: She is still a single, even if she has been35 years old now. (single→unmarried)

B: Do you want to buy a single ticket or return one? (single→ not returned)

C: Do you want to reserve a single or a double room? (single→ only for one person)

Students might guess or finally look up dictionary to choose the right answer or resort to encoding strategies. With data of test results collected, and an interview or questionnaire to check aided, strategies used by students can be easily analyzed. For the long term learning benefit, the later encoding strategies should be highlighted. Without dictionary at hand and large amount of this kind tests can ensure that those strategies will be emphasized.

3.1.2 Vocabulary Phonology Test (Visual and Auditory Encoding Strategies)

It has often been adopted by Middle School Students. Hong (2007) draws this conclusion after carrying out a research on Middle School Students according to “Learning Strategies Questionnaire” edited by Oxford and some English learning strategies. Researchers have attached much importance to visual or auditory encoding strategy, then proposed that the test of vocabulary phonology is also a good way to guide them to acquire solid vocabulary knowledge which promote their future study of words.

3.2 Test to Emphasize Social or Affective Strategy

It deserves our attention to lay emphasis on the social and affective strategy. Put it into conversation or dialague which is a good way to test student’s communicating ability. The following test is one of methods recommended to highlight or stimulate middle school student’s social and affective strategies:

⁶ Ex.3-2:

A: Hello! (1 )---B---

B: Yes, what is it?

A: (2 )------C---- Could I use your bike again?

B: Certainly. (3 )------D---- Has your bike broken again?

A: No, I've lost my key to the bike.

B: I see (4)-----A-----

A: About four o'clock.

B: OK. Here is the key (5 )-----F-----
A: Thank you. Bye!

A: What happened? B: Is there anyone at home C: I'm sorry to trouble you. D: I hope everything goes well. E: Be sure to be there on time. F: What’s the time? G: Nice to meet you.

A large amount of such kind of test in varied contextual conversation can ensure the examinees are not using memory strategy but social or affective strategy.

3.3 Test Application in Metacognitve Strategy

Metacognitve strategy is concerned with selective attention and self-initiation, thus it is generally internal or mental process. It is hard to get to know the learners’ vocabulary learning strategies use in a completely objective way. But it is essential to guide or stimulate learners to self-direct, which will shift to student-oriented teaching. It would be better, if taking into account different cognitive ability and learning characteristics, to use different level test or different layout vocabulary learning tasks to stimulate their self discovery and self-encouragement, lead to self-direct with a bit progress made every time and avoid their fear of failing. It is self-evident that there still exists a lot to be done in this respect.

4. Conclusion

We conclude that a good test should also test whether students have applied those learning strategies and vocabulary test refer to various steps, methods and techniques taken by teachers to enhance efficient vocabulary learning of students. The test of vocabulary has accompanied the shift from the teacher-oriented to the learner-centered. The choice should depend on the extent to which the learning conditions might contribute to the aspects of knowledge.

The test of a word formation should be highlighted, for students can apply the learning strategy of encoding root, prefix and things like that. Take bookseller for an example, bookseller can be divided into book and seller. Students should use the learning strategy to memorize it. So it can also check whether students have used learning strategy which can help students’ further vocabulary learning.

The vocabulary size test should also be highlighted instead of level for the lexical frequency profile will be very limited for beginners. Among the size test, the depth of vocabulary should be strongly recommended such as testing students’ knowledge of lexical associations and derivations.

参考文献：

1. [1] Xianli Hong,2007, A study on the developmental characteristics of middle school students' English vocabulary memory strategies[J]. Journal of Leshan Normal University, (11):130-133.
2. [2] Laufer, B. & Nation, P. A.,1995, Vocabulary-Size Test of Controlled Productive Ability [J]. Language Testing,16(1):33-51.
3. [3] Nation, I. S., & Webb, S. A.,2011, Researching and analyzing vocabulary. Boston, MA: Heinle, Cengage Learning.
4. [4] Read, J.,2013, Validating a test to measure depth of vocabulary knowledge[A]. In Validation in language assessment [C] (pp.55-74). New York: Routledge.
5. [5] Schmitt, N., Nation, P. & Kremmel, B.,2020, Moving the field of vocabulary assessment forward: The need for more rigorous test development and validation. Language Teaching,53(1):109-120.
6. [6] Schmitt, N. & Zimmerman, C. B.,2002, Derivative word forms: What do learners know?[J]. TESOL Quarterly, (2):145-171.
7. [7] Stewart, J.,2012, A multiple-choice test of active vocabulary knowledge. Vocabulary Learning and Instruction,1(1),53-59.

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1. Tick out the words you know within the box.↩︎
2. Examinees are required to fill in the blank with enough initial letters given at the beginning of the bland.↩︎
3. You must choose the right word to go with each meaning. Write the number of that word next to its meaning.↩︎
4. According to the target word and the given limited form, write an appropriate derivation in blank.↩︎
5. Choose the correct one, the same lexical meaning with the word in given context.↩︎
6. Choose from the following items in the blank to complete this dialague.↩︎