<div dir="ltr">------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>Arabic-L: Tue 09 Apr 2013<br>Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <<a href="mailto:dilworth_parkinson@byu.edu" target="_blank">dilworth_parkinson@byu.edu</a>><br>


[To post messages to the list, send them to <a href="mailto:arabic-l@byu.edu" target="_blank">arabic-l@byu.edu</a>]<br>[To unsubscribe, send message from same address you subscribed from to<br><a href="mailto:listserv@byu.edu" target="_blank">listserv@byu.edu</a> with first line reading:<br>


           unsubscribe arabic-l                                      ]<br><br>-------------------------Directory------------------------------------<br><br>1) Subject:Relating Vocab with Proficiency Levels<br><br>-------------------------Messages-----------------------------------<br>


1)<br>Date: 09 Apr 2013<br>From:<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Robert Ricks <<a href="mailto:rsricks@gmail.com" target="_blank">rsricks@gmail.com</a>></span><br>Subject:Relating Vocab with Proficiency Levels<br>

<br><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">As far as I know, there are no empirical answers to your question—only</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">impressions and anecdotes. Mahmoud al-Batal has written that general</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">

<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">studies on vocabulary size as well as anecdotal reports from Arabic</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">teachers suggest that "we can estimate that for a learner of Arabic to</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">

<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">reach the Advanced level of proficiency, a vocabulary in the range of 3000</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">to 3500 high-frequency words is needed" ("Playing with Words", 333)*.</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">

<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">In addition, the intro to Al-Kitaab (at least the previous edition)</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">

<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">suggests that a student could reach an intermediate high level of</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">proficiency by reaching the end of Book Two. There are around 2000 words in</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">

<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">the first two books of Al-Kitaab (as counted in the glossary), although the</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">count by root or word family would, of course, be lower.</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">

<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">My dissertation research (forthcoming) will show to what extent Arabic</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">

<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">learner vocabulary size correlates with self-rated proficiency. If the</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">instruments I've developed prove valid, they might be useful for a future</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">

<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">study that uses official proficiency ratings.</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">

<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Robert</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">*the Al-Batal article is from Wahba et al.'s 2006 *Handbook for Arabic</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">

<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Language Teaching Professionals in the 21st Century.*</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br><div>--------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>

End of Arabic-L: 09 Apr 2013<br></div></div>