Vocabulary size has been recurrently shown to be a good indicator of second language (L2) proficiency. Among the many existing vocabulary tests, the LexTALE test and its equivalents are growing in popularity since they provide for experimental research a rapid (within 5 minutes) and objective way to assess the L2 proficiency of several languages (English, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Italian). In this study, expanding on the standard procedure of test construction in previous Lextale tests, we develop a vocabulary size test for L2 Portuguese proficiency: LextPT. The selected lexical items fall in the same frequency interval in European and Brazilian Portuguese, so that LextPT accommodates both varieties. A large-scale validation study with 452 L2 learners of Portuguese shows that LextPT is not only a sound and effective instrument to measure the L2 lexical knowledge and indicate the proficiency of both European and Brazilian Portuguese, but it is also appropriate for learners with different L1 backgrounds (e.g. Chinese, Germanic, Romance, Slavic). The construction of LextPT, apart from joining the effort to provide a standardized assessment of L2 proficiency across languages, shows that the Lextale tests can be extended to cover different varieties of a language, and that they are applicable to bilinguals with different linguistic experience.
**!!!Attention: first 3 items of this version are filler items as noted in the spreadsheet. Please do not count them in the scoring process. **
Built with Task Builder 2
LextPT Score = Number of "yes" to words – 2 ✕ Number of "yes" to nonwords
R code: scores <- lextpt %>% group_by(Participant.Private.ID) %>% summarise(lexpt_score = sum(Correct[type == "word"]) - 2 * sum(Correct[type == "non"] == 0))
Expanding on the standard procedure of test construction in previous Lextale tests, we develop a vocabulary size test for L2 Portuguese proficiency: LextPT. The selected lexical items fall in the same frequency interval in European and Brazilian Portuguese, so that LextPT accommodates both varieties. A large-scale validation study shows that LextPT is not only a sound and effective instrument to measure the L2 lexical knowledge and indicate the proficiency of both European and Brazilian Portuguese, but it is also appropriate for learners with different L1 backgrounds (e.g. Chinese, Germanic, Romance, Slavic). The construction of LextPT, apart from joining the effort to provide a standardized assessment of L2 proficiency across languages, shows that the Lextale tests can be extended to cover different varieties of a language, and that they are applicable to bilinguals with different linguistic experience.
Gorilla Open Materials Attribution-NonCommerical Research-Only
full article:
https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-021-01731-1
Fully open! Access by URL and searchable from the Open Materials search page
