Reza biria - Department of Foreign Languages, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran
ali Bahadoran-Baghbaderani - Department ofForeign Languages, Sheikh Bahaei University, Isfahan, Iran
Behnam Ghasemi - Department of Foreign Languages, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran

This study sought to investigate the interplay between EFL learners’ depth and breadth of active/passive L2 words and their choice oflexical learning strategies. Based on Nation’s(1983) scoring procedure, from the population of senior undergraduate students majoring in English literature at Arak Islamic Azad University, a sample of 64 participants, 31 males and 33 females, whose L2 vocabulary size was at 3000- word level were selected and the rest were factored out. Several data collecting instruments; namely, Vocabulary Learning Strategies Questionnaire (VLSQ), Vocabulary Level Test (VLT), and Word Association Test (WAT) were administered to the participants in one session to examine their academic vocabulary size and the depth of their lexical knowledge as well as their preferences for using vocabulary learning strategies. The analysis of the data revealed that cognitive and metacognitive strategies made the highest contribution to target participants’ development of active and passive vocabulary size. The findings also demonstrated that cognitive and metacognitive strategies were more frequently used for vocabulary learning than other strategy types. Evidently, the results may have significant implications forEFL teachers, course designers, and materials developerswith aparticular focus on reading comprehension

vocabulary learning strategies, lexical depth, lexical breadth, active vocabulary, passive vocabulary, L2 pedagogy