The Role of Depth and Breadth of Vocabulary in High School EFL Learners Reading Comprehension Majoring in Humanities,Natural Sciences, and Mathematics

The present study was conducted to probe into EFL learner s breadth and depth of vocabulary and its possible relationship with their reading comprehension performance across three different majors, i.e. humanities, natural sciences, and mathematics. To this end, 78 students from three classes in grade 11 of a senior high school in Aliabad Katoul, Iran were selected. In order to collect data, three instruments including VLT (breadth test) developed by Schmitt [1], Word Associates Test WAT (depth test) developed by Read [2], and a researcher-made reading comprehension test based on student English textbook, i.e. Vision II were used. The results indicated that students majoring in humanities, natural sciences, and mathematics acted differently in VLT, whereas WAT was not found to be a point of difference. The result also showed a positive relationship between depth and breadth of students’ vocabulary knowledge. However, only the breadth of vocabulary was found to predict studentsﹸ performance in reading comprehension tests. In other words, as the participants scored higher in the VLT, their performances in the reading comprehension tasks improved, too. The results are of some important implications for high school learners, teachers and material developers.

Keywords:

vocabulary size , vocabulary depth , reading comprehension tests , High school students