The amount of receptive vocabulary known by SL learners has been proved to be a good index of overall SL proficiency and a decisive factor in planning successful learning programs. As estimating vocabulary size is far from straightforward, valid tools for its assessment are in need in the field.

This paper is organised into two main sections. The purpose of the first one is to show how a new test of receptive vocabulary size was created (Y_Lex; Meara & Miralpeix, 2006). This tool was designed with the aim of automatically estimating the amount of words known receptively by learners of English whose L1 is a romance language, especially of those that are advanced in the knowledge of the L2. The test also generates vocabulary profiles of the learners’ vocabulary, i.e. it gives an indication of the percentages of words known at different frequency levels by the test takers.

The second part of the talk will present preliminary results obtained in different studies when using this test with Spanish/Catalan university students, who have been learning English for a long time. It will focus on the test behaviour in relation to other lexical and proficiency measures, such as those obtained from written production, from general proficiency language tests and from a working memory test. Furthermore different aspects about its validity will be commented on and attention will be paid to the learners’ profiles provided by the test.  

Meara, P. & Miralpeix, I. (2006). Y_Lex: the Swansea Advanced Vocabulary Levels Test. v2.05. Swansea: Lognostics.