Vocabulary size among undergraduates of Arabic language for professional communication in UiTM / Nurain Syafina Husaini

Vocabulary size is a number or a quantity of vocabulary owned by an individual who
speaks a language. It is undeniable that the vocabulary size has close relationship with
the usage of a language. Language experts recommended that language students to
master at least 2000 to 3000 words. Hence, the purpose of this study is to identify the
Arabic language vocabulary size and see the differences of the receptive and productive
vocabulary size among undergraduates of Arabic Language for Professional
Communication Course in UiTM. Besides that, this study aims to observe the
differences of the vocabulary size among first, second and third year students as well as
to identify the vocabulary learning strategies used by the students. Thus, at the same
time, this study also aims to identify the relationship between the vocabulary learning
strategies and the vocabulary size of Arabic Language among UiTM students. Research
samples for this study consists of 127 undergraduates of Arabic Language for
Professional Communication Course in UiTM varying from first semester students up
until fifth semester students. Next, this research is a quantitative research and a few
instruments are done such as Arabic Language Vocabulary Level Test (aLVT) and
Productive Vocabulary Level Test (PVLT) as well as VLS interview questions. The
data are analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences V20.0 (SPSS) while
statistic instruments such as T-test, Pearson Correlation and ANOVA are used. In
average, the findings of this research has concluded that the receptive vocabulary size
of Arabic Language is below average which is 1885 words whereas for productive
vocabulary size is only 1655 words. The vocabulary learning strategy used among
students are still at a moderate level which requires ample guidance from the teaching
personnel. This research has also found that there are no correlation between the
vocabulary size among students with vocabulary learning strategy. Hence, this research
proposed that students on tertiary level especially should focus more on relevant and
high frequency vocabulary to be mastered in order to apply them more effectively.
Therefore, teaching personnel should expose students to various techniques in learning
vocabulary as well as maximising the use of computers and the Internet during teaching
and learning sessions in order to gain students’ interest in learning.