Stuart McLean
Stuart McLean (TESOL Ph.D., Medical Ph.D., & P.G.C.E) teaches at Momoyama Gakuin University. He greatly enjoys post-graduate teaching and supervision. He has published in Studies in Second Language Accusation, Reading in a Foreign Language, Vocabulary Learning and Instruction, Language Teaching Research, TESOL Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Language Testing, System, and Language Assessment Quarterly. https://vocableveltest.org/
Sessions
Self-marking form-recall and meaning-recall vocabulary tests
The limitations of existing levels tests inhibit them from meeting their stated purposes (Stoeckel, et al, 2020) as they are based on the word family (McLean, 2018), utilize a meaning-recognition format (McLean et al, 2020), and represent 1,000 words with too few items (Gyllstad et al, 2020). Thus, vocableveltest.org was created. Test administrators are able to base online vocabulary tests on various lists (BNC/COCA, COCA. NGSL. JACET, SUBTLEX, EVKS-J), various word counting units (lemma, flemma, word family), various word band sizes (100, 500, 1000), and various sampling rates (10/1000 to 1000/1000). Students can be provided with feedback on completed items, along with a profile of their lexical knowledge. Test administrators can download automatically marked dichotomous data, actually typed responses, and the time taken to mark each item, for individual or groups of students.
The Coverage Comprehension Model: Matching learners with lexically appropriate meaning-focused materials
The features of existing vocabulary levels tests and lexical profilers are based on convention and have limited construct validity (Schmitt, Nation & Kremmel, 2019). Recent research (much of it from Japan) questions the appropriateness of the construction of vocabulary level tests and lexical profilers when used with Japanese learners (Stoeckel, McLean & Nation, 2020). Thus, this presentation introduces meaning-recall (English to Japanese) and form-recall (Japanese to English) vocabulary levels tests (vocableveltest.org) which allow teachers to estimate their learners’ lexical reading, writing, or listening level. Teachers can select the wordlist (SKEW-J, NGSL, JACET, SUBTLEX, NAWL, AWL, TSL), word counting unit (lemma, flemma, word family) the band size (1000, 500, 250, 100 words), word band range of created tests, and the number of questions to represent each band. Teachers can also select their own questions, to create none frequency-based tests. After completing tests, students are presented with a graph showing their lexical profile. Further, teachers can select for students are receive feedback and correct answers on all responses. Teachers can download automatically marked responses, actually typed responses, the time taken to complete each question, and lexical profiles for individual students and groups of students. Importantly, to match learners with lexically appropriate materials, parallel lexical profilers are introduced (nwlc.pythonanywhere.com).