Evaluating your Vocabulary Learning

The aim of this leaflet

Most learners find that it is very difficult to know if they are making progress or not. Finding that you are actually making progress can be a big boost to your confidence. This leaflet suggests ways of evaluating your learning progress and checking your vocabulary size.

Evaluating your progress

Here are some tips for evaluating your own progress. You may already have a method that works well for you. If so, that's great! If not, you could consider:

• Test yourself or ask a friend to test you on your knowledge of a set of words over a period of time (e.g. one or two months) - how well do you know the words now?
• Do a "before' and "after" test at the beginning and end of a period of learning (e.g. when you start and a couple of months later) do the same test, hold a conversation or write a report on the same topic etc - this is a good way to see if you've improved.
• Keep a diary as you learn. Write down your feelings and comment on your progress as you go. This will help you to see evidence of progress and detect problems.
• If you are practicing speaking or writing, ask a fluent or advanced speaker or writer of English to comment on your use of vocabulary. If you are in touch with them over a few months, they should be able to tell you if you have made progress, at least if you have concentrated on a few topic areas only.
• If you are learning vocabulary from a vocabulary textbook, use the exercises in the book to test your knowledge.
• If you are learning vocabulary of a certain frequency range (e.g. the most common 3,000 words or another wordlist) try reading a book of the same frequency level (e.g. simplified reading or academic textbooks). Do you find that, after a certain period of time, the book is easier to understand.

Language Learning

Organising Your Vocabulary Learning

Remembering Vocabulary