International Journal of Language & Linguistics

Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian and Swedish Young Learners’ Written Production in EFL - Descriptions and Comparisons of Their Use of Vocabulary
Stellan Sundh

Abstract
English as a foreign language is learnt and usedby many young people in Europe. It is therefore relevant to investigate the production in English by young learners from different geographical, cultural and language backgrounds. The present study is based on data collected over a period of nine months with 161 twelve-year-olds’ writing. The vocabulary was analysed in terms of number of words in the texts, the proportions of high-frequency vocabulary and the type-token-ratios. The results show that generally the young learners in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Sweden have similar uses of vocabulary no matter of topic or L1 and only tendencies of minor differences were identified.

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