THE EFFECT OF LEXICAL FREQUENCY KNOWLEDGE ON IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS' SPEAKING ABILITY

This study examines how knowledge of high frequency words affects speaking ability of Iranian EFL learners. The participants of this study are junior B.A. students of English translation, studying at the Islamic Azad University of Tonekabon. In order to examine the focus of the study different instruments were used. 60 students were selected out of 100 ones, based on their scores in OPT test. This test was conducted to measure students' proficiency level and to homogenize them. The second test was lexical frequency test, which was two-choice test. It was conducted to measure participants' lexical frequency knowledge. Based on the obtained scores of this test, participants were divided into two groups. One of these groups referred to as +LF, that is; a group with higher knowledge of high frequency words. And the other group referred to as -LF, which is the group with lower knowledge of high frequency words. After that, both groups were interviewed orally to test their speaking abilities. Independent sample t-test was used to measure t-observed. Comparing t-observed with t-critical, it is clear that knowledge of lexical frequency has a positive effect on speaking ability of Iranian EFL learners.