The Role of Initial Proficiency in Lexical Attrition/Retention of Iranian EFL Learners: Is the Productive or the Receptive Word Knowledge of Acquired Nouns More Likely to Be Lost?

This paper describes a study of EFL lexical attrition/retention among groups. It was also revealed that, irrespective of receptive/productive dichotomy, the students with higher level of proficiency retain acquired nouns more than others did. However, the research did not end in any significant effect of the initial proficiency level on the attrition/retention of receptive vs. productive word knowledge.Iranian learners after three months of disuse. Specifically, the present study examined the impact of initial proficiency level on the attrition/retention of receptive vs. productive word knowledge of 99 the acquired nouns. The participants were 60 freshmen majoring in English translation or literature. Through the end of spring semester, their initial proficiency as well as their acquisition of the nouns, which were covered in their Reading Comprehension course they have just taken, was assessed. Both receptive and productive word knowledge of these nouns were tested through a receptive/productive test modeled on Vocabulary Levels Test (Nation, 1983, 1990; Laufer and Nation, 1995). After summer interval and at the beginning of fall semester, this very test was administered to them again to measure their retention/attrition of acquired nouns over this interval. It was found out that, on the whole, receptive word knowledge is more resistant to loss than productive word knowledge in all proficiency.