Lexical density and readability of English essays written by IELTS learners at Ky Nguyen International Language Center: Master of TESOL

Abstract

Teaching IELTS writing part 2 to IELTS learners at Ky Nguyen international language center faced a great number of challenges. These learners’ writing skills for IELTS writing part 2 brought problems for their teachers and readers because of different levels of lexical density and readability found in their IELTS writing. The study aimed to analyze the level of lexical density, the level of readability and the language use in terms of vocabulary and grammar used in 200 midterm essays written by IELTS learners at this center in Vung Tau city. Each of these 100 IELTS participants, whose IELTS score bands were from 5 to 6.5, turned in two midterms academic IELTS writing part 2 essays during their course, so there were in total 200 essays. These essays were typed and saved into the computer. Then, Ure’s (1971) formula of lexical density and Microsoft Office app named Flesch’s (1948) Reading Ease were employed to analyze the collected data. The findings revealed that the average level of lexical density of 200 essays was 53.86% and the average of readability of these essays was 45.65%. Besides, the findings indicated the impacts of different levels of lexical density and readability on language use in terms of vocabulary and grammar in the 200 essays. There was a relationship among the level of lexical density, the level of readability and the language use in IELTS learners’ essays at the center. The results of the study are hoped to help IELTS writing teachers at this center improve their teaching methods in order to provide their IELTS learners, who would like to get their target IELTS band score from 7 above when they enrolled the IELTS course, with a useful range of academic vocabulary and grammar used in IELTS writing task 2 section and readability.