In realistic communication settings it is crucial to listen to and comprehend the message of the speaker and quickly respond to the interlocutor. This type of communication requires learners’ language processing to be accelerated and automatized in an ideal sense. Since vocabulary is a fundamental constituent element of language, how quickly the learner can process vocabulary reflects how fast he or she can process the language. To examine whether the learner can deal with rapid response communication, it is important to measure how fast the learner can recognize and comprehend vocabulary. However little research has been done in this area and almost no testing device has existed to date. In this study a new on-line test was developed which can assess recognition rate and automaticity of L2 vocabulary using the latest psycholinguistic concept: coefficient of variation (CV) and educational technology. An experiment was conducted to check the validity of the test. The results showed that this test was valid in measuring vocabulary size, recognition rate and processing automaticity. The observations of the questioners revealed that this test enabled L2 learners to check and recognize their own stage of vocabulary acquisition, thereby helping their motivation of learning vocabulary to increase.
