You write well, your rationale for the study is clearly explained and I can see you have read widely.

However, you make the claim that there are not many studies available on the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and academic achievement, and this is claim is inaccurate. There is actually a wealth of research done over the last 20-30 years, not only in different geographical locations but also as it relates to different subjects of study, which is particularly relevant to EMI: Alhamami (2019), Dafouz and Camacho-Miñano (2016), Fung and Yip (2014), , Jiang, Lawrence and May (2019) are but a few examples. I don’t see that your paper adds new knowledge, and in fact some of your supporting references on the impact of vocabulary knowledge are 20-30 years old. The pedagogical implications you refer to have also been documented in previous research, so nothing new is being brought forth here (Crosley, Cobb and McNamara, 2013; Doiz and Lasagabaster, 2020; Li at al., 2019) You haven’t really identified a gap within the ongoing EMI scene, and this should be your first task. I suggest you go back to the drawing board and find what’s missing and what new knowledge you can bring through your research.

As a final point, the section “Results” is difficult to read and follow as it is; in the future you might want to add the charts in the actual manuscript rather than at the end, so the reader doesn't have to scroll back and forth between charts and descriptions.

Abstract: You use “vocabulary knowledge” several times; find ways to paraphrase, substitute and reference so it sounds less repetitious. This is again an issue in your introduction.

Page 2: Although you present your rationale and background clearly, several of our sources, thought relevant, are out-of-date. This is particularly an issue given the wealth of more recent research on this issue: Huchihara and Harada (2018), for instance, is an important paper, as are Macaro’s (2018), Coxhead and Boutorwick’s (2018) and Malmström et al’s (2019). You did reference Harada later on, but it should also inform your background section.

Page 9: Check syntax at the beginning of the page.

Page 11: (Section in red) Although you do make an attempt at critiquing the results, your analysis as to why the correlations are ‘only moderate’ is thin and it needs to be analyzed / exemplified more in depth.

Page 14: Check punctuation in the “Discussion” section. You also make a recommendation of using documented objective measures to improve the reliability of data; you should provide specific examples based on the literature of such measures to add depth to this section. Additionally, you say at the of the page that the findings ‘reflect a recurring finding’ in research, and yet your sources are between 12 and 22 years old in an area that has yielded a wealth of data. Thus this section needs to be updated. Vandergrift has published several papers on the impact of vocabulary knowledge that might be useful.

Section “Implications and Concluding Remarks”: You began this study specifically targeting Arab students and attempting to fill a research gap within that demographic. Your analysis in this section does not address this point, however (what the implications are for them or the Arab learning / teaching context specifically). Since there is abundant research on the impact of vocabulary knowledge in academic success, you need to make sure you address this by targeting your intended research, as the study otherwise fails to add anything new to the field.