EFL students’ use of lexical inferencing strategies and its relationship with inferential success
Main Article Content
Abstract
This study examines EFL students’ use of strategies in lexical inferencing while reading an English text and its relationship with inferential success. A reading proficiency test was given to participants to classify them into two groups of high-proficiency and low-proficiency. Data consists of think-aloud protocols of 20 second-year English-majored students of Mekong University while they inferred the meaning of unknown words in a written text. Results reveal that students used a variety of strategies for guessing unknown words, but not all students used all strategies in this performance. The findings also indicate that both high-proficiency and low-proficiency learners made a small number of successful guesses in their performances. Overall successful lexical inference showed no relationship with the students' use of strategies. This study can inspire teachers, textbook writers, and students to attend more to different strategies and lexical inference.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Keywords
Inferential success, lexical inferencing, strategies, think-aloud, unknown words
References
Bialystok, E. (1983). Inferencing: testing the “Hypothesis-Testing” hypothesis. In Seliger, H.W. and Long, M.H (eds), Classroom-Oriented Research in Second-Language Acquisition. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House, 104-123.
Fraser, C. A. (1999). Lexical Processing Strategy Use and Vocabulary Learning through Reading. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 21, 225-241.
Haastrup, K. (1987). Using think aloud and retrospection to uncover learners’ lexical inferencing procedures. In C. Faerch& G. Kasper (Eds.), Multilingual matters, No. 30. Introspection in second language research (p.197-212). Multilingual Matters.
Harley, B., & Hart, D. (2000). Vocabulary Learning in the Content-oriented Second-language Classroom: Student Perceptions and Proficiency. Language Awareness, 9(2), 78-96.
Hu, M., & Nassaji, H. (2014). Lexical inferencing strategies: The case of successful versus less successful inferencers. System, 45, 27-38.
Morrison, L. (1996). Talking about words: A study of French as a second language learners’ lexical inferencing procedure. Canadian Modern Language Review, 53, 41-75.
Nassaji, H. (2003). L2 vocabulary learning from context: Strategies, knowledge sources, and their relationship with success in L2 lexical inferencing. TESOL Quarterly, 37, 645-670.
Nassaji, H. (2004). The relationship between depth of vocabulary knowledge and L2 learners’ lexical inferencing strategy use and success. Canadian Modern Language Review, 61 (1), 107-134.
Paribakht, T.S., & Wesche, M. (1999). Reading and “Incidental” L2 Vocabulary Acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 21, 195-229.
Pavlik, C., & Segal, M.K (1997). Interactions 2 - Instructor’s Manual/ Test Bank (the 3rd edition). New York: McGraw-Hill Companies.
Riazi, A., & Babaei, N. (2008). Iranian EFL female students, lexical inferencing and its relationship to their L2 proficiency and reading skill. The Reading Matrix, 8(1).
Roskams, T. (1998). What's a guess worth? Chinese students' inferencing strategies for unknown words while reading. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics, 65-102.
Sahar, A., & Mohammad, T. F. (2016). Revisiting lexical inferencing strategies in L2 reading: a comparison of successful and less successful EFL inferencers. The Reading Matrix: An international online journal.
Soria, J. (2001). A study of Ilokano learners’ lexical inferencing procedures through think- aloud. Second Language Studies, University of Hawaii.
Van Someren M. W., Barnard, Y. F., & Sandberg, J. A. (1994). The think aloud method: A practical guide to modelling cognitive processes. London: Academic Press.
Wang, Q. (2011). Lexical inferencing strategies for dealing with unknown words in reading- a contrastive study between Filipino graduate students and Chinese graduate students. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 2, 302-313.
Wesche, M., & Paribakht, T. S. (2010). Lexical inferencing in a first and second language: Cross-linguistic dimensions. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.