Guessing word meanings from context a useful technique in doing the GCSE examination for 12th form students at le loi high school

Also, a word used in different contexts mayhave different meanings; thus, simply learning the definitions of a wordwithout examples of where and when the word occurs will not helplearner

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 The rationale of the study

Vocabulary is an essential component of language, which plays adecisive role in communication Wilkins, a famous British applied

linguist, emphasized this with his saying "without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed" [1].

Obviously, words do not occur in isolation but within the context ofsentence or a large discourse Also, a word used in different contexts mayhave different meanings; thus, simply learning the definitions of a wordwithout examples of where and when the word occurs will not helplearners to fully understand its meaning Additionally, vocabulary plays aprominent role in the GCSE examination, which is one of the biggestproblems to the students

In fact, students in general and Le Loi High School students inparticular often have a habit of looking up word meanings in dictionarieswithout understanding how to use them Therefore, Le Loi High Schoolstudents find it difficult to globally understand spoken or writtendiscourse, most probably because they lack the ability to guess wordmeanings from context Many students tend to ignore unknown words,which is thought completely problematic to vocabulary learning.Therefore, this problem is well worth taking into consideration,especially when taking the GCSE exam full of unknown new words

Although it is evident that the use of contextual clues can beeffective and necessary in learning and teaching English vocabulary aswell as taking the exam and provide a means by which students canquickly increase their existing vocabulary base, it has not attracted muchattention in terms of classroom instruction due to its time- consuming

All these have motivated me to carry out an action research "Guessing word meanings from context- a useful technique in doing the GCSE examination for 12 th form students at Le Loi high school "

2 Aims and Objectives of the study

The study is aimed at training the technique of guessing wordmeanings to so that students can understand word meanings as well astheir form and then use them correctly On this basis, their abilities toapply this useful technique in doing the GCSE examination will beconsiderably improved

3 Objects of the study.

Focusing on improving the students’ abilities in guessing wordmeanings from context when learning English, the study pays attention

to the students preparing for the exam in general, and 12th gradestudents in particular

4 Methods of the study

With reference to its characteristics, this study can be categorized

as an action research The following instruments are applied to collectdata for this study:

The pre-test and post-test were used to measure whether studentscould improve their application of the guessing technique in improvingvocabulary

Diary was also used to measure the development of the studentsduring the time the study was being carried out

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

I Theoretical background of guessing technique in learning and teaching English vocabulary

I 1 Guessing or inferring strategy

Guessing word meanings from context most commonly refers toinferring the meanings of a word from surrounding words in a writtentext It is an active and deliberate process to acquire a meaning for aword in a text

Grellet (1981) defined guessing as “inferring means making use of syntactic, logical and cultural clues to discover the meaning of unknown elements” [2] Gairns and Redman (1986) use the term “contextual guesswork” for the strategy of making use of context in which the word

appears to derive an idea of its meaning or in some cases from the worditself [3] The guessing strategy is quite sophisticated but it plays a veryimportant part in vocabulary development Thus, it has been widelypromoted as it has been seen to fit in more comfortably with thecommunicative approach than any other

I.2 Guessing word meanings from context as a technique of vocabulary teaching and learning

Guessing word meanings from context is one of many available

vocabulary learning techniques This technique is regarded as “the most important of all sources of vocabulary learning” Teaching meanings of

single words out of context does not yield good learning outcomesbecause of the polysemous nature of words Nagy (1997:76) argues thatalthough second-language learners are less effective than native speakers

at using context, they may have a greater need to use context The reason

is that they encounter unfamiliar words quite more often than firstlanguage readers and are more expected to encounter unfamiliarmeanings of words Obviously, second language learners are able andhave more opportunities to learn words from context [4]

Using context clues to understand the meaning of unfamiliar wordshelps the reader save time since the reader does not have to look the

word up in the dictionary and that also gives the reader a good sense ofhow a word is actually used As Smith (1971) argued, instead of lookingwords up in a dictionary, the best way to identify an unfamiliar word in atext is to draw inferences from the rest of the text To understand the keywords by using guessing meanings from context is a skill that leads thelearners to read effectively and efficiently Guessing meaning ofunfamiliar words in context is the most practical method to comprehendboth written and oral communication [5]

Given the important role of guessing word meanings from contexttechnique, it is recommended that the teacher should assist students inlearning to recognize clues to guessing word meaning from context Thisvocabulary learning skill is effective for learning low-frequencyvocabulary

I.3 Types of context clues used in guessing word meanings

Clues help to infer meanings of new words from context It isimpossible to infer the meanings of new words if the context does notoffer enough clues Both teachers and students need to be aware of this.Nation (1983) suggests some types of clues as follows:

I.3.1 Structural clues

Structural clues help to know the kind of meaning of the newwords They are used to determine the type of grammatical category ofnew words They include: morphology, antonyms, synonyms, hyponyms,definitions, restatement, reference words, alternatives and punctuation

Morphology: The students can derive word meanings by examining

internal, morphological features, like prefixes, suffixes, and root words

Reference words: Identifying the referents of pronouns may provide a

clue to the meaning of an unfamiliar word

Synonyms and antonyms: Often the reader can find the meaning of new

items in the same sentence

Hyponyms: Very often the reader can see that the relationship between

an unfamiliar word and a familiar word is that of a general conceptaccompanied by a specific example (a hyponym)

Definitions: Sometimes the writer defines the meaning of the word right

in the text as “are/is known as”, “are /is described as”, “are/ is definedas”

Alternatives: The writer may give an alternative of an unfamiliar word to

make the meaning known

Restatement: Often the writer gives enough explanation for the meaning

to be clear such as: “in other words”, “that is” and “that is to say”

Punctuation: Readers can also use clues of punctuation and type style to

infer meaning, such as quotation marks (showing the word has a specialmeaning), dashes (showing apposition), parentheses or brackets(enclosing a definition), and italics (showing the word will be defined)

I.3.2 Inference clues

Those types of clues need a higher level of analytical skill andpractice than structural clues The readers need to use rationale orreasoning skills in order to figure out the meanings of new words.Inference clues include comparison and contrast, summary, cause andresult, cohesion to understand the word meanings

Summary: A summary clue sums up a situation or an idea with a word or

a phrase

Comparison and contrast: Writers can show similarity or difference.

Key words “but”, “instead of”, “even though”, “in contrast to”, “yet”, and

“in spite of”, “like”, “in the same way”… are used by the author

Cohesion: While reading a text, cohesion is maintained through a rich

mesh of contextual clues The meaning of unknown words can be shown

by other words in the same sentence or in adjacent sentences becausethey regularly co-occur with the unfamiliar words [6]

In conclusion, to make effective guesses, learners need to betrained to look for clues in context, provided that those clues aresufficient to make inferences possible and productive

I.4 Approach to teaching of guessing technique

Although guessing from context is a complex and often difficulttechnique to carry out successfully, it may still contribute to vocabularylearning There are different approaches to teaching the technique ofguessing from context, two of which are inductive and deductiveapproach According to Nation and Coady (1988), teachers can trainstudents the guessing technique with a five-step inductive procedure:

1 Determine the part of speech of unknown word;

2 Look at the immediate context and simplify it if necessary;

3 Look at the wider context This entails examining the clause withunknown word and its relationship to the surrounding clauses andsentences;

4 Guess the meaning of unknown word;

5 Check that the guess is correct [8]

As can be seen in the mentioned approache, teacher's explanationand modeling of the technique is essential at the beginning stage,followed by student practice

II The reality of training the guessing technique as well as applying the technique dealing with the GCSE examination

In fact, students in general and Le Loi High School students inparticular often have a habit of looking up word meanings in dictionarieswithout understanding how to use them Too much dictionary work cankill all interests in reading and even interfere with comprehension,because readers become more concerned with individual words and lessaware of the context which gives them meaning Therefore, Le Loi HighSchool students find it difficult to globally understand spoken or writtendiscourse, most probably because they lack the ability to guess wordmeanings from context So they tend to forget the meanings of new wordsquickly and find it difficult handling those words in the real situation.Many students tend to ignore unknown words, which is thoughtcompletely problematic to vocabulary learning Using the contexts inwhich words appear, that is, a sentence in which the words to be learnedappears will help students derive the meaning of these unknown words.Therefore, this problem is well worth taking into consideration

Additionally, various types of exercises included in the GCSEexamination involves in the guessing technique such as: readingcomprehension, synonyms and antonyms or vocabulary and structureparts Students who are not good at guessing technique often have thehabit of ignoring the new words, which results in ignoring the exercisesand choose the options randomly without any consideration That badhabit doesn’t bring them the good result in the exam, which includes alarge number of new words

III Training the guessing technique from context for 12th grade students preparing for the GCSE examination.

During the time the study was carried out, I often gave somerelated activities for practicing guessing technique in learninng

vocabulary that students had just learnt The new words were explainedclearly in some ways so that students could guess the clues, understandthe word meanings and they were able to use them effectively I also gavethe procedure of training lessons in which students had chancespracticing with the guessing technique in learning vocabulary.

III.1 Procedure of training the guessing technique in classroom

As I refered in the theoritical background, I constructed students tofollow the steps by Nation and Coady (1988) because it is not too difficultfor students to understand and follow

TRAINING LESSON 1 Part 1: Theory

` Guide students how to guess the meanings of unknown words from context

+ Step 1: Look at the unknown word and find out what part ofspeech it is Is it a noun, a verb, an adjective, or an adverb?

Example 1: She walks briskly to class so that she wouldn’t be late.

We can guess that “briskly” is an adverb because it is after the action verb “walk”.

+ Step 2: Look at the clause or sentence containing the unknownword If the unknown word is a noun, what does this noun do, or what isdone to it? And what adjectives describe it? What verb is it near? If it is averb, what nouns does it go with? Is it modified by an adverb? If it is anadjective, what noun does it go with? If it is an adverb, what verb is itmodifying?

Example 2: We offered our condolence to the unhappy woman

when her husband died

The situation is her husband died and the key word is unhappy woman The question is what we should offer when someone feels unhappy because her husband died Naturally we will offer her sympathy So we can guess that condolence means sympathy.

+ Step 3: Look at the relationship between the clause or sentencecontaining the unknown word and other sentences or paragraphs

Sometimes this relationship will be signaled by conjunctions like “but,

because, if, when”, or by adverbs like “however, as a result” The possible

types of relationship include cause and effect, contrast, time,exemplification, explanation, condition, arrangement, classification,comparison and summary

Example 3: My library at home is quite sparse; the central library,

however, has a lot of books

In the sentence, there is a contrast unit We can see that the author

is contrasting two ideas “sparse” and “has a lot of books” Therefore,

“sparse” has the opposite meaning to “has a lot of books”, “few books” can

be acceptable

+ Step 4: Use the knowledge you have gained from steps 1 to 3 toguess the meanings of the word and check if your guess is correct (a) See that the part of speech of your guess is the same as the part

of speech of the unknown word If it is not the same, then something iswrong with your guess

(b) Break the unknown word into its prefix, root, and suffix, ifpossible If the meanings of the prefix and root correspond to your guess,

it is good If not, look at your guess again, but do not change anything ifyou feel reasonably certain about your guess

(c) Replace the unknown word with your guess If the sentencemakes sense, your guess is probably correct

3 Many ships have vanished during hurricanes All crews have

disappeared and have never been found

4 Students! Students! Please stop chattering and listen to me Class

has begun so you cannot enjoy talking

5 Every atlas has its own legend

6 The street is crowded with conveyances of all descriptions, such

as buses, bicycles, cars and automobiles

7 Iran is trying to restore many of its ancient buildings For example,

Persepolis- Iran’s oldest building-is being partially rebuilt by a

group of Italian experts.

8 The girl always prevaricated when she was caught in the act of

cheating and didn’t want the truth to be known

9 Although the rigors of the job were great for example, the long

hours, the lifting of heavy loads, the very hot and then very coldtemperatures outdoors George didn’t complain because the paywas good

10 Be careful with this knife its edge is so keen that you can

shave with it

KEY:

9 Difficult condition 10 Sharp

3 The burglar alarm was activated by mistake.

4 Be careful with the stimulating effect of coffee.

5 He is late- he’s probably stuck in a traffic jam.

6 One of the main cause of the liberation of women was the

development of birth-control methods.

7 Above the snow line, any mountain hollow is permanently occupied

with snow

8 The glass factories of Toledo, Ohio, boomed after Michael Owens

invented a process that turned out bottles by the thousands

9 Have you got any comments on the new agrarian laws.

10 Those so-called friends of hers are a bad influence on her.

Key answers:

Exercise 2: Read the short paragraph below, underline the nonsense words and try to guess the meanings of the words, basing on the context

The big yellow school gleek pulled to a stop at the corner The driver

opened the door and I climbed up the steps to get on board I walked

down the narrow zupher looking for an empty seat Then I saw my

friend Jack waving to me from the last row “Over here, Janet!” he yelled I

nodded and made my way toward him I took my norjot filled with books and placed it under the seat Then I plopped down beside him and enjoyed the ride to blat

SUGGESTED KEY:

1 Gleek means “bus”

The clue words: big yellow school, pulled to a stop, driver

2 Zupher means “aisle”

The clue words: walked, narrow, empty seat

3 Norjot means “schoolbag”

The clue words: filled with books, placed it under the seat

4 Blat means “school”

The clue words: the ride to

5 Plop means “sit”

The clue words: seat, beside him

III.2 Applying the guessing technique in GCSE examination

III.2.1 Multiple choice section

This section mostly includes the questions referring to the wordform To deal with that type of questions, it is not necessary that studentstranslate and understand the whole sentence, but pay attention to thepart of speech, identify then choose the suitable option for the missingpart of speech Below are some model questions quoted from the sampleGCSE tests

r

1 Mach numbers describe the

velocity of airplanes over

the speed of sound

A have moved B move

In this question, we don’tneed a tense verb because

“describe” is a tense verb,but a participle in active is

C

C moving D moved

2 Migratory patterns in births

term of seasonal changes

A in usually be explained

B can be explained usually in

C can usually be explained in

D can be explained in usually

In this question, we need atense verb coming after thesubject, so A is not suitable

Also, adverb of frequency isoften after the auxiliaryverb

C

3 In spite of her abilities, Laura

has been _ overlooked for

promotion

A repetitive B

Repeatedly

C repetition D repeat

In this question, we need

an adverb coming before orafter the main verb A is anadjective, C is a noun, D is averb

B

4 The letter _ me of the

theft hadn’t been signed

A to accuse B accused

C accusing D that accuse

In this question, “hadn’tbeen signed” is a tenseverb, so we just need apresent participle instead

A and D are not suitable B

is a passive form

C

5 is the money given by

an organization to pay for

be something refering tothe money

A

6 Richard Wright enjoyed success

and influences among Black

American writers of his eras

A were paralleled B are

unparalleled

C unparalleled D.the

unparalleled

In this question, “enjoyed”

is a tense verb, so we don’tneed the other tense verbs,but a participle A and B arenot suitable

C

7 kind of organization

throughout the world uses

computers to conduct business

A Virtually all B Virtually

every C Nearly most D Nearly

all

In this question, “kind” is asingular noun, so we can’tuse A or D after “all” In C,

“most” needs to befollowed by “of”

B

8 Although he was completely

, he produced the most

A unable B incapable

C uneducated D untrained and “incapable” refer toability “educated” refers to

knowlege or education

III.2.2 Synonym and antonym section

This type of exercise includes a large number of vocabulary and thecontext to guess the word meanings It is a good chance for students toapply the guessing technique they have learnt during the class time

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word or

phrase that is CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined part in each of the following questions

1 I could see the finish line

and thought I was home and

Therefore, “home and dry”

can have the meaning of

“successful”

C

2 E-cash cards are the main

means of all transactions in a

cashless society.

A cash-free B

cash-starved C cash-strapped

D cash-in-hand

The suffix “less” in cashless

have the negative meaning,

which is similar to “free”.

“cash-free” is the same as

“cashless” in meaning.

A

3 These machines are older

models and have to be operated

4 He drives me to the edge

because he never stops talking

A frightens me B moves me

C irritates me D steers me

The cue “never stops talking”

seems to be a bad habbit and

“drive me to the edge” may

have the meaning of

A inevitably B readily

C happily D

traditionally

the tradition of a country So,

“customarily” has the closest meaning to “traditionally”

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word(s)

OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s) in each of the following

questions.

1 Thousands are going starving

because of the failure of this

may seem “get hungry” The

opposite of this can be “full”

“bad for my health” is the cue

for something that is not

good “disapproved of” can

have the opposite meaning

to “supported”

D

3 That is a well-behaved boy

whose behaviours have nothing

C Being efficient D Being late

“A watch” and “job” can be

the cue to guess

something dreadful happened

on board of the brigantine Mary

Celeste, causing all crew

members to hastily abandon the

ship

A hold on B stay on

C take care of D save for

“something dreadful happened” refers to what

seems to be dangerous,which makes all membersmay leave the ship So

“abandon” can get the

meaning of “leave” And

“stay on” is the opposite

B

III.2.3 Reading comprehension section

The reading text contains a variety of new vocabulary, whichcauses the difficulties for students Understanding some pieces ofinformation is very important because it helps students guess the content

of the reading text The guessing technique is very useful in this situation

The sample reading text in the GCSE examination

The food we eat seems to have profound effects on our health

Although science has made enormous steps in making food more fit to

eat, it has, at the same time, made many foods unfit to eat Some researchhas shown that perhaps eighty percent of all human illnesses are related

to diet and forty percent of cancer is related to the diet as well, especially

cancer of the colon People of different cultures are more prone to

contact certain illnesses because of the characteristic foods theyconsume

That food is related to illness is not a new discovery In 1945,government researchers realized that nitrates nitrites (commonly used

to preserve color in meat) as well as other food additives caused cancer

Yet, these carcinogenic additives remain in our food, and it becomes

more difficult all the time to know which ingredients on the packaginglabel of processed food are helpful or harmful

The additives that we eat are not all so direct Farmers often give

penicillin to cattle and poultry, and because of this, penicillin has beenfound in the milk of treated cows

Sometimes similar drugs are administered to animals not formedical purposes, but for financial reasons The farmers are simplytrying to fatten the animals in order to obtain a higher price on themarket Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has triedrepeatedly to control these procedures, the practices continue

A healthy diet is directly related to good health Often we areunaware of detrimental substances we ingest Sometimes well-meaningfarmers or others who do not realize the consequences add thesesubstances to food without our knowledge

Question 1: The word “prone” is nearest meaning to _.

A healthy B unlikely C supine D predisposed

The cue “contact certain illnesses” in line 6-7, para 1 nearly has the

meaning of leading to the illness or cause the illness “prone” is negative

in use A and B are possitive C doesn’t get the nearest meaning

“predisposed” is the last choice.

Question 2: The word “carcinogenic” is closest in meaning to _.

A trouble-makingB money-making C cancer-causing D colorretaining

Based on the preceding information “other food additives caused cancer”

in line 2-3 para 2, students can easily guess that it is “cancer-causing”.

Question 3: What are nitrates used for?

A They preserve the color of meat

B They preserve flavor in package food

C There are objects of research

D They cause the animals become fatter

The information in the blank (commonly used to preserve color in meat) is

the cue to guess the answer Therefore, A is the answer.

Question 4: FDA means .

A Federal Dairy Additives B Food and Drug Administration

C Final Difficult Analysis D Food Direct Additives

In this case, the blank is also the cue for students to guess the answer

“the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)” B is the last choice

Question 5: The word “additives” is closest meaning to .

A begin substance B natural substance

C dangerous substance D added substance

“The additives that we eat”is the cue refering to the substance added to

the food from the given information D is the last choice

III.3 Students’ works on guessing technique

Picture 1: Examples on types of context clues (group 2)

Picture 2: Steps to find the context clues (group 1)

Picture 3: A student’s draft on training the guessing technique

(group 3)

IV Result of the study and some recommendations

In order to find out the effectiveness of the guessing skill, an actionresearch project was carried out with the participation of 40students inclass 12A4 at Le Loi High School to examine the students’ ability to guess.The students’ ability in guessing word meanings from context wasestimated by using one pre-test and two post-tests

IV.1 Result of Pretest.

The forty students participating in this study were given a pre-test in

order to gather baseline data scores for the start of the research to quantify

their guessing levels The students were all tested on the same day, one day

before the interventions began The results of the initial assessment areshown in Table 1