VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

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LÊ THỊ THỦY

APPLYING THE TECHNIQUE OF GUESSING
WORD MEANINGS FROM CONTEXT FOR THE 11TH FORM STUDENTS AT
LE LOI HIGH SCHOOL, THANH HOA

(SỬ DỤNG KỸ NĂNG ĐOÁN NGHĨA TỪ QUA NGỮ CẢNH ĐỐI VỚI
HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TRƯỜNG THPT LÊ LỢI, THANH HÓA)

M.A .MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10

Hanoi - 2013


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES
*************************

LÊ THỊ THỦY

APPLYING THE TECHNIQUE OF GUESSING

TABLE OF CONTENT ................................................................................. v
PART A: INTRODUCTION ......................................................................... 1
The rationale of the study ................................................................................ 1
Aims and Objectives of the study ..................................................................... 2
Significance of the study.................................................................................. 2
Research questions .......................................................................................... 2
Methods of the study ........................................................................................ 3
Scope of the study ............................................................................................ 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT .......................................................................... 4
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................... 4
I.1. Definition of context ................................................................................. 4
I.2. Guessing or inferring strategy ....................................................................................... 5

I.3 Guessing word meanings from context as a technique of vocabulary
teaching and learning ..................................................................................... 5
I.4. Previous studies on guessing word meanings from context.................... 7
I.5. Types of context clues used in guessing word meanings......................... 9
I.5.1. Structural clues............................................................................ 9
I.5.2. Inference clues............................................................................. 10
I.6. Approach to teaching of guessing technique ........................................... 10
I.7. Vocabulary in English textbook for 11th graders .................................... 11
I.8. Summary .................................................................................................. 12
CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY ................................................................ 13
II.1. Rationale for the use of an action research ........................................... 13

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II.2. Action research procedure ..................................................................... 13
II.3. Background of the study ........................................................................ 15


III.2. The results after the training period .................................................... 29
III.2.1. The results of students’ diaries ................................................. 29
III.2.2. The results of the post-tests....................................................... 29
III.2.3. The results of the questionnaire ............................................... 31
III.2.4. The results of focus group interview......................................... 33
III.3. Summary ............................................................................................... 35
PART C: CONCLUSION .............................................................................. 37
1. Summary of the findings ................................................................... 37
2. Conclusions....................................................................................... 38
3. Limitations of the study..................................................................... 39
4. Suggestions for further research ...................................................... 39
REFERENCES ............................................................................................... 40
APPENDIX A: PRE-TEST AND POST-TEST 1.......................................... I
APPENDIX B: POST-TEST 2 ....................................................................... VI
APPENDIX C: TRAINING LESSON 1 ........................................................ XI
APPENDIX D: TRAINING LESSON 2 ........................................................ XIV
APPENDIX E: TRAINING LESSON 3 ........................................................ XVII
APPENDIX F: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS ................................ XIX
APPENDIX G: AN EXAMPLE FROM STUDENTS’ DIARIES ................ XX

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. The rationale of the study
Vocabulary is an essential component of language, which plays a decisive
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" (1972:111). Obviously, words do not occur in isolation

in using vocabulary. All these have motivated the researcher to carry out an action
research on applying the technique of guessing word meanings from context for 11th
graders at Le Loi high school.
2. Aims and Objectives of the study
The study is aimed at applying the technique of guessing word meanings to
teaching vocabulary so that students can understand word meanings as well as their
form and then use them correctly. On this basis, possible suggestions for improved
effectiveness in students‟ vocabulary learning can be derived.
3. Significance of the study
The present research is carried out to encourage students to deal with word
meanings with the help of context. It is also carried out with the hope that it would
help teachers as well as 11th graders at Le Loi High School be aware of the
important role of the guessing skill as well as some guessing techniques used in
teaching and learning vocabulary. Moreover, it is hoped that the study could help
the 11th graders in particular and high school students in general improve their
vocabulary and use vocabulary correctly and fluently.
4. Research questions
This study was conducted to answer the following major research question:
- How effective is the technique of guessing word meanings from context in helping
11th graders at Le Loi High School learn vocabulary?

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5. Methods of the study
With reference to its characteristics, this thesis can be categorized as an
action research. The following instruments are applied to collect data for this study:
One pre-test and two post-tests were used to measure whether students could
improve their vocabulary.
A questionnaire of 7 questions was given to the students to find out their

properly written text and the key to using it was linguistic knowledge and it plays a
very important role in the identification of words in text. A word used in different
contexts may have different meaning so simply learning the definition of a word
without examples of where and when it occurs will not help learners to fully
understand its meaning. If learners are not able to contextualize new words by
connecting them to words and concepts they already know, the words will likely be
less meaningful to them. And then if meaning is not contextualized, it will be
difficult for learners to memorize as well as to use new words appropriately.
Bialystok (1983) proposes that context exists in relation and proportion to the
reader‟s implicit knowledge (intuitive and unanalyzed knowledge of the second
language), other knowledge (knowledge of other languages and world knowledge),
and context (linguistic and physical aspects of a text which provide clues to
meaning). From this view, context is clearly not an absolute presence in a text but is
created by the reader, and is therefore influenced by the reader‟s linguistic and
world knowledge.

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In short, context includes both linguistic and non-linguistic aspects.
Therefore, in order to derive the meaning of a word from context, learners need to
utilize not only the information presented in the text but also their general
knowledge of the topic discussed in the text.
I.2. Guessing or inferring strategy
Guessing word meanings from context most commonly refers to inferring the
meanings of a word from surrounding words in a written text. It is an active and
deliberate process to acquire a meaning for a word in a text, “By reasoning from
textual clues and prior knowledge, including language knowledge and hypotheses
developed from prior encounters with the word, but without external sources of help
such as dictionaries or human.” (Rapaport, 2005).

words. Obviously, second language learners are able and have more opportunities to
learn words from context.
Using context clues to understand the meaning of unfamiliar words helps 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 of how a word is actually used. As Smith
(1971) argued, instead of looking words up in a dictionary, the best way to identify
an unfamiliar word in a text is to draw inferences from the rest of the text. Oxford &
Scarcella (1994) believed that contextualized learning helps learners grasp the full
meaning of a word or phrase and become aware of the linguistic environment in
which the word or phrase appears. A number of other researchers (E.g. Pressley,
Levin & McDaniel, 1987) argued that context is helpful to generate possible
meanings for unknown words but it alone does not foster retention of meanings. To
understand the key words by using guessing meanings from context is a skill that
leads the learners to read effectively and efficiently. Guessing meaning of
unfamiliar words in context is the most practical method to comprehend both
written and oral communication.

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Given the important role of guessing word meanings from context technique,
it is recommended that the teacher should assist students in learning to recognize
clues to guessing word meaning from context. This vocabulary learning skill is
effective for learning low-frequency vocabulary (Herrel, 2008).
Nagy (1997:76) distinguishes three types of knowledge that readers possess
to contribute to contextual inferring, which include linguistic knowledge, world
knowledge and strategic knowledge. Linguistic knowledge consists of syntactic
knowledge, vocabulary knowledge, and word schema which is knowledge of what
constitutes possible word meanings in a language. Nagy emphasizes vocabulary
knowledge, a key factor affecting readers' ability to make use of context. According

Liu and Nation (1985) were more optimistic after they studied learners‟
ability to guess the meaning of nonsense words used to replace real word at regular
intervals in written texts. They concluded that success was determined by the
relative density of unknown words. Where there was only one nonsense word per
twenty-five words, they were easier to guess than there was one every ten words.
Liu and Nation estimated that at least 85 percent of unknown words could be
guessed by a class of learners working together to pool their relevant knowledge
and skills.
Recently, Redouane (2004) examined the efficacy of the guessing-fromcontext strategy versus a word-list strategy in learning French lexical words and
their meanings as well as retention of those words at the university level. The
findings manifested the facilitation role of guessing-from-context strategy in
learning more French words. Moreover, the guessing-from-context technique
proved to have an impact not only on immediate recall but on long-term retention.
After carrying out a quasi-experimental study with the use of two approaches to
vocabulary teaching: Context and Non-context presentation, Zaid (2009) paid more
attention to “teach vocabulary in context” approach, suggesting that EFL
vocabulary should never be taught in isolation as in word lists with their
equivalents.

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I.5. Types of context clues used in guessing word meanings
Clues help to infer meanings of new words from context. It is impossible to
infer the meanings of new words if the context does not offer enough clues. Both
teachers and students need to be aware of this. Nation (1983) suggests some types
of clues as follows:
I.5.1. Structural clues
Structural clues help to know the kind of meaning of the new words. They
are used to determine the type of grammatical category of new words. They include:

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 because they regularly co-occur with the
unfamiliar words. It is called “collocational cohesion” by Halliday and Hassan
(1976: 287)
In conclusion, to make effective guesses, learners need to be trained to look
for clues in context, provided that those clues are sufficient to make inferences
possible and productive.
I.6. Approach to teaching of guessing technique
Although guessing from context is a complex and often difficult technique to
carry out successfully, it may still contribute to vocabulary learning. There are
different approaches to teaching the technique of guessing from context, two of
which are inductive and deductive approach. According to Nation and Coady
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(1988), teachers can train students 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 with unknown
word and its relationship to the surrounding clauses and sentences;
4. Guess the meaning of unknown word;
5. Check that the guess is correct.
As can be seen in the mentioned approache, teacher explanation and
modeling of the technique is essential at the beginning stage, followed by student
practice.

“Action research is the application of fact finding to practical problem
solving in a social situation with a view to improving the quality of action within it,
involving the collaboration and cooperation of researchers, practitioners and
laymen” (Burns, 1999: 293). Mills (2003:4) defines action research as “any
systematic inquiry conducted by the teacher researchers to gather information
about their particular school operates how they teach and how their students
learn”. Classroom Action Research is research designed to help a teacher find out
what is happening in his or her classroom, and to use that information to make wise
decisions for the future.
Action research is very beneficial to the teaching and learning process; it
helps to promote personal and professional growth, to improve practice to enhance
student learning, and to advance the teaching profession (Johnson, 1995). The
teacher would solve his problem on his own or in collaboration with other teachers
if he was trained to conduct action research. Tsui (1993) gave three reasons why a
teacher needed action research. Those reasons are to solve own problems in a
scientific process and improve own practice; to adapt theory to practice; to share the
results of action research with other teachers. The teacher will become a better
teacher because he knows how to find out and solve his problems in teaching on his
own.
II.2. Action research procedure
Some researchers presented different action research cycles but shared the
same feature, that is a typical action research needed to go from one step to another.
Eileen Ferrance (2000) suggested a 5 steps I action research. Nunan (1992)
suggested seven steps of action research as follows:

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First of all, the teacher can have a thorough look and investigation on the
vocabulary acquisition of students on daily basis by carrying out an action research.
Besides, the teacher is able to work out a detailed analysis on the students‟
performance during the progress of the research. It helps the teacher design a
detailed program which is most suitable to the class and brings benefits to students.
Secondly, in this action research, the data is taken from every student and
treated individually so the teacher can see students‟ progress easily. She will be able
to get the most up-to-date information and make sensible changes if necessary to the
research while applying it to meet the demand of the students. The teacher can
spend more time practicing contextualized vocabulary presentation and paying more
attention when giving feedback to students. Students‟ performance monitoring
records are collected every two weeks, and any potential problems can be solved in
time.
In short, the action research design is the most practical and feasible for the
researcher, all above factors considered. The research followed the seven-step
procedure suggested by Nunan (1992).

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II.3. Background of the study
II.3.1. Participants:
As the research was conducted from the middle of the first semester to the
beginning of the second semester of the school-year, there were some problems
relating to the consistency of the participants. Some students in the group moved to
the South to have a Tet holiday with their parents who work mostly in big
companies in Binh Duong, Binh Phuoc. Also, that was the time for Tet holiday, so
some students were not in the mood for learning, especially one week before and
after Tet. Some students were absent from some tests due to their personal business.
These students could not be proper participants of the research program due to the

After every 2 weeks of training, the teacher asked the students to write their
diaries at home expressing what they thought about this technique of teaching
vocabulary. Diaries were thought to be a valuable research tool as students could
freely express their feelings, reflections, observations or interpretations about their
teacher‟s ways of teaching as well as the technique that teacher applied in teaching
vocabulary. At home, students could write down any thoughts or feelings without
any interferences and their diaries would be more reliable.
II.3.2.3. Questionnaire
After 6 weeks of training this technique, a questionnaire of 7 questions was
given to 38 students in the class to get the general information about how this
technique of teaching affected students in their vocabulary learning. The students
were asked to fill in the questionnaire within 10 minutes, then teacher collected the
questionnaires, read them and found out how effective the techniquee was.
II.3.2.4. Focus group interview
After 6 weeks of training, an interview was conducted to obtain more indepth data about how students assessed their progress when applying guessing
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strategies and how effective this technique was. 4 students were selected randomly
among the respondents for an interview. They were asked in Vietnamese and they
also answered the interview questions in Vietnamese. This was to guarantee the
truthfulness of the information in case the students were not confident enough in
answering in English or they may get confused in understanding the interview
questions and giving answers to the asked questions. All the interviews were audiotaped and transcribed for translation.
II.4. Data collection procedures
Step 1: Initiation (Identify the problem)
Before carrying out this research, I had informal chats with the students in
the free time or break time to gain understandings of their problems in vocabulary
learning. Some students told me that when encountering a new word, they often
looked up the meaning of a new word in a bilingual dictionary or asked their teacher

lessons in three weeks. Each lesson lasted 45 minutes. The lessons were designed as
follows:
Lesson 1:
There were two main parts in this lesson:
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Firstly, in the instruction part, I presented the guessing strategy suggested by
Nation and Coady (1988). The strategy consists of five steps and I
demonstrated the steps to the students, using the examples prepared in
advance.

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Secondly, the practice part included an exercise. On doing the exercise, the
students could apply what they have learnt in the instruction section,
especially step one and step three. The students were required to identify the
part of speech of the underlined words and predict their meanings in the text.
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Lesson 2: This lesson consisted of three exercises.
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In exercise 1, the teacher gave the students some sentences and asked them
to determine the part of speech of those words.

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In exercise 2, the teacher gave students one short passage with some
nonsense words. Students, basing on the context, tried to guess the meanings