Investigating learners’ attitudes towards using contextual clues in guessing foreign language words’ meaning
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Date
2018
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Publisher
University of Oum El Bouaghi
Abstract
Vocabulary is one of the most tricky and complex aspect to foreign language learners. It is a difficult aspect that requires great efforts from students and needs specific strategies that can be provided by teachers to achieve an acceptable level of vocabulary learning. However, students in the English department seem to skip new words or over-rely on the dictionary when encountering them in a reading passage. In addition, teachers do not always attempt to raise students' awareness to use the appropriate strategies. Among these strategies, context clues can guide learners to find out the meaning of unfamiliar words. On this basis, the present study aims at investigating the learners' attitudes towards using context clues to help them in guessing words' meaning. The study has adopted a questionnaire for learners to collect the necessary data required for answering a number of issues. After the analysis of the data, the results come to confirm hypothesis that the use/ practice of words clues as a strategy, has a significant effect on learners' acquisition of vocabulary. This strategy help in making learners understand effectively the meaning of unfamiliar words. Therefore, teachers are urged to definitely adopt this pedagogical strategy.
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Keywords
Vocabulary learning, The context clue, Learners' acquisition