Effects of Perceptual Learning Style Preferences on L2 Lexical Inferencing

Abstract

The purpose of this pilot study was to examine the effects of perceptual learning style preferences on L2 lexical inferencing and whether learners with certain perceptual learning styles benefited more from an explicitly instructional program. Joy Reid's (1995) Perceptual Learning Style Preferences (PLSP) Inventory and a lexical inferencing test were administered to 145 EFL university students learning English as a foreign language during a 15-week reading course. The results of the study showed that (1) learners with different perceptual learning style preferences demonstrated different lexical inferencing ability, and (2) learners with certain perceptual learning style preference benefited more from the explicit instruction. The findings shed a new light on SLA research concerned with individual differences in learning lexical inferencing. The pedagogical implications of these findings are discussed, as are the suggestions for future research.