Effects of reading Strategies and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge on Turkish EFL Learners’ Text Inferencing Skills

Abdulvahi̇t Çakır ,Fadime Yalçın Arslan ,İhsan Ünaldı ,Mehmet Kılıç

doi:10.5539/elt.v9n8p11

Abstract

<p>Within the framework of foreign language teaching and learning, reading strategies, depth of vocabulary knowledge and text inferencing skills have not been researched extensively. This study tries to fill this gap by analyzing the effects of reading strategies used by Turkish EFL learners and their depth of vocabulary knowledge on their text inferencing skills. Three different measures were used in the study: Word Association Test (WAT), Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI), and inferencing questions used in a standardized national test. The association test and reading strategies scores were regressed on inferencing scores of the participants. The results revealed that depth of vocabulary knowledge was a better predictor of inferencing skills compared to reading strategies. However, the model created by using these two predictors accounted for only 15% of the variance, and the major implication of this result is that there are other more significant factors which affect text inferencing skills of EFL learners than reading strategies and depth of vocabulary knowledge.</p>

Highlights

Reading comprehension in L2 has always been a popular but a controversial issue
Three different measures were used in the study: Word Association Test (WAT), Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI), and inferencing questions used in a standardized national test
This study aims to reveal the predictive powers of depth of vocabulary knowledge and reading strategies that are used by EFL learners in L2 text inferencing

Summary

Introduction

Reading comprehension in L2 has always been a popular but a controversial issue. Factors affecting second language reading skills are still under discussion (Jeon & Yamashita, 2014). Some other researchers have made use of a distinction between inferencing as text memory, text inferencing, knowledge access, and knowledge-based inferencing (Hannon & Daneman, 2001). Among these subskills, making inferences about the text is regarded as central to reading comprehension (Farr, Carey, & Tone, 1986). Since inferencing ability has been considered to be one of the most important subskills in L2 reading (Oakhill & Garnham, 1988), it is obvious that all the possible factors affecting this skill need to be analyzed. This study aims to reveal the predictive powers of depth of vocabulary knowledge and reading strategies that are used by EFL learners in L2 text inferencing

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion