EFL Teachers’ Perceptions of Teaching Words in Context

Abstract

By recognizing the importance of the role that teachers’ perception plays in the language classroom, this study aims to gain an understanding of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers’ perceptions of high versus low textual support words in reading passages. It reports on the perceptions of eighteen non-native English speaking teachers by analyzing written data and interviews. While these teachers agreed on the relevance of dividing high and low textual words when teaching new words, they did not agree on the type of words that could be categorized as each. The results suggest that teachers bring their own assumptions to deriving meaning of individual words when reading the text, which leads to various uses of contextual cues and moderating variables. The findings demonstrate that if words are to be taught in context, teachers should teach students ‘how’ to guess word meaning by modeling individual processes rather than relying on ready-made word lists. Finally, pedagogical suggestions on how to teach vocabulary in context are provided.