Guessing: No substitute for systematic learning of lexis

Abstract

While acknowledging the need to employ guessing in the course of learning a foreign language (FL), the author opposes the claim made by Nation Teaching and Learning Vocabulary (1987). Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University of Wellington, that it can be employed as a substitute for vocabulary learning. The author makes a distinction between guessing based on formal word features and that which relies solely on context. It is argued that the former, though fraught with pitfalls, is certainly more helpful and reliable than the latter; examples are provided that illustrate that even when every word except one in a passage is understood, contextual guessing alone seldom allows the reader to arrive at the correct meaning. It is also argued that even if such guessing could be shown to be more fruitful it is a strategy that does little to help promote the learner's language proficiency.