No one really knows to what extent students use context in guessing the meaning of new words. Some teachers of advanced learners of EFL (English as a foreign language) prefer to expose students to new words in context, hoping students will acquire the vocabulary through contextual clues; whereas others explicitly teach and drill vocabulary. The present study asks whether some types of words are more easily guessed than others, and also whether better students use context more effectively than weaker students do in guessing unknown words. Most importantly, to what extent does context help in guessing, if at all?Sixty first-year students were given a list of 70 words to translate into the mother tongue. A week later, each student was given a copy of the same word list but with the addition of a text containing all the words.An analysis of student answering patterns showed that context helped lexical guessing in only 13 per cent of the responses for only 24 per cent of the words. Word guessability was shown to be less a function of using the context than of applying 'preconceived notions'. Most frequent errors were with polysemes, morphological troublemakers, idioms and synophones. Although more proficient students knew more words than less proficient students, they were not able to use context more effectively. RESUMEDeviner le vocabulaire en contexte: jusqu'a quel point est-ce gue les e'tudiants emploient du contexte en devinant le sens des mots? Nu1 ne sait effectivement jusqu'h quel point les Ctudiants se servent du contexte pour 0141-O423/84/0701-15 0 1 984 Journal ofResearch in Reading (UKRA) 15 16 M. BENSOUSSAN AND B. LAUFER deviner le sens des mots qu'ils rencontrent pour la premikre fois. A I'Cgard des etudiants avances dans l'acquisition de l'anglais comme langue Ctrangere , certains professeurs font apprendre le vocabulaire d'une maniere explicite et formelle, tandis que d'autres professeurs preferent presenter des mots nouveaux dans un contexte, en esperant que le vocabulaire sera appris a partir des indices contextuels. Cette etude s'occupe des questions suivantes: 1. le contexte. Jusqu'a quel point le contexte peut-il aider B faire des conjectures relatives au lexique? 2. la 'devinabilite' d'un mot. Jusqu'i quel point existe-t-il des mots (ou des catkgories de mots) qu'on peut deviner plus vite en contexte que d'autres? 3 . le niveau de l'e'tudiant. Jusqu'a quel point les etudiants experimentes (i.e., de 'bons' Ctudiants selon l'echelle de comprehension du lexique EFL) sont-ils plus efficaces dans l'emploi due contexte pour deviner des mots peu familiers que les etudiants peu competents (les lecteurs 'faibles' du EFL). On a demande B 60 enfants en premikre annee d'etude de traduire une liste de 70 mots dans leur langue maternelle. Une semaine plus tard, on a donne a chaque Ctudiant la mCme liste de mots, laquelle on avait ajoute un texte comportant tous les mots. Une analyse des erreurs faites par les etudiants a montrk que le contexten'a aide B effectuer des conjectures sur le lexique que pour 24 pour...

The major aim of the present research is twofold: (a) to compare students' atti tudes towards oral versus written English language test; and (b) to examine the nature of the relationship between students' affective dispositions toward lan guage tests and level of test performance. The study is based on a sample of 170 students at Haifa University enrolled in the advanced reading course of English as a foreign language. Students responded to an examinee feedback inventory specifically designed to gauge examinees' perceptions of key variables related to mode of test presentation (oral vs. written examinations). In addition, back ground information was collected on students' gender, sociolinguistic back ground, father's education, the university psychometric entrance examination (including the English proficiency test score), and average grade in department of study. On the whole, students preferred written over oral tests and rated the former more favourably along a variety of dimensions. Written tests were per ceived to be more pleasant, valuable, fair, less anxiety evoking and more reflec tive of students' comprehension of the English text than oral tests. Oral tests, on the other hand, were viewed to be more interesting to take than written tests. No meaningful relationship, however, was observed between students' atti tudes and test performance.

No abstract