Guessing Meaning from Context and Recognizing Sequence Markers

Guessing meaning from context

Confronted with texts, language learners may be stuck by shortage of vocabulary inventory and thus be unable to understand what texts are about. The first thing that a learner does to understand a difficult word is to look it up using the nearest dictionary. There are however techniques learners may use to get the meaning of such vocabulary items. One of these techniques is guessing meaning from context.

No matter what level our students are in, they will often come across difficult words in texts they are exposed to. Inferring and guessing meanings of unfamiliar words is a strategy which is worth developing.

Guessing meaning from context

Guessing from context refers to the ability to infer the meaning of an expression using contextual clues. These clues may be purely linguistic or situational:

• Linguistic context: the linguistic environment in which a word is used within a text
• Situational context: extra linguistic elements that contribute to the construction of meaning this may involve background knowledge of the subject.

What this amounts to is that learners should be able to infer the meaning of an unknown word using:

1. the meaning of vocabulary items that surrounds it;
2. the way the word is formed;
3. background knowledge of the subject and the situation.

Techniques for guessing

Texts are often full of redundancy and consequently students can use the relation between different items within a text to get the meaning. Our prior knowledge of the world may also contribute to understand what an expression means.

• Synonyms and definitions:
• Kingfishers are a group of small to medium-sized brightly colored birds
• When he made insolent remarks towards his teacher they sent him to the principal for being disrespectful
• Antonym and contrast
• He loved her so much for being so kind to him. By contrast, he abhorred her mother
• Cause and effect
• He was disrespectful towards other members. That’s why he was sent off and penalized.
• Parts of speech
• Whether the word is a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb, functioning as a subject, a predicate or a complement.
• Examples
• Trojan is an example of a computer virus
• Word forms (the morphological properties of the word)
• Getting information from affixes (prefixes and suffixes) to understand a word. Examples: dis- (meaning not), -less (meaning without)…
• General knowledge
• The French constitution establishes laïcité as a system of government where there is a strict separation of church and state.

These techniques help students get the meaning of words or at least narrow the possibilities. If need be using the dictionary should be the last resort to fine tune  the understanding of a vocabulary item

READING SKILL

Recognizing Sequence

1. What to do and what to watch for: Organizing the events of the story in time order

can help you understand the information more easily. You can use a graphic

organizer like the one below to list the order or sequence of events in a passage or a

story.

2. Chronological or time order. Events occur is a certain order in a reading. The

order of the events in time is called chronological (time) order. The ability to

sequence events in chronological order is an important skill. Pay attention to signal

or transition words that tell time order and show the sequence of events.

3. Sequence signal words. Transition or signal words will signal you when one event

is completed or the next event is beginning. Understanding these words helps you

to understand the sequence of the events. Refer to the chart below for examples.

SIGNAL / TRANSITION WORDS

FOR RECOGNIZING SEQUENCE

first, second, third, etc	at the beginning
finally	prior to
afterwards	shortly thereafter
while	subsequently
soon	next
simultaneously	at the same time
then	following that
when	later
now	soon
during	at (in) the end
the first/next/last thing	before
last	after

Example:

In the beginning, the girls were just talking while they waited for the bus.

Suddenly a car pulled up and blew its horn loudly. Next, a woman jumped out

with her hair flying. At the same time, the driver put the car in park and stepped

into the street. When he did this, cars began stopping. Next, the bus arrived

and joined the line of stopped cars. Following that, the police arrived. Soon

they had the woman calmed down. Then they asked the driver to move his car

out of the way. When the street was clear, the line of cars moved on.

Subsequently, the girls got on the bus. The last thing they saw was a happy

dog jump into the arms of the woman.

SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

1	In the beginning, the girls were just talking while they waited for the bus.
2	Suddenly, a car pulled up and blew its horn loudly.
3	Next, a woman jumped out with her hair flying. At the same time, the driver put the car in park and stepped into the street. When he did this, cars began stopping.
4	Next, the bus arrived and joined the line of stopped cars.
5	Following that, the police arrived
6	Soon, they had the woman calmed down.
7	Then, they asked the driver to move his car out of the way
8	When the street was clear, the line of cars moved on
9	Subsequently, the girls got on the bus.
10	The last thing they saw was a happy dog jump into the arms of the woman.