Mediational role of perceptual styles in L2 lexical inferencing and the associated strategy use
Due to the critical role that perceptual learning styles as indicators of individual differences play in L2 learners' activities and thus their academic achievement, the present investigation was aimed to study the role of L2 learners' perceptual styles in lexical inferencing and also th...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM
2016
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/9717/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/9717/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/9717/1/9694-33910-1-PB.pdf |
| Summary: | Due to the critical role that perceptual learning styles as indicators of individual differences play in L2 learners'
activities and thus their academic achievement, the present investigation was aimed to study the role of L2
learners' perceptual styles in lexical inferencing and also the strategies used for lexical inferences in the Iranian
context of English language learning. To this end, 134 participants majoring in different engineering fields took
part in the study. They received strategy training on how to infer the meanings of unfamiliar words. They then
answered a perceptual styles preferences questionnaire and were tested on the selected texts for lexical
inferencing. They were asked to extract the meaning of unfamiliar words and simultaneously identify the
relevant strategy employed for lexical inferencing by marking it on the strategy questionnaire. The analysis
identified the biggest number of participants as being kinesthetic despite the fact that classes were mainly held
through audio-visual activities. The findings also showed a meaningful difference between group categories of
styles preferences and their lexical inferencing ability (F=4.57, p<.05). As for the modifying effect of perceptual
styles on the strategies used by various groups of learners, 'visual learners' were found to have the highest
correlation with ‘syntactic knowledge analysis’ (r=.70, p=.01). The results of the study point to the importance
of individual differences in the perception of and interaction with the learning environment. |
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