Inferencing Strategies in L2 Reading
When foreign language learners are confronted with an unfamiliar word through intensive or extensive L2 reading, they must decide how to handle the word. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, which include ignoring the word, checking a dictionary for the word’s definition, and attempting to infer the meaning. Specifically, this will focus on inferencing strategies in L2 reading. More specifically, it will identify different inferencing strategies, how effective these inferencing strategies are, what factors can influence the success of inferencing, and what this means for teaching inferencing strategies in the L2 classroom.
The Transfer of Literacy Skills
Is the transfer of native language (L1) literacy skills to the development of second language (L2) literacy skills always helpful? Logically, it makes sense that possessing literacy skills in an L1 would aid the development of L2 literacy skills, and indeed, there are many studies that support this argument. This paper seeks to review studies regarding the transfer of literacy skills and whether this is transfer is useful to the L2 learner. As the following discussion will show that this transfer of skills is usually beneficial; however, it is not always helpful to the L2 learner, and it is this minority that brings to light a greater discussion of literacy as it is defined by the different cultures of the world.
The Positive Effects of Peer Response
Peer response is an activity that is often met with mixed reactions from native and second language (L2) writers alike. The L2 writer, specifically, may have more trouble with peer response than her native writer counterpart due to a variety of reasons (e.g. cultural differences, lack of language knowledge or intuition, etc). However, this does not mean that peer response should be avoided in an L2 composition course. On the contrary, with the proper skill building, peer response has shown to be beneficial for L2 writers. This post will detail the effects of peer response on L2 writing as well as the effects on L2 writers. The distinction between writing and writers is made to highlight the dichotomy of peer response; that is, peer response has an influence over the quality of writing as well as an influence over the self-editing strategies of individual writers. Lastly, the implications for teaching L2 composition will be discussed.
Teaching the Academic Word List
The original intent of this post was aimed at discussing the advantages and disadvantages to learning the academic word list. However, after some research, multiple sources questioning the validity of Coxhead’s Academic Word List (AWL) brought this author to a realization important for teachers of English as a second or foreign language, or indeed, teachers of learners of any foreign language. That is, it is vital that teachers know not only about their students’ needs, but also be cognizant of the tools for teaching and how these tools can help teachers achieve their course objectives. The following discussion will highlight this argument by reviewing the validity of Coxhead’s AWL.
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