Main Article Content

Abstract

This study aimed to explore inference strategies necessary read journal article. Forty four English students read set of text on education text and answer comprehension question. The two main objectives in this study were to identify inference skills necessary to comprehend a research article in terms of the main ideas, the writing styl e/tone and other text-based elements such as lexical items, syntaxes well as discourse structures and to investigate inference strategies for coping with text. Twenty five of these participants also volunteered for an in depth interview. The findings revealed that students usually relied on their bottom up processing. They skipped difficult parts, especially technical information graphic illustration. They sought help from friends to enhance their understanding. Overall, they were successful at interpreting the thesis statement, the gist of section, the meaning of the tested words and clause. However, they were less able to infer the underlying argument, the tone of article, and the attitudes of other toward the research finding

Keywords

Inference strategies reading research articles in foreign language

Article Details

References

  1. ACT. (2006). Reading between the lines: What the ACT reveals about college readiness in reading. Iowa City, IA: Author.
  2. Anderson, R. C. (1984). Role of the reader’s schema in comprehension, learning, and memory. In R. C.
  3. Anderson, J. Osborn, & R. J. Tierney (Eds.), Learning to read in American schools: Basal readers and content texts. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  4. Anderson, R. C., & Pearson, P. D. (1984). A schema-theoretic view of basic processes in reading comprehension.
  5. In P. D. Pearson, R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, & P. Mosenthal (Eds.), The handbook of reading research (pp.255-292). New York: Longman.
  6. Bhatia, V. K. (1993). Analysing genre: Language use in professional settings. New York: Longman Publishing.
  7. Chamot, A. U., & O’Malley, J. M. (1994). Instructional approaches and teaching procedures. In K.
  8. Spangenberg-Urbschat, & R. Pritchard (Eds.), Kids come in all languages: Reading instruction for ESL
  9. Students (pp. 82-107), Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
  10. Fielding, L. G., & Pearson, P. D. (1994). Synthesis of research: reading comprehension: what works.
  11. Educational Leadership, (February 1994). Retrieved August 18, 2006 from http://www.ascd.org/video_guides/reading 02/resources/reading2.html
  12. Grabe, W. (2009). Reading in a second language: Moving from theory to practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  13. Grabe, W. (2010). Fluency in reading-thirty-five years later. Reading in a Foreign Language, 22(1), 71-83.
  14. Hellekjaer, M. (2009). Academic English reading proficiency at the university level: A
  15. Norwegian case study, Reading in a Foreign Language, 21(2), 198-222. Retrieved 26 December 2009 from http://www.joeswebtools.com/text/readabi lity-tests/
  16. Kanoksilapatham, B. (2009). Generic structure of research article abstracts in sciences. Journal of English Studies, 4, 96-11