How to Deal with Unknown Words in EFL Reading

李夏雯

Abstract： Vocabulary knowledge plays an important role in EFL reading， and learners need to employ different strategies to deal with unknown words. Research has shown that  when facing the challenge of unknown words learners rely on dictionary too much while lexical inferencing should be recommended most to them. Therefore， this paper focuses on how to encourage learners to use various strategies to deal with unknown words in EFL reading.

Keywords： Unknown words; EFL reading; dictionary; lexical inferencing

I Introduction

It is commonly accepted that there is a strong relationship between reading and vocabulary knowledge. A strong command of vocabulary knowledge can facilitate the reading process. In order to become a successful reader， a learner needs to employ different strategies to deal with unknown words， and using a dictionary is the first choice which is considered as the easiest and the most effective way. Although students could guess the meaning of the unknown words with the help of the context， they would still use the dictionary to check up their guessing in that they do not have trust on lexical inferencing. Students pay too much attention to the accuracy of the meaning of the words， and they are afraid of making mistakes. Another reason is that there is a lack of training for how to use lexical strategies. Students may have no idea of how to guess a word in the context. To sum up， there is an urgent need for teachers to find out how to guide different levels of students to use other strategies for unknown words in EFL reading.

II Literature Review

In order to investigate the strategies students used when dealing with unknown words， Tan （2006） asked 64 third-year non-English majors of two different proficiency levels to answer a questionnaire on word-tackling strategies they used in reading. The data collection showed that among the five strategies used by the subjects， using a dictionary was most popular. Similar findings were reported in other studies as well. The result of Wang （2007）s study showed that Japanese students were heavy users of dictionaries while Lee （2010） found out participants in his study preferred a bilingual dictionary over a monolingual dictionary. On the other hand， The finding of Cai （2012）s study that readers used context clues most frequently was in line with Roskams （1998） study that Chinese readers used varied and flexible decoding strategies to infer unknown English words.

Some studies also raised concerns about factors affecting learners strategies for dealing with unknown words. Wang （2007）s study showed that the participants mobilized multiple strategies on individual words and the high proficiency students used strategies both more flexibly and effectively than the lower ones. Besides learners proficiency level， other factors like reading environment had also been examined. Lee （2010） investigated effects of reading environments （computer-based and print-based texts） on L2 learners strategic behaviors in coping with unknown words. The results showed that reading environment did appear to affect learners strategies， but the effect was not substantial.

III Conclusion

A large body of studies have found that learners would employ different strategies to deal with unknown words in EFL reading. Among all the strategies， using a dictionary is mostly used by the learners while lexical inferencing is highly recommended by the researchers. It is important for learners to reflect on their own learning processes and to understand which approaches provide the best ways to comprehend unknown words， and which approaches are most effective for different reading environments. As a teacher， in order to make correct instructional decisions to help our students develop strategies to tackle with unknown words， a complete understanding of how L2 learners process unknown words while reading is urgently needed. Teachers should encourage students to use a variety of strategies and help them become independent， skillful learners.

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