KATHARINA RUSTIPA

Foreign language students usually have problems with unfamiliar words. The new words should not frighten the student, he should use specific

techniques to deal with them.

a. Inference meaning of words through the context- We can guess the meaning of unfamiliar words by looking at the neighbouring

words.

- Don’t run to your dictionary everytime you meet a new word.

- Everytime you break off your reading to consult a dictionary, you not only slow down your reading speed, but you also interrupt your own thought processes.

- You can make use of the context in which the word occurs to give you a rough idea of its meaning.

Guess the meaning of ‘tock’ from the context

1. She poured the water into a tock.2. Then, lifting the tock, she drank.3. Unfortunately, as she was setting it down again, the tock slipped

from her hand and broke.4. Only the handle remained in one piece.What can we learn from sentence 1? That a tock can hold water.How does sentence 2 narrow down the possibilities? That a tock can

be lifted.What new information do we get from sentence 3? That a tock is

fragile.And sentence 4? That a tock has a handle.So, it’s possibly that a tock is a cup.

Understanding the meanings of affixes and the way they are used to build words is extremely useful in tackling new lexical items.

We can make use of affixes to establish, not exactly the meaning, but at least the type of word.

This tells us the kind of meaning.

Exercises: Underline the suffixes in the following words. Consistently, Employer,Observation,Hypnotist,Suggestable,

Predictable, Desirable, Organization

Can you guess the meaning of each of the suffixes?

SKIMMING

What strategies are there for getting a general idea of the content of new material before beginning to read line by line?

One idea is just reading the topic sentence of each paragraph quickly.

The topic sentence is often the first or last sentence in a paragraph (usually the first)

Skimming is glancing rapidly at a text without reading word by word, for content

Scanning is glancing rapidly through a text to search for a specific piece of information.

As you glance quickly over a text, hold in your mind the key words you are looking for and skip over everything else.

Move your eyes rapidly until you see the words you are looking for, then stop and read the sentence (s) containing these words

When reading a new material, we are frequently helped by information that is not obtained from the text itself.

Graphic convention: spacing, punctuation, type face, indentation

Reference apparatus: title, index

Non-verbal information: pictures, diagram, map

Making use of this kind of information is useful

Foreign language student sneed to exploit every source of help he can find

Elements of cohesion seem likely to give trouble or to be helpful to the reader.

A sentence that includes reference, substitution or ellipsis does not itself express all the information required to convey its message.

We can fill the gap by referring to other parts of the text.

a. Interpreting reference and substitution- This skill involves identifying the meanings of words like ‘it, he,

our, this, those, one, I think so, such, other, etc.’

- In using such devices, the writer avoids burdening his text with needless repetition

- They are signals to the reader to seek a meaning for them elsewhere in the text

The writer prefers to omit rather than repeat certain kinds of information which the reader’s common sense can readily supply from the surrounding text.

This omission is called ellipsis

An elliptical expression is one that is left unsaid.

Example: The days are hot and the nights cool; They came although they were asked not to; The ladies need not stand but the gentlemen must.

Like reference and substitution, ellipsis directs the reader to supply information elsewhere in the text.

A writer often uses different words to refer to one and the same thing.

A writer often avoids repetition of the same word for stylistic reasons. For example: you might find house, home, dwelling, residence, all used to the same building.

If the reader fails to recognize that the words all relate to one single referent, he is going to have trouble understanding the text

Sequences of sentences are generally organized into paragraphs.

Recognizing the organization of a paragraph means being able to identify the topic, the main idea, the minor or supporting details.

The main idea of a paragraph is what all the sentences are about.

The main idea is stated in the topic sentence.

The sentences in a paragraph have functional values.

To help the students understand the main information in the text can be done by transfering information from a text to: a) complete sentences, b) complete diagram, c) find errors and complete a text summary, d) make a summary

The students must find the relevant information from a text, then transfer the information