Tài liệu Some factors causing dificulties in guessing meaning from context

CANTHO UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION ENGLISH DEPARTMENT Supervisor: Researcher: BUI THI HONG ANH HUYNH CAM DAO Code: 7032544 B.A. in ELS Course: 2003 - 2007 June 2007 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT.......................................................................................................... ....................... Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Problem and Rationale 1.2. Research Question 1.3. Thesis Organization Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Definition of Reading 2.2. Context 2.2.1 Definition of Context 2.2.2. Some Types of Context and the Importance of Context 2.2.3. Some Types of Knowledge Contributed to Contextual Inference 2.3. Context Clues 2.4. Procedures of Guessing Meaning From Context 2.5. Some Factors Causing Difficulties in Guessing Meaning from Context Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1. What Is a Case Study? 3.2. Participants 3.3 Research Instruments CHAPTER 4 DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Questionnaire And Test Analysis Chapter 5: CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS, IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 5.1. Conclusions 5.2. Implications 5.3. Limitations 5.4. Recommendations for Further Research REFERENCES APPENDICE 1 APPENDICE 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Ms. Bùi Thị Hồng Anh, my supervisor, for her support and dedication to my research. She passionately contributed her ideas and time to shaping my research paper, reading my drafts, giving me valuable advice and correcting my drafts. Without her help, I would not have completed my thesis. Second, I also wish to send my best gratitude to Mr. Nguyễn Thu Hương, who gave me a lot of encouragement and useful sources of material. Third, I am thankful to all of the teachers of the English Department for their devotion to teaching me from the first year until now and to the executive staff who gave me an opportunity to conduct the research. Fourth, I also wish to show my sincere thanks to the entire Bachelor of English students of course 30 for helping me complete the questionnaire and the test. Finally, I am so grateful to all of my classmates and my friends for offering me a lot of spiritual support so that I could complete the thesis. ABSTRACT Because of the density of unknown words on the TOEFL test, students often encounter many problems in guessing meaning of new words when doing homework in TOEFL books that their teachers assigned them. Finding out the factors causing difficulties in guessing meaning from context that the third-year English-majored students encounter is the aim of this study. 60 questionnaires and a vocabulary test are delivered to them as means of investigation. After analyzing and synthesizing the data, the main factors are categorized as follows: lack of vocabulary knowledge, prior knowledge and the knowledge of affixes in English as well as the insufficient context of the text. Learners affected by these typical factors because they have not invested as much time as they can in studying new vocabularies, practicing exercises as well as reading books. At the ultimate stage of my research, some particular measures are mentioned to help students tackle each type of factor causing difficulties in their guessing meaning process. I hope that this research will be a useful reference resource for teachers in choosing and designing suitable exercises to reduce their students’ difficulties. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1. Problem and Rationale Reading is considered to be challenging to English learners because it requires readers to have not only strong vocabulary knowledge but also reading strategies. Vocabulary acquisition is not easy; learners need a durable process of learning and practicing everyday to acquire a certain amount of vocabulary. Although we have many ways of learning unknown words, we cannot remember all we have ever learned by heart. We just remember some familiar words that we usually encounter or use them more often than others. English vocabulary is very large and everyday it is supplemented with so many new words that we cannot find all of them in a dictionary. Sometimes, we cannot comprehend an article in a magazine or an advertisement on the Internet that has many unfamiliar words. Guessing meaning from context is considered as a useful way used wisely by English learners as a foreign or a second language when they read for enjoyment or for knowledge. Teachers often encourage English-majored students to do further reading assignments from different sources such as TOEFL, IELTS, TOEIC…to improve their reading skills as well as reading strategies. Learners are required to have strong vocabulary knowledge and skills to do the tests well. Poor readers cannot do the reading exercises well because of the new words in the text. “ The problem for poor readers is not only knowing fewer words than good readers but also having no strategies for deriving meaning of an unfamiliar words from context to get comprehension” (MC Keown, 1985; Tomesen & Aarnoutse, 1998). In fact, to guess the meaning of a new word correctly is very problematic. My classmates and I often face many difficulties in doing reading homework. I sometimes misunderstand the meaning of a reading text as I make a wrong guess at new words. It is hypothesized that if students are aware of the factors causing difficulties in meaning guessing and find the solutions to their problems, they will improve their reading skills. 1.2. Research Question In my study, I attempt to find out the answers to the research question, that is, “What factors causing difficulties do the third-year English students encounter in guessing meaning of an unknown word from context?”. In order to find out reliable answers to the above question, I have to design a questionnaire and a reading test and then to examine whether students’ answers in the questionnaire sheet correspond to their performance in the reading test. 1.3. Thesis Organization This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is the introduction; chapter two is literature review. In this chapter, I will first review published writings to explore what has been presented on this subject and will then seek to draw some conclusions from those findings. A description of methods and procedures is included in chapter three. Chapter four is the analysis of the data collected from the third-year English-majored students. This chapter will reveal the factors causing difficulties that these students encounter when doing vocabulary exercises. The final chapter, chapter five, consists of some limitations of the study and implications for teachers and students as well as some recommendations for further research. Through the collection and analysis of data, I will figure out the factors causing difficulties in meaning guessing and have some suggestions to help the English-majored students find out their own ways to tackle their problems. Teachers may reconsider the exercises that they have given to their students so far, and then think of the measures to improve their students’ reading skills. I hope that the following sections will help both teachers and students have an insight into my thesis. CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, I would like to introduce the background research related to my topic. Some factors causing difficulties in guessing meaning from context hypothesized by previous researchers are also presented. They include: (1) inattentive Homonym, (2) lack of vocabulary knowledge, (3) affixes knowledge, (4) prior knowledge, and insufficient context. 2.1. Definition of Reading Reading is a process of constructing meaning from written texts. It is a complex skill requiring the coordination of a number of interrelated sources of information (Anderson et al., 1985, p.1). Similarly, Wixson, Peters, Weber, and Roeber, (1987, p.1), cite a definition of reading: reading is the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction among: (1) the reader's existing knowledge; (2) the information suggested by the text being read; and (3) the context of the reading situation. Moreover, according to the “Oxford English Dictionary”, reading is the activity of someone who reads. In fact, we read for a variety of purposes; we often vary cognitive process and knowledge resources that we use. Therefore, it is not just straightforward to identify a purpose for reading as the single way to interpret what we mean by “reading”, (Fielding 1988) 2.2. Context 2.2.1 Definition of Context According to Harold Levine (2004, p.20), a writer of “ 22,000 Words for TOEFL Examinations”, context is a part of a passage in which a word is used and helps to explain that word. Suppose someone asks you the meaning of “bear”, you won’t be able to tell him the meaning because “ bear”, as presented to you, has no context. But if he says “polar bear”, you will know he is talking about an animal. If, on the other hand, he says, “Please stop that whistling – I can’t bear it”, you will know that in this context “bear” means endure or stand. Like Harold Levine, Werner and Kaplan (1952) confirm: “context is additional information that readers can infer/ guess/ figure out the meaning of a word”. However, Hirst (2000) supposes that context is anything in the circumstances of the utterance, and just anything in the participants’ knowledge or current experience. It is believed that it is possible to “figure out” a meaning of a word “from context”. Other terms for this process that can be found in the literature include “construct”, “deduce”, “derive”, “educe”, “guess”, “ infer”, and predict” (Putam, 1960; Fodor, 1975; Rapaport, 1998, Horst, 2003, p.7). “ Readers can guess meaning of a word from context and from the reader’s background knowledge” (e.g., Granger, 1977; Stern berg et al, 1993; Hasting & Lytinen, 1994). Context as used in these studies has the connotation of being in the external world (in particular in the text containing the words); “background knowledge” has a connotation of being the reader’s mind. To sum up, context is not only an external world in particular in the text containing the words but also reader’s background knowledge, which the readers must base on to guess the meaning of a new word. 2.2.2. Types of Context and the Importance of Context According to Harold Levine (2004) there are generally three kinds of context: context with contrasting words, context with similar words, and “common sense” context. Context with contrasting words. When you want to guess the meaning of a new word, you have to find a clue to the meaning of this word in an opposite word or a contrasting idea. Context with similar words. You may discover the meaning of an unfamiliar word or an expression from a similar word or an expression in the context. “Common sense” context. is the one different from those we have known so far. It has neither an opposite word nor a similar word to help us get the meaning. However, it does, offers a clue in which we find out the meaning of a new word inferred from the context. Do you know what famished means? If not, you should not be able to tell from the following context: “The morning had passed way, and Rip felt famished for want of his breakfast.”(Washington Irving’s “ Rip Van Winkle”) How do you feel when the morning has gone by and you have not had breakfast? Very hungry, of course, even starved. Therefore, famished in the above context must mean “very hungry”. In fact, readers make a good guess if they clearly know the kinds of context and have an appropriate way in guessing meaning to each context. Why is the context important?. It is important because it gives us the meaning of not only familiar words, but also unfamiliar words. Furthermore, contextual vocabularies acquisition is the active deliberate acquisition of a word meaning in a text by reasoning from context without external sources of help such as dictionaries or people. In addition, Duckin (1987, p.17) proposes that using context clues is an important part of vocabulary acquisition. According to Anderson and Freebody (1979, p.17), students can increase their vocabulary knowledge through using context clues with morphological analysis. “Context may be the single most important aid in guessing word” Hardin (1980, p.19). Context nearly always provides the necessary clues; even the dictionary also makes use of context. A good dictionary provides the meaning by using the word in sentence more often than the definition itself. In brief, researchers propose some common types of context in order to help readers differ one context from the others encountered in a reading text. They also emphasize that context plays an important role in guessing meaning of a new word. 2.2.3. Types of Knowledge Contributed to Contextual Inference Word knowledge To infer the meaning of any particular word in context, it is helpful to know the meaning of the words around it. However, how to understand the neighboring words is a problem likely to be faced by many foreign language readers. Garcia (1991) cites that knowing a word involves much more knowing a definition. Besides information about a word meaning, word knowledge helps us recognize other components such as syntactic frame in which a word occurs, the word’s collocation potential, morphology (the prefixes and suffixes it occurs), and its semantic relationship with other words. Syntactic knowledge. The meaning of a word determines its syntactic behavior. The syntactic of a word provides crucial information (Landau & Gleitman, 1985). Students are able to use parts of speech and other syntactic information as clues to the meaning of new words. Brown (1975) shows that the use of a word as a noun or a verb leads students to different inferences about its meaning. Structural analysis allows a reader who encounters an unknown word to limit feasible definitions by approaching the whole word and identifying its part (Vacca, 1989) Prior knowledge is what the reader has before reading, i.e.. the beliefs the readers brings to the text are available for use in order to understand it. ( Baldwin , 1986) World knowledge connotes general factual knowledge about things other than what the text is about. (Hirsch 1987, 2003) 2.3. Context clues What are context clues? Nagy (1985, p.2) indicates that context clue is a crucial strategy dealing with unknown words when readers read a text. The ability to infer the meaning from context is clearly a valuable skill that should play a part in reading. The more clues take into account, the greater are the chances of guessing an unknown word. When dealing with a new text, students should be encouraged to make a guess of the word meaning rather than to look up a new word immediately in a dictionary. To make clear the above ideas, Elaine Kirn (1995, p.5) supports that when you read, you do not need to look up the meanings of all new words in a dictionary. You can guess the meaning of them through the other items in context - the other words in the sentence or the other sentences in the paragraph. The following are introduced to recognize context clues: Ø Sometimes a sentence gives a definition of a new vocabulary item or information about it. This information may be in parentheses (), after a dash (-), or after a comma (,), or it may be introduced by the words for example, for instance Ø Sometimes the meaning or a clue to the meaning of a new vocabulary item is in another sentence part. Ø Sometimes another word or words in another sentence or sentence part has the opposite meaning of a new vocabulary item. Ø Certain abbreviations (shortened forms words) help you understand a new word or phrase. Here are two: e.g. = for example i.e. = that is = in other words Example: this is a group of micro entrepreneurs-i.e… People who own and run their own business What are micro entrepreneurs? They are people who own and run their own small business. Ø Context has an explanation of the new word, but in order to think of a synonym you need to change a part of speech. Example: for many people, there seems to be no escape from poverty; in other words, they are poor and they have no hope that this will change. In this example, you see that poverty is close in meaning to poor, but the two words are different parts of speech. Poverty is a noun and poor is an adjective (what is poverty, Ø poorness or the condition of being poor). Sometimes a parallel structure of two sentences or clauses can help you understand new words. In a parallel structure, there are often synonyms corresponding words or opposites. Example: When an American president takes a vacation, his assistants usually emphasize to new reporters the work that he does during his vacation. In contrast, when the prime minister of Japan recently took a vacation, his aides emphasized to the press that his purpose was relaxation- no work at all. You can know a person who has a position that corresponds to an American president is prime minister thanks to the parallel structure of two sentences. The synonym for assistants is aides The synonym for new reporters is the press. Ø The prefix (beginning) of a word sometimes gives a clue to its meaning. Some prefixes create a word with an opposite meaning. Example: We’ve discovered many unusual hotels in our travels. “ Discover” means to “ uncover” information - i.e., to find out something that we did not know before. Unusual means “not usual”- i.e., out of the ordinary. Ø There can be words in a text that expresses the opposite of a new vocabulary item usually in a negative clause or after words that show contrast (e.g. but, yet, however, on the other hand, by contrast, and although.) Example: The members of various tribes in each center of culture had frequent contact with one another and shared similar characteristics, but they did not have much in common with tribes in other culture areas. The word or expression in the above sentence that express the opposite meaning of the word “share” is “ did not have in common”. We can find out the opposite meaning of the word “ share” through a clue word “ but”. In conclusion, context clues, which are information given, may be a definition, an example, a contrastive word, or similar words… to aid readers to make a successful guess. Context clues play an important role in inferring a new word. 2.4. Procedures of Guessing Meaning from Context According to Nation (1990; p.162) strategy is just a means of acquiring the unconscious skill that an efficient reader has already had. He assembles the “steps” as follows: Step 1 Look at the unknown word and decide its part of speech. Is it a noun, an adjective or an adverb? Step 2 Look at the clause or sentence containing the unknown word. If the unknown word is a noun, what adjectives describe it? What verb is it near? That is, what does this noun do, or what is done to it? If the unknown word is a verb, what noun does it go with? Is it modified by an adverb? If it is an adjective, what noun does it go with? If it is an adverb, what verb is it modifying? If the unknown word is an adjective, what noun does it modify? If the unknown word is an adverb, what verb does it modify? Step 3 Look at the relationship between the clause and sentence containing the unknown word and other sentences or paragraphs. Sometimes this relationship will be signaled by a conjunction like but, because, if, when, or by an adverb like however, as a result. Often there will be no signal punctuation served as a clue. Semicolons often signal a list of inclusion relationship; dashes may signal restatement. Reference words like this, that, and such also provide useful information. The possible types of relationship include cause and effect, contrast, inclusion, time, exemplification, and summary. Step 4 Use the knowledge you have gained from steps 1 to 3 to guess the meaning of the word. Step 5 Check that your guess is correct 1. See that the part of speech of your guess is the same as the part of speech of the unknown word. If it is not the same, then something is wrong with your guess. 2. Replace the unknown word with your guess. If the sentence makes sense, your guess is probably correct. 3.Break the unknown word into its prefix, root, and suffix, if possible. If the meanings of the prefix and root correspond to your guess, good, if not, look at your guess again, but do not change anything if you feel reasonably certain about your guess using the context (Adapted 1990:162-3) Like other foreign language learners, English students at Can Tho University apply the above procedure in their guessing process. They followed each step in guessing meaning of a new word. However, sometimes they fail in inferring meaning from context. So, I would like to explore the difficulties that affect these students’ performance. 2.5. Some Factors Causing Difficulties in Guessing Meaning from Context Guessing meaning of a word from context clues is the most useful of all strategies, deliberately studying words on word cards, and using word part and dictionary. To learn this strategy and to use it effectively, learners need to know 95- 98% of the words in a text, that is the unknown words to be guessed must contain plenty of comprehensible supporting contexts (Norbert Schmitt, 2002). This degree of vocabulary coverage means that only 1 out of 20 words in a simplified text is unknown; if the density of unknown words is too high, the opportunities of correct guessing meaning of unfamiliar words are declined. Strategies in making contextual inferences can fail when conditions for guessing meaning are not favorable. Many researchers find that meaning is one of the factors causing problems in guessing meaning of a word from context. Ruhl (1989) cites that words can be assigned a single, general meaning and apparent meaning variability explained by general rules of inferences and by knowledge of the situation to which the utterance refers. For example, a dictionary may list among the meaning of the phrase “ take off”: “ to leave a place, especially in a hurry” (as in: “ When he saw me coming, he took off in the opposite direction”) or “ to become successful or popular very quickly or suddenly (as in: “ The new magazine has really taken off”). The difference of “take off” can be attributed entirely to contextual factor. In addition, foreign language learners sometimes misrecognize word forms and this misrecognition results in unsuccessful cases of contextual guessing (Huckin &Bloch, 1993, p.173). If readers think they have successfully identified a word-form, they will naturally access the standard meaning for that form and unnecessarily consider the context for confirmation. Therefore, wordform identification has an important role before the contextual guessing starts (Huckin & Haynes, 1993, p.290). Contextual guesswork does not necessarily enhance word learning. It might depend on how much guesswork is involved (Huckin & Haynes, 1993, p.290). Moreover, in a case study of technical university learners: “An Investigation of Low Achievers’ Process of Word Inferring”, Ming-yueh shen (2002, p.13) concludes that pseudo-familiar with transparent words is one of the factors causing difficulties in guessing meaning from context. Pseudo familiar with words: Cases of pseudo-familiarity in this study involved words that look similar to the unknown words. An example in his study includes words “motion” and “major”, “stand” and “start”, “thrust” and “trust”. When the context was supplied for the word “motion” with the context test, the students still guessed it as “ major”. (“Scientists took slow motion pictures of chicken running. They studied the pictures carefully. They found out that chicken’s head does not move back and forth.”) Examples of learner’s pseudo familiar with words Word meaning Incorrect guess context inattentive to Pseudo familiar Number of students Percentage clue Motion major 1/7 14% stand start 1/7 14% Thrust trust 1/7 14% Moreover, Paul (2003) cites idioms are confusing. For example, the common English expression “Keep your hair on! “doesn’t mean you are telling someone not to have their haircut or to hold on to their wig. It simply means “ keep calm! Or don’t get excited!” It is true that all languages have idioms, but English seems to have more than its fair share. This is the reason why idioms cause difficulties in guessing meaning from context. Another example about the idiom is that the learner may know the words goat and get, and wonder why she does not understand the sentence “You get my goat!” She has a little chance of guessing, out of the context it means, “You irritate me!” In general, there is a wide range of literature review that mentions factors causing difficulties in guessing meaning from context. However, there is no full agreement on which theory is perfect. A perfect description must be practical, feasible and must be carefully developed and based on the real situation. Among the studies, I find the following ideas interesting and I really want to observe whether these assumptions can be applied to the case of the third-year English-majored students at Can Tho University. The suggested factors are synthesized below: 2.5.1. Inattentive homonyms. Ming-yueh Shen (2002, P.13) proposes that the main factor causing difficulties in guessing meaning from context is inattentive homonyms. Students gave a variety of wrong meanings to the homonym words with multiple meanings. For example, the noun rest and the verb rest are clearly two distinct entries in the mental lexicon; a context allows a reader to determine which is intended. As shown in the table, five out of seven students guessed that the word “stand” in “By the 1879s, there were stands for selling sausages at New York’s Coney Island” meant, “put into an upright position”, without paying attention to another meaning as noun “ a small outdoor shop”. Three out of the seven students guessed that rest meant “freedom from something tiring”, and apparently neglected its new meaning as “what is left” in the context. Examples of learner’s Inattentive homonyms: Incorrect guess Inattentive inattentive to homonyms clue Number of students Percentage stand (n) (a small outdoor shop) put into an upright position rest (n) freedom from (what is left) something tiring heat (v) high (to make warm) temperature 5/7 71% 3/7 45% 2/7 2.5.2. Lack of vocabulary knowledge. According to Laufer and Sim (1985), one of the obstacles readers have is lack of knowledge of other words in a context. Some learners ascribed the limitations to their lack of vocabulary knowledge. Obviously, students with limited vocabulary are more likely to encounter word problems; typically, they have greater difficulties in inferring the meaning of words from context because they have more words to guess and have less contextual information available for figuring out unknown words. This problem is congruent with what researchers found in studying the threshold of vocabulary and reading comprehension as well as vocabulary knowledge. To infer the meaning of any particular word encountered in context, learners must know the meaning of the words around it. Example: “By the end of the Pleistocene Age both the antitheses and the heparins had become extinct in North America , where they had originated, as fossil evidence clearly indicates. In Europe , they evolved into the larger and stronger animal that is very similar to the horse, as we know it today”. In the above example, it is very difficult for readers to guess the meaning of the word “extinct” because there are many other new words around it like antitheres, hipparion, evolved. So, the context clues in this situation are not helpful. 2.5.3. Lack of suffixes knowledge. Craik (1995, p.14) claims that knowing a word involves much more than knowing a definition. Besides information about a word meaning, word knowledge is generally recognized as including a number of other components such as the syntactic frames in which a word occurs, the word’s collocation potential, its register and potential morphological relationships (what prefixes and suffixes it occurs with). People possess other kinds of knowledge about words as well, for example, the frequency with which a word occurs in the language. Affixes play an important role in guessing meaning of a new word when readers break it up into many syllables to guess the meaning, so struggling readers who have poor knowledge of the meaning of common affixes, easily encounter difficulties in guessing process because the meaning of new words are often generated with affixes. The following are some common affixes and their meanings Prefixes ab Meaning away from Examples absent act, ap, at to, toward, near advance, attract bi two bicycle com, con with, together combine, cooperate de from, reverse defect, decompose dis not, opposite disappear, disconnect re back, again return, replay Suffixes al referring to optical ble likely to be lovable, divisible ence, ance, act or state of difference, acceptance, truancy ancy ful full of, to powerful, forgetful ian someone who musician 2.5.4. Lack of prior knowledge. Dubin and Olshtain (1993) propose that contextual guessing involves nonlinguistic prior knowledge. They claim that successful word guessing involves substantial textual support and prior knowledge such as commonsense knowledge, world or cultural knowledge, and specialized domain knowledge. The prior knowledge might or might not include background knowledge that the author assumes the readers will have. Besides, as stated by Colley (1987, p.113), text is language which is written in context. It has an intended message that may go beyond its linguistic representation. In order to comprehend a text, the reader needs to use information, which is explicit and implicit in the text. S/He needs to go beyond the literal meaning of sentences in the text in order to get the intended message of the writer and the likely intention of the writer in a particular context Readers are capable of making these inferences due to the fact that they have the appropriate background knowledge of the circumstance that may link the two events. Appropriate background knowledge is also essential in reading a text that contains information from a specialized knowledge domain. For example, it is very unlikely that you can understand much of a text for specialists in the domain of the chemistry if you yourself do not have sufficient background knowledge in that domain. We need to have information about appropriate context before reading a text in order to comprehend it and recall it well. Thus, it can be assumed that those l2 or foreign language readers who lack sufficient prior knowledge will have considerable difficulty in contextual guessing. 2.5.5. Context. Hunt and Alan (1996) claim the difficulty of inferring from context increases when information in the immediate context is lacked, and correct guessing is only possible in case that the context is highly constraint (i.e. when redundant information is plentiful). Moreover, if the local contexts remain vague, then reliance on the broader context is frequent Example: “We are exposed to very little music or art.” We can clarify the above sentence by adding more context such as in school we’re taught reading, writing and mathematic; we are exposed to very little music. This additional context helps students have a base on guessing what the word means. To sum up, researchers have different points of view about the factors causing difficulties in guessing meaning from context. The studies that the writer has presented indicate that the following are the factors causing difficulties in guessing meaning from context: homonym, lacking of vocabulary knowledge, prior knowledge, suffixes knowledge and insufficient context. These theories provide English-majored students at Can Tho University a clear explanation of the problems they have when doing vocabulary test. It also helps them to have an insight into each factor in guessing strategies. From this recognition, the learners may seek for additional material related to this topic in which the researchers present solutions to their obstacles. Moreover, their teachers could have a real understanding if their students’ obstacles when doing their homework and then think of suitable strategies for their students’ self-directed learning. CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY In this chapter, I would like to introduce: (1) the definition of a case study, (2) participants and (3) the research instruments 3.1. What Is a Case Study? When developing a research project, researchers have to find the answers to two crucial questions. The first is which method will be used and the second is why it is chosen. The justification of the choice of the method lies with the research question that the research project is looking for the answer. According to Ranjit Khmar (1997) a case study method is an approach to studying a social phenomenon through a thorough analysis of an individual case. The case may be a person, group, episode, process, community, society or any other unit of social life. All data relevant to the case are gathered and organized in terms of the case. It provides an opportunity for the intensive analysis of many specific details often overlooked by other methods. This approach rests on the assumption that the case being studied is typical of cases of a certain type so that, through intensive analysis, generalizations may be made. That will be applicable to other cases of the same type. There are six steps in a case study Step 1: Determine and define the research questions Step 2: Select the cases and determine data gathering and analysis techniques Step 3: Prepare to collect the data Step 4: Collect data in the field Step 5: Evaluate and analyze the data Step 6: Prepare the report The writer follows the above six techniques for organizing and conducting the research and finding out the answers to the research question raised in the study. 3.2. Participants Participants in my study are four classes of 60 (female and male) students studying Bachelor of English course 30 at Can Tho University. Their ages range from 21-23. The first language of all of these students is Vietnamese and English is considered as their foreign language. Their language competence is at advanced level. “Interactions” and “Mosaic” are the two textbooks used to teach them. When I conduct the study, they have already studied five semesters of reading. In other words, they have already finished 12 chapters in the textbook “Interactions II” and several chapters in the textbook “Mosaic I”. Students may recognize their progresses after approaching these books because these reading books have been created to develop vocabulary skills and reading comprehension skills. From the fact, I think that students in my study have stable foundations of guessing meaning from context in reading. 3.3 Research Instruments Questionnaire Questionnaires are used as an instrument to collect data in my study. The questionnaire consists of two main parts: the first one is to get the participants’ personal information and the other is to explore the factors causing problems in guessing meaning from context. When mentioning the personal information, the students are asked about their names, ages, and classes. The second is a list of ten questions related to the topic of this research. The questionnaire is easy