Inferencing and retention

The question Learners fail, usually, to guess meanings of words correctly, even if they know more than 95% of the context. But another question arises: If they can successfully guess a word – does the fact that they guessed it themselves help them to remember it later? In other words: should we provide them with the new items in ‘pregnant’ contexts in order for them to inference them, on the basis that this will help learning?

Mondria, J- A. (2003). The effects of inferring, verifying and memorizing on the retention of L2 word meanings. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25(4), 473-499. Does inferring help retention? Better than given meanings? Idea that ‘deep processing’ helps retention. Laufer and Hultstijn – search and evaluation. Importance that inferring is correct – so use pregnant contexts + knowledge of vocab + ability to infer don’t always infer correctly, so beter if can verify with dictionary. Even if better results through inferring – is the time worth it? may be less efficient. Incidental versus intentional learning.

Various studies looking up led to better retention glosses led to higher retention – but in one study this advantage lost later inferring: sometimes more sometimes less Problem of mistakes in inferencing

Research questions: Does meaning-inferred method lead to higher retention than meaning-given? What is the learning effect of the various stages (inferring, verifying, memorizing)? Is there a difference in amount of time between meaning-inferred and meaning-given? What is the contribution of each stage to total time? Achievement rate (i.e. time / achievement ratio) of the various conditions? Is there a relationship between correct inferencing and ultimate retention? Are correctly inferred words retained better?

Population: Dutch students aged 14-16 learning French about 2-3 years study. 70 target words, not known, not cognates, not guessable from morphemes. ‘Pregnant‘ contexts All groups given sentences, but meaning-given given also translation Glossary constructed with translation, plus unconnected entries Inference training Test: recall of translation of target items in new (unhelpful) context

4 stages: inference training, incidental learning experiment, intentional learning experiment, tests. All groups had experience of all types. Incidental: no time for memorizing Intentional learning: time for memorizing

Results In general, intentional learning got better results. Q1: no significant difference in retention between meaning-inferred and meaning-given. Level of Ss made no difference. Q2: each stage contributes: inferring 6%, verifying 9%, memorizing 32%. (more time spent memorizing on meaning-given) Q3: time: meaning inferred took 27% more time overall than meaning-given Q4: Inferencing takes 29% of time, verifying 9%, memorizing 61% (78% in the meaning-given) Q5 meaning-given much more efficient. Q6: correctly inferred remembered better: but when could verify, incorrectly inferred and corrected actually remembered better.

Conclusion Meaning-inferred doesn’t lead to better results – why? less time for memorizing (tired, or think they already know?) less attention paid to form-meaning association, as most time goes on meaning –focus so greater depth of processing at initial learning stage doesn’t lead to better retention.

Implications for teaching Write target words on the board (highlight ones they didn’t know before) Later: use the words in context Write translation on the board Don’t spend too much time on inferencing in the lesson

The use of translation versus context Webb: Learning word pairs and glossed sentences: the effects of a single context on vocabulary knowledge Bottom line: It is more efficient to provide an L1 translation than L1 translation + sentence context. Giving the translation enables students to use in context.

Meaning-focused, form-focused and contrastive/translation focused Laufer and Girsai: Form-focused instruction in second language vocabulary learning: A case for contrastive analysis and translation. Bottom line: Translation from L2 to L1 and L1 to L2, with contrastive analysis, is the most effective way to learn new items.

Implications for teaching