Enhancing EFL students reading comprehension through concioussness-raising training on contextual guesswork

IV ABSTRACT This study was an attempt to investigate the influence of consciousness-raising training on guessing the meanings of unknown vocabulary from contextual clues on reading comprehension. It was hypothesized thai students would be more successful in reading comprehension if they could guess the meaning of unknown vocabulary from contextual clues An experimental stud)' was conducted with the Lycee II students of Afyon Kocatepe Anatolian High School. Two Intermediate level groups, consisted of twenty-three students each, were treated as experimental and control groups. Both groups read eight texts from a reading book titled Interactions 1 during the sixteen class-hour instruction. While the control group was given definitions of unknown vocabulary, the experimental group was instructed to guess the meaning of unknown vocabulary from contextual clues. A pre and a post test, consisted of two seperate texts with ten multiple choice, ten open ended, and ten vocabulary guessing questions, were given to both groups. Analysis of statistical results showed that there was significant difference between the pre and post test scores of both groups in terms of multiple choice, open ended, and vocabulary guessing questions. The comparison of the post test scores Experimental Group with the post test scores of the Control Group yielded meaningful difference in favor of the Experimental Group. Depending on the data obtained from this comparison, it is claimed that guessing the meanings of unknown vocabulary from contextual clueshas a positive effect on the readers' reading comprehension. Therefore, it has been suggested that learners should be taught ways of guessing the meaning? of unknown vocabulary' from contextual clues.