CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
C. Theories of Context Clues Strategy
A contextual clues was one of technique that could be used in presenting new words in teaching English vocabulary. By using contextual clues, the teacher could present the language and understand the meaning of word in an enjoyable and relaxed atmosphere.
Boonchun (2018) assumes that context clue is a strategy for learners to predict the meaning of unfamiliar word or vocabulary by context and clues. However, clues do not only mean the surrounding words but they also related to reading process of the reader, background or experience of a learner. According to Reardon (2011) assumes that context clues are information on the text which can be used to help deduce the meaning of an unknown vocabulary word within the text. Context clues are a word, picture, graph, table, and side notes, all of which might include of the text.
This is what we call guessing meaning from context. According to Boonchum (2018) assumes that a context is a mental phenomenon that consists of whatever information listeners or readers use to make sense of what is said or written.
However, the use of contextual clues to infer meaning of unfamiliar words is often neglected by the students because they do not know that contextual clues can help them to recognize the meaning of unfamiliar words. According to Innaci & Sam (2017), students might learn word meanings incidentally by using the surrounding context or by a word learning strategy that they have been taught explicitly. Using contextual
clues as a strategy could assist students to identify unknown words in sentences or longer texts.
b. Strategies of Context Clues Strategy
According to Boonchun (2018) the context clues strategy in the study are concluded at 7 strategies as follows:
1. Definition and explanation clues is a process of guessing a word through definition and description in context which can guide the reader to define the meaning of the word.
2. Punctuation clues is predicting the meaning of the word by punctuation occurring in a sentence. The punctuation is like an indicators to find out the meaning of the word more easily.
3. Contras and comparison clues is one of strategies guessing the meaning of the word through contras and comparison appearing in a sentences or a passage.
4. Restatement and synonym clues is repeating the meaning of difficult word by using other word which has a similar meaning.
5. Example clues is stating or giving more information of difficult word through giving example, so the reader can predict the meaning by observing giving example.
6. General knowledge clues is related to reader experience the topic he or she reading, it probably indicate that the reader can get the meaning of the word and can comprehend the topic more easily.
7. Cause and effect clues is a strategy where the reader can understand the meaning of the word through word clues in a sentence; showing why something happened and what the result of the thing is.
According to seven context clues strategies show above, there are some studies support the context clues strategy are crucial for reading comprehension. For example the study of Yuen in Boonchun (2018) found that the 20 students’ though by context clues could understand the strategies in guessing a new word in context more easily, furthermore, the students could apply the context clues strategy to read passages or other articles outside the class room. This can be determsined that the context clues were required in reading text.
From the explanation above, contextual clues is one of techniques that can be used in teaching reading comprehension because when the reader has common knowledge and background information with the context, it`s easier for a student to find out an unfamiliar word. It must be essential to think about skills and background of the actual reader when considering the utilization of contextual clues. In this research the researcher focused on technique of guessing meaning from context which was explained in previous chapters. Guessing meaning from context is the most profitable way to teach English reading comprehension.
Guessing vocabulary from context is the most frequent way to discover the meaning of the words. Guessing is one among of the context clues which are suitable for teaching vocabulary to children as stated by Brown that: “Adult, usually, doesn`t wish to be wrong so they are more hesitant
about guessing than children are, yet children learn by guessing and become better at it”.
Furthermore, Scott Thornbury (2002) points out that guessing from context is probably is perhaps one among the foremost of the most useful skills learners can acquire and apply both inside and out of doors the classroom. He also stated that the more reader read and guess the meanings of the words from context, the more likely the equivalent word will occur in other texts and this will give students an opportunity to enrich our vocabulary knowledge and of course it automatically can increase students score in the classroom.
Based on the statement, guessing meaning of contextual clues is benefical for teaching vocabulary especially in enlarging students’
vocabulary in School, because the students not only study about how to get the unfamiliar word but also they use their vocabularies’ knowledge to guess the unfamiliar word sense of the sentence, paragraph or a text.
Moreover, learning vocabulary through guessing meaning is a way to understand the meaning of unfamiliar words because learning vocabulary by this strategy makes the meaning clear and memorable.
c. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Context Clues Strategy Vocabulary has been one of the objectives in learning English. But, there are different ways to achieve this objective. In school, the usual practice is that whenever a new word comes up in a sentence or passage, the students either rely on their teacher for the definition of word or look it up in a dictionary. The drawbacks of this approach are obvious. Too much
dictionary work tends to distract the students. It increases the learner’s dependency on both the teacher and the dictionary, and it develops a bad habit. As a teacher, we can introduce to use contextual clues to infer or deduce the meaning of unfamiliar words.
There are some advantages and disadvantages of using contextual clues as follows:
Advantages
1. The students do not have to memorize a list of words and definitions.
2. They become aware of the meanings of word in different passage.
3. They use the skill only when they come across difficult words in text, newspaper, novels, and so on.
4. They read and understand general vocabulary without needing precise definitions; general meanings usually enable them to continue reading.
5. Encourage the readers to develop the quality of taking risks and make them more confident and independent in their approach to reading. 6.
They read and understand precise meanings of subject termss on which they`re going to be tested.
Disadvantages
We cannot ignore that besides the benefits, the utilization of contextual clues in teaching vocabulary has some disadvantages. The students who have just enough vocabulary will be difficult to understand the clue given in a sentence. It means that successful guessing meaning from context relating the students' vocabulary size. It is also difficult to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words if the pupil don`t have knowledge about parts
of speech or they need no experiences to make a decision whether the unknown word is noun, adverb, verb and then on. They will be unable to pick the most compatible meaning of the unknown word because they are doing not understand the clue. So, finally they are doing to search the unfamiliar words' meaning in a dictionary.
Context clues strategy are also difficult for students to use if they do not know the relationship between the clause and sentence containing the unknown word. The students will fail to understand the context and will make errors in meaning of the unknown word.
d. Procedure of Context Clues Strategy
The teacher can take several action steps to implementation this strategy, which involves helping students actively engage in the text they read. A number of different strategies can be taught step to student and applied to context clues. Assisting students in learning how to apply these strategies to their text will empower them and give them more control over their reading and understanding, so in this procedure the classified as follows:
According to Pennigton (2009) there are five stages to implementation context clues in the class room. They are:
Step 1: identifying the word
Identifying words from a reading passage that are likely to be unfamiliar or that are central to text comprehension or a student individual language objectives. For each of the chosen words, generates sentences or a group of sentences that provide accurate and explicit clues to word
meanings. The meaning of the vocabularies word must be transparent within the context of the sentence.
Step 2: write the sentence where you find the word.
At the start of the lesson, the students write and reads each word for the class without presenting any of the prepared sentences based on the clues that given. Students are asked to hypothesize the word meanings, giving rationales for their ideas, which is a critical component.
Step 3: Choose an appropriate strategy from the list to use and use it.
All readers encounter words they do not know. Strong readers have strategies for figuring out what to do with them, they use any or all of the following strategies when they encounter unknown word:
a. Skip it and read on b. Re-read
c. Think about what they are reading
d. Sound it out to see if it is a word they know e. Look at the headings and subheadings of the text
f. Guess at what type of word would go there, such as a noun or an adjective
g. Associate the parts of the word (prefixes, root words, suffixes) with words they know
Step 4: describe how the strategy to figure out the meaning of the unknown word (be detailed and be sure to tell the definition you came up with). Be sure to tell what your definition is that you came up with.
Step 5: Look the definition up in the dictionary and write it down. Compare the actual definition with the definition you came up with.
Than according to Sholes (2011) says that, sometimes when readings, you came to unknown word. Look for clues in the text for help you figure it out. The words and sentences round the unknown word can give clues.
These clues are called context clues. Sometimes they`re found close on the brink of new word. Sometime you must look to the paragraph before or after the word. Use information provided in the text and what makes sense to figure out the meaning of the word.
How to use context clues:
a. The teacher divided the students into each group.
b. Read and discuss a text selection. Ask for the students to form a terms to pick one word that is unfamiliar or they would like to learn more about it.
The teacher also choose a word (for demonstration purposes) c. Locate the unfamiliar word
d. Write the word down in your students’ response journal or sticky note.
e. Write down the paragraph or page number.
f. Read before and after the word (read around the word)
g. Write down words that help you find the meaning of the word (context clues)
h. Write down what you think the word means (make a prediction)
i. Check to make sure that your prediction make sentence (read to confirm).