The experiences of alumni adolescents on the contribution of a Youth Opportunities Programme

Lizane Wilson
Centre for Child, Youth and Family Studies and School for Psychosocial Behavioural Studies
North-West University
PotchefstroomSouth Africa

Leanna Gouws
Centre for Child, Youth and Family Studies and School for Psychosocial Behavioural Studies
North-West University
PotchefstroomSouth Africa

Alida W Nienaber
Centre for Child, Youth and Family Studies and School for Psychosocial Behavioural Studies
North-West University
PotchefstroomSouth Africa

The experiences of alumni adolescents on the contribution of a Youth Opportunities Programme
DD4931F20921D38F3FE879F70152BBDCacademic improvementadolescentsafter-school programmedevelopmentextracurricular activitieslife skills
This article focuses on the experiences of alumni adolescents on the contribution of a Youth Opportunities Programme, a non-profit after-school education programme presented in Namibia.A qualitative descriptive design was used to provide insight into the contribution of this programme.Five focus groups were conducted with 32 participants.The transcribed data were analysed by means of thematic analysis.The rich descriptions of the experiences of alumni adolescents indicated learning, personal and relational experiences as well as challenges.The learning experiences included the transfer of academic knowledge and skills that assisted them to deal with advanced opportunities, and the provision of resources.They were able to socialise with friends and form personal relationships with teachers, serving as emotional support.The challenges they encountered while attending the programme on a full-time basis included high expectations in terms of time management, attendance and behaviour.These challenges proved to be exhausting at times.

Introduction and background to the study

School is potentially an area where adolescents can be presented with opportunities and experiences that will enhance their development and learning (Elmore, 2009).Schools in struggling townships often have limited access to educational opportunities, since learning resources such as books or learning opportunities and excursions or extracurricular activities cannot be afforded (Thabane, 2008).This is likely to increase academic difficulties, decrease the number of years of schooling, and increase school drop-out rates (Crosnoe, Mistry & Elder, 2002;Farmer, Price, O'Neal, Leung, Goforth, Cairns & Reese, 2004).However, there is also evidence that a positive attitude towards school, including a sense of belonging and awareness of ability, may predict higher educational achievement, despite the high poverty in which these children find themselves (Irvin, Meece, Byun, Farmer & Hutchins, 2011).Studies of programmes after school hours have indicated the positive impact of extended after-school-hours programmes in alleviating some of the negative influences of poor communities (Mahoney, Lord & Carryl, 2005;Paviot, Heinsohn & Korkman, 2008;Posner & Vandell, 1994).The introduction of after-school programmes, such as this programme, offers educational as well as recreational opportunities in various communities (Posner & Vandell, 1994).

The programme referred to in this study, is a non-profit, after-school-hours education initiative presented in a struggling township in Namibia.Namibia, an African country, attempted after its independence in 1990 i (Garrouste, 2011) to completely change its education system (Angula & Lewis, 1997).Approximately 13 percent of the Namibian population aged 15 years and older do not have formal education, and 45.8 percent of this population are poor.The 6 percent of the population aged 15 years and older who have attained tertiary education have a poverty incidence of less than 1 percent (Namibia Statistics Agency, 2012).This suggests that education can be regarded as a buffer against poverty.Currently, general education in Namibia is experiencing inadequacies, including unqualified school teachers, a shortage of books and instructional material (Marope, 2005) with a ratio of one textbook per three learners in primary schools and one text book per two learners in secondary schools (Nakale, 2013), overcrowding in schools and underfunded schools (Hoadley, 2009;Molinuevo, Bonillo, Pardo, Doval & Torrubia, 2010).Financial resources in terms of salaries for teachers also have an impact on the quality of education.Some teachers lack commitment due to low salaries, which is suggested to be one of the reasons for the high failure rate in schools (Sichombe, Nambira, Tjipueja & Kapenda, 2011).

The Youth Opportunities Programme is focused on supporting learners in government schools (Hoadley, 2009;Molinuevo et al., 2010) with additional academic work and activities to advance their social and moral skills, free of charge.Classes are presented by appointed teachers or occasional volunteers from other countries.

ii These classes include English, mathematics, reading, life skills, as well as sport, music and computer classes, which are often not introduced in government schools.Through these activities and classes, the programme is i dedicated to promoting a future generation of emotionally healthy, driven and forward-thinking leaders in Namibia by aiming to cultivate positive thinking and self-esteem in the learners.The programme aims to expand ii the learners' knowledge and experience base by exposing them to textbooks and resources other than those being used in government schools.Other resources include field trips introducing learners to Namibia's wildlife, tourist attractions and uranium mines, which are all major contributors to the country's economy.Academic performance is evaluated through tests so that learners who require more help can be identified and strategies can be formulated.Involvement in the community is also encouraged through fundraising for nature conservation or i animal rescue.i Various schools in the Swakopmund area have been approached by this Youth Opportunities Programme, inviting Grade 3 learners who show ability and promise to undergo a selection process.These learners are tested on reading, mathematics and English, and a total of 24 learners are invited to join the programme from Grade 4 to Grade 7.They are collected from the various schools every afternoon, receive lunch and attend the lessons from 14:00 until 17:00.For these children, active participation in the programme requires time, effort and commitment, since they are expected to attend the programme every afternoon once they have been accepted.Once learners reach Grade 9 to Grade 12 they form the alumni group and do not attend the formal programme any longer.As the workload and responsibilities in government schools take up much more of their time from Grade 9 onwards, they are given the opportunity to use the facilities of the programme rather than following the formal programme.The hope is that the programme iii presented them with solid basic skills and a positive attitude towards education to keep them invested in their own academic success.

The purpose of this Master's Degree study was to gain descriptive data on the experiences of alumni adolescents on the contribution of the programme.The following broad research question guided this study: What are the experiences of alumni adolescents of the Youth Opportunities Programme?

Research methodology and research design

A qualitative descriptive design, as described by Sandelowski (2000), was seen as most appropriate for this study as it describes the experiences of adolescents without attempting to explain them (Babbie & Mouton, 2001).An exploratory approach (Babbie & Mouton, 2001) furthermore provided in-depth data on how the programme is experienced by the adolescents.

Data collection

The sample of participants for the focus groups was taken from the population by purposive non-probability sampling (Strydom, 2011).Lists of learners who have previously attended the programme were obtained after which the researcher approached all these learners at their respective schools during school hours.These learners received letters addressed to their parents with the invitation to participate in the study as well as consent forms.A total of 32 participated in the study, of whom 25 were female and 7 were male adolescents.These participants attended the formal Opportunities Programme at some stage in the past but do not attend the formal programme any longer (referred to as alumni adolescents).They were in Grades 8 to 12, and their ages ranged from 14 to 19 years.Most of them spoke Oshiwambo but were able to communicate in English.

Focus groups were used to collect in-depth qualitative data (Greeff, 2011;Henning, 2004) on the participants' experiences.The focus groups provided the participants with an opportunity to share their personal experiences.The conversations among the participants elicited a wide range of responses (Greeff, 2011) and dynamic discussions (Liamputtong, 2011), while reminding each other of events and experiences (Nieuwenhuis, 2007).Five focus groups were conducted by the researcher during afternoons at the premises.The questions asked during these focus groups included: When starting with the programme, what did you expect from it?Tell me more about your experience of the programme.What did you like most about the programme?What did you learn at/from the programme?Now that you are no longer part of the full programme, do you think the programme helped you in how you currently function at school?How did it help you to function at your school now?Looking back, is there anything you would change in the programme?After you have experienced the programme, what do you think you needed from the programme?

The focus group questions were aimed at prompting descriptions on how the adolescents experienced the programme.Hence, a few basic questions were set while further prompting was based on the responses given by the adolescents.The number of participants in the focus groups varied between two and 10.Field notes (Greeff, 2011) were also used as a supplementary form of data collection.

Ethical guidelines, as described by Strydom (2011), were taken into account.Permission for the study was obtained from the reviewing panel of the Centre for Child, Youth and Family Studies, North-West University, the board members of the programme and the Research and Ethics Committee of North-West University.Prior to the study, informed consent was obtained from all the parents/guardians and written assent from the participants.The participants were informed about the aim of the study as well as the research process and their right to withdraw from the study at any time should they wish to do so.Confidentiality and anonymity was ensured.The participants were compensated financially for transportation and they received refreshments.

Data analysis

The goal of data analysis in this study was to identify, analyse and report the patterns (Braun & Clarke, 2006;Creswell, 2009) found within the empirical data.This was attained by means of thematic analysis, which provided a rich thematic description of the entire data set, giving a sense of the predominant themes (Braun & Clarke, 2006).The six steps, as described by Braun and Clarke (2006) for conducting thematic analysis, were utilised by the researcher in this study.The study supervisors critically commented on the initial analysis, which was used to refine subsequent interpretation, thereby enhancing trustworthiness (Creswell, 2009).

Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness criteria can be operationalised by credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability (Babbie & Mouton, 2001;Lincoln & Guba, 1985).The researcher made use of member checking to ensure credibility and dependability.Since it was logistically difficult to have the same group attend discussions more than once, the insights and information gained from one group was tested with another focus group (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).This gave the participants the opportunity to provide additional information and to corroborate, differ from or expand on the statements made by participants from other focus groups, thus ensuring credibility.It is the responsibility of the researcher to provide the reader with thick descriptions with the widest possible range of information to enable potential applicants to make judgments of transferability (Babbie & Mouton, 2001;Lincoln & Guba, 1985).The researcher achieved this with thick descriptions clearly placed within the context of the study.The raw data (tape-recorded focus group interviews and field notes), notes on theories and concepts, the themes that were developed, the findings and conclusions, personal notes and expectations (Babbie & Mouton, 2001) have been reviewed to establish confirmability (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

Findings

In this section, the themes and subthemes that emerged from the study will be presented.Verbatim quotes will be added where necessary to support the themes and subthemes.

Learning experiences Enhancement of academic performance

Academic work at the programme helped the adolescents to improve their marks at school by providing them with a better understanding of the work while they were in the programme.

The following quote provides evidence of such academic improvement: "…what I have learned from (the programme) is that it will actually improve your level in English and maths."Through the knowledge and skills acquired from quality education, schooling is considered to foster positive development, being one of the strongest protective factors in the lives of young people (Cunningham, Cohan, Naudeau & McGinnis, 2008).Performance in their government schools improved due to their skills being transferred from the programme to their school contexts.This is evident from these quotes: "...everything we did in Maths (at the programme), we take back to what we did at school", and "We learn, and we are ahead with our work that we do at school".

Access to information and learning how to use the internet and library improved the quality of their projects: "And you can even come here to do like your projects and stuff, which also increase your marks at school."These resources may have been unavailable, like for this adolescent: "I don't know how I would have managed without (the programme), because we don't like have a computer at home."The field trips helped them to gain new knowledge, also useful for projects: "Or let's say you have maybe an essay to write about a place you have seen.At least you have something to write about."In this regard, the programme is providing them with a unique opportunity to overcome a barrier to their achievement at school, namely a lack of resources.A study by Mampane and Bouwer (2011) found that adolescents had expectations of schools to provide them with resources, and experienced this as having a direct influence on reaching their goals.

Acquisition of skills

The adolescents' thought processes and critical thinking also changed, as can be seen in how they reflected on learning: "...how to use your brain" and "think outside of the box".Improvements in critical thinking and learning to take responsibility can assist adolescents in engaging with their social and physical environment in an active, organised and goal-directed way, which Skinner and Edge (1998) consider to characterise a well-adjusted adolescent.Their reading skills have been improved with a unique rating system that encourages adolescents to read often.This system contributed to the improvement of their reading and language skills, as this adolescent stated: "They gave us extra help…just the fact that we actually got the opportunity to read books and improve our English."Most of these learners' mother tongue is Oshiwambo.They experienced the language policy of the programme, namely that only English may be spoken, as one of the ways in which the programme assisted in enhancing their improvement.This adolescent reflects on how the programme provided assistance in this regard: "...so every time we come to (the programme) we know we must speak English.So, by that time our English improved.I moved from a D candidate in English to a B... ."English is the official language of Namibia (Ministry of Education, 2010), highlighting the importance of its mastery.

The adolescents experienced the life skills classes as equipping them with information and competencies required on a daily basis, as seen in the following quote: "...her life skills...she taught us things that you need to know in life."Theron and Dalzell (2006) recognise adolescence as a period of heightened vulnerability, and argue that appropriate life skills could provide them with the necessary guidance and empowerment to meet the challenges they face.

Personal experiences

Intrapersonal attributes

The adolescents acknowledged that their own input was needed to benefit from the programme, as shown by this quote: "It made us better, maybe, maybe not, it depends on individuals...." They learned to commit and persevere, which is described in the National Curriculum of Basic Education (Ministry of Education, 2010) as personal qualities needed to pursue goals and act autonomously.The following quote suggests the sense of responsibility they have learned to take on: "I can complete my own form without anybody's help."They further experienced the programme as being motivational, for example, through the reading system in the library, as described in the previous section.The implementation of this system contributed to their internal motivation.This adolescent explained that, "You always want to read more, so that you can go to the next level".Other intrapersonal attributes gained included confidence and belief in their own abilities, which may determine the attitude with which they approach tasks and problems.One adolescent girl explained how she learned that she was capable of much more than she had thought, and exclaimed, "I can become a president!"They also experienced an increase in self-confidence as this quote indicates: "For some times, somehow, it uplifted your self-confidence, you know how to talk… ."Selfesteem is considered an important component of psychosocial development during adolescence (Sadock, Sadock & Kaplan, 2007) as it assists adolescents to manage the challenges, changes and transitions characteristic of adolescence (Birkeland, Melkevik, Holsen & Wold, 2012).

Exposure to unfamiliar experiences

The programme provided the adolescents with a range of experiences never possible before due to financial limitations, as this adolescent explained: "...because you don't get music elsewhere…I mean if you go for a drum lesson out of (the programme), you would pay like a lot."Adolescents felt that the programme provided an opportunity to discover their own talents and interests, as this quote suggests: "If I wasn't at (the programme) I don't think I will ever learn how to play the recorder.Now we also have guitar classes."The participants were also introduced to information technology, such as computers, internet and email, which they were ecstatic about as this adolescent girl exclaims: "I EVEN got an EMAIL here, ja, I didn't have an email."The adolescents had the opportunity to see places which could have been without their reach.This adolescent recognised this opportunity by saying: "Ja, my mom will never take me here ... .Ja, who will take me there?Who will take me to Etosha?"An increase in opportunities for adolescents to participate in diverse activities is desirable (Fredricks & Eccles, 2006) since this allows them to demonstrate a wider range of skills and interests that are not always available in schools.The programme reduced this lack of experience for them, which could have positive developmental outcomes for them as has also been clearly noted in a review by Feldman and Matjasko (2005).

Relational experiences

Personal relationship with teachers

In all the focus groups, the adolescents became most excited and energised when talking about this relationship.The adolescents reminisced excitedly about the teachers at the programme, suggesting the positive relationships they had with some of the teachers: "...she was very nice with us, like every time you came to (the programme), it's like, run to her and then hug her or something."They considered this relationship like a close family relationship, as stated by this adolescent: "…the nice teachers that you even want to call, like if they are one of your family members."Previous studies have found that positive student-teacher relationships are important to predict socialemotional functioning (Decker, Dona & Christenson, 2007) and to improve academic attitudes and self-esteem (Chan, Rhodes, Howard, Lowe, Schwartz & Herrera, 2013), and that successfully relating to and interacting with learners may enhance their academic motivation (Allen, Pianta, Gregory, Mikami & Lun, 2011).The adolescents felt comfortable to use the teachers for emotional support, evident when one adolescent reflected: "Whenever you had a problem, and can't talk to your parents, or the teachers at school, I actually felt more comfortable talking to the teachers at (the programme), than at school 'cause, they listened more."According to Mampane and Bouwer (2011), the role of teachers in schools is about more than merely presenting the adolescents with knowledge and skills, as adolescents in adverse situations depend on their schools for assistance regarding their future lives.

Social interactions with peers

During the adolescent developmental phase, socialisation entails the process or ability to find acceptance in peer relationships, as well as the development of more mature social cognition (Sadock et al., 2007).Adolescents' attempt to achieve a sense of belonging in their peer group and to form a sense of wellbeing through their ability to conform to the activities of that group and measure up to their expectations (Sadock et al., 2007).Peer relationships become increasingly important during adolescence (Gowers, 2005), and the programme created a platform for meeting more peers and making friends.This is evident from the following quote: "...for me it was, the social life, since you come straight from school to (the programme) like, you never have time to make friends.The friends you have are here."The connections these adolescents made with their peers and their teachers led them to regard the programme as a second home: "(the programme) is like a family.Like, stick together and you must trust one another...we thought (the programme) was our second home."Studies (cited in Cunningham et al., 2008;Naudeau, Cunningham, Lundberg, McGinnis & Worldbank, 2008) have shown that a feeling of connectedness to a school setting may result in motivation and engagement in the classroom, academic performance, completion of education, and lower incidences of skipping school, fighting, engagement in bullying and vandalism.

Change in how others perceive the learners attending the programme

The adolescents felt that they had been granted beneficial status through their attendance of the programme, as the following quote suggests: "...writing (the programme) in your CV, it will make you become an executive... ."Some adolescents also saw how the programme raised their popularity among friends, as this adolescent reflected: "It also makes you popular, because when you are here everybody is like, it's the smart kids that go to (the programme)."

Challenges associated with attending the programme

The programme posed a few challenges, which some of the adolescents recognised as requiring their commitment to reap the benefits, like this adolescent explained: "...it depends on certain people and how you are and how you use your time."However, for some adolescents it resulted in withdrawal from the programme as they felt that they could not balance their commitment to the programme with other responsibilities at home or at their government schools.

High expectations of the programme

Some challenges with regard to attending the programme influenced adolescents' attitudes toward the programme, like this adolescent reflected: "I think (the programme) became too demanding.Like, that is part of the reason why I left."They experienced this pressure as challenging, as the following quote indicates: "They were putting too much pressure on us, expecting too much...." They felt that the teachers and managers of the programme set very high standards, and that it was difficult at times to keep up: "There is like a certain level that they expect, and you can't go below it."They experienced the programme as too intense, interfering with other responsibilities, as this adolescent recalled: "...imagine you have to go to school at 7:00, come from school at 13:00, at 14:00 you are here, uh, you go home at 17:00.You have to cook, you have to learn for tests, you have to study... .Do your home chores.It's just too much."They found it difficult to keep up, and became exhausted, as this adolescent reflected: "...then like we will go home and like you're tired from (the programme), after school you were tired, you come, you get more tired and then we go home."They felt that this had a negative impact on their school work: "...then we still like have to study for examination.Sometimes you are so tired, you just sleep.And then next day you fail."

Time management

The following two quotes comment on their difficulty to balance their time with other responsibilities and activities: "...one didn't get enough time to study and do stuff like, like some of us at home, we cook, to the household and stuff like that" and "…like we didn't have time for other stuff, like just...school (the programme), home, school (the programme), home".The adolescents were expected to obey the time boundaries set by the programme, evident from this reflection: "...when you actually don't pitch like for (the programme) at all, they kind of give you warnings and stuff."The adolescents expressed the need for a balance between the programme's activities and other activities: "And I think they should like compromise more, like, (the programme) life and other stuff.Like they should really balance that out, like maybe (the programme) on that day... ."

Discussion of findings

This study explored the experiences of alumni adolescents on the contribution of an after-school education programme presented in a township in Swakopmund.The adolescents spend numerous hours per week at school, and it is considered to have an impact on every aspect of their development.In low-income and middle-income countries adolescents constitute a far greater proportion of the population than in high-income countries (Sawyer, Afifi, Bearinger, Blakemore, Dick, Ezeh & Patton, 2012), and it is in these countries that adolescents may be presented with fewer opportunities, resources and services that are essential for them to thrive and grow into healthy, productive adults (Murry, Berkel, Gaylord-Harden, Copeland-Linder & Nation, 2011).Operating in a lower to middle income country (Garrouste, 2011;Smith & Barret, 2011), Namibian schools are faced with challenges such as overcrowded classes (Hoadley, 2009), a lack of learning materials (Marope, 2005) and unqualified teachers (Marope, 2005) rather than being opportune developmental contexts.After-school education programmes attempt to overcome some of these challenges.

The findings of this regional study revealed that the Youth Opportunities Programme contribute to these adolescents' development and education in various ways.The fundamental learning areas addressed at the programme, namely English, mathematics and reading skills, have resulted in improved academic knowledge and skills.The adolescents' improved skills have thus been transferred to their government school setting.Since most of the adolescents' mother tongue is Oshiwambo, the increased use of the English language while attending the programme as well as the opportunity to read English books have assisted these learners in mastering Namibia's official language (Ministry of Education, 2010).

It is also clear from the findings that the programme not only helped them to improve their academic achievements, but also provided them with support.The life skills classes and emotional support from the teachers at the programme equipped these adolescents with knowledge and skills necessary to overcome peer pressure to engage in risky behaviours.The close relationships they had with some of the teachers as well as the friends they made have resulted in a sense of connectedness.On an intrapersonal level, the adolescents gained confidence and discovered their talents and abilities that are essential for the development of their self-esteem.The means of implementing the programme created enthusiasm and internal motivation to attend this educational programme.Socialisation and selfesteem form part of the required social and emotional development during the adolescent developmental phase.The programme created an opportunity for the adolescents to be introduced to a range of activities, which is not always available at their government schools.The field trips and excursions organised by the programme allowed them to see the most prominent tourist attractions in Namibia, thus expanding their knowledge base and providing them with valuable information.Furthermore, the findings indicate that the adolescents learned to think critically, which is an important part in adolescent cognitive development.The findings also suggest that the adolescents learned to commit and persevere while they pursued their goals, and that they felt encouraged by the teachers at the programme.

However, they also reflected on challenges they faced while attending the programme on a full-time basis.The intensity of the programme and time required made it difficult for them to balance their attendance of the programme with other activities and responsibilities.Sanderson and Richards (2010) emphasise the importance of identifying the barriers affecting attendance of after-school programmes on a community level.Since the benefits of after-school programmes have been documented (Mahoney et al., 2005;Posner & Vandell, 1994), it is important to recognise the potential barriers to attendance (Grolnick, Farkas, Sohmer, Michaels & Valsiner, 2007;Weisman & Gottfredson, 2001) and attempt to alleviate these so that adolescents have the opportunity to benefit from such programmes.Therefore, the challenges the adolescents experienced should be taken into account.

A comprehensive needs assessment may provide valued insight into how the programme could be developed in a way that would assist and support their learners in the best possible way, ensuring that their developmental needs are balanced with the distinct needs arising from their specific circumstances.This may point out how challenges may affect their participation in the programme.A detailed investigation into the field of afterschool programmes by Halpern (2000) highlights the importance of such a balance.

A limitation in this study was controlling the size of the focus groups and the number of participating adolescents.Many arrived at groups other than those they were scheduled for, and had to be turned away to prevent the groups from having too many participants.

Conclusion

Poor communities often have limited access to educational opportunities, since learning resources such as books or learning opportunities and excursions or extracurricular activities cannot be afforded (Thabane, 2008).Studies of after-school-hours programmes have indicated the positive impact of extended programmes or programmes presented after school in alleviating some of the negative influences of poor communities.This exploratory study therefore aimed to gain insight into the experiences of alumni adolescents on an after-school programme.The findings of this regional study also provide a clear indication of the various positive contributions the programme has made to the adolescents' overall development and their academic or school functioning.Similar positive contributions are also documented in research studies of other after-school intervention programmes (Mahoney et al., 2005;Paviot et al., 2008;Posner & Vandell, 1994).Although this programme is restricted to a specific context, the rich description of the experiences provided insight into the positive attributes as well as the challenges of such a programme.The programme also provides opportunities to a very small elected group of children.Hence, it would be fortunate if more children from poor communities could be part of such an opportunity.This study has provided a possible backdrop for more detailed research.

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Lexical inferencing: perceptions and actual behaviours of Turkish English as a Foreign Language Learners' handling of unknown vocabulary

Kadriye Dilek Akpýnar kadriyedýlek@gmail.com
Department of Foreign Languages Education
Gazi University
Türkiye

Lexical inferencing: perceptions and actual behaviours of Turkish English as a Foreign Language Learners' handling of unknown vocabulary
4C6BBF921B2FAE826C94C63DBBC83E83contextual knowledge sourcesintralingual knowledge sourceslexical inference
The purpose of this study was to examine Turkish English as a Foreign Language Learners' (EFL) handling of unknown words while reading English texts.The study also examines the relationship between these learners' perceptions and actual practices in the employment of knowledge sources while trying to guess the meaning of unknown words.The participants involved in this study were 40 pre-service teacher education students between the ages of 18-22 years old.Data were collected through mixed (qualitative and quantitative) methods, namely, by a twofold vocabulary strategy survey and a lexical inference test.Pearson correlation coefficients were conducted to determine what relationships exist among the perceived behaviours and actual practices of learners for unknown words.The results of the correlation analyses identified an insignificant correlation between the actual practices and perceptions of students for the contextual and intralingual knowledge sources.

Introduction

Recently, the role of the lexicon in language learning and communication has come to be widely understood by Foreign Language (FL) teachers and researchers since vocabulary knowledge is central to the development of language and literacy (Jordaan, 2011).Research (Harley & Hart, 2000;Paribakht, 2004;Qian, 2004) indicates that readers use a variety of strategies when they encounter new words in a FL text.These strategies include ignoring unknown words, consulting a dictionary for the meanings of these words, writing them down for further consultation with a teacher, or attempting to infer their meaning from context (Harley & Hart, 2000).Some studies (e.g.Laufer, 1997cited in Nassaji, 2003;Paribakht, 2004;Qian, 2004) have shown that the most commonly used strategy among them is to infer the meaning of unknown words in order to compensate for the lack of comprehension.Lexical inference is defined by Oxford (1990:47) as "using a variety of linguistic and nonlinguistic clues to guess the meanings of all the words when the learner does not know them".It can be regarded as an important strategy since it involves a deeper processing of information available in the text itself and that is likely to contribute to better comprehension of the text as a whole (Read, 2000).

The reason why lexical inference has been investigated widely by so many scholars (e.g.Haastrup, 1991;Hulstijn, 1992;Na & Nation, 1985;Mondria & Wit-de Boer, 1991;Gao, 2012) mainly reflects the assumption that the greater the mental effort in processing a word, the more likely it is to be remembered.Most of these studies focus mainly on the positive effect of lexical inference strategies on reading comprehension (Mondria & Wit-de Boer, 1991;Paribakht, 2004;Qian, 2004) and problems in inferring the meanings of vocabulary from context (Wang, 2011).However, learners' approaches to making use of knowledge sources in the inferencing process in a FL setting have not been examined in terms of their perceptions and actual practices.Hence, this study specifically aims to compare Turkish FL learners' selfperceived and actual performances while trying to guess unknown words that they encounter in English texts.

The article is organized as follows.The first section reviews the related literature on lexical inferencing and the taxonomy of knowledge sources used in the inferencing process.The second section describes the research method, the third section presents the results and the final section discusses the results and their implications in FL pedagogy.

Review of literature

A number of recent studies have documented the range of knowledge sources that learners use during lexical inference.Using think-aloud protocols among pairs of students, Haastrup (1991a;1991b) studied the lexical inferencing procedures of highschool students who were Danish-speaking learners of English.Based on Carton's (1971) framework of knowledge sources for inferencing, Haastrup (1991) identified three main sources of knowledge that foreign language learners may use in lexical inferencing: contextual, intralingual, and interlingual.

In her taxonomy, Haastrup (1991) divided contextual knowledge into two subcategories: knowledge of co-text and knowledge of the world.Co-text includes four subcategories: (1) one or two words from the immediate co-text of the test word, (2) three or more words from the surrounding sentence, (3) any specific part of the co-text beyond the sentence containing the test word, and (4) more global use of the context knowledge of the world includes factual knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs.

Intralingual knowledge sources are cues based on the learner's knowledge of the target language.For example, learners of English may infer the meaning of words by making use of their knowledge that suffixes -er and -or express notion of agency (Carton, 1971).This is divided into two categories: the test word itself, and the syntax of the sentence containing the test word.Under the category of test word, six subcategories were established: (1) phonology/orthography; (2) morphology; (3) lexis; (4) word class; (5) collocations; and (6) semantics.Under the category of the syntax of the sentence containing the test word, four subcategories were identified: (1) definite articles, (2) adjectives, (3) prepositions, and (4) number.

The third source of knowledge, interlingual knowledge, contains two categories, which are L1 and Ln.In L1, the informant makes use of his/her first language and Ln refers to all other languages except the informants' L1 and the target language of the experiment (Haastrup, 1991:92-100).

De Bot, Paribakht and Wesche (1997) identify a set of eight knowledge sources used in inferring meanings of unknown words, based on evidence from their introspective verbal protocols of 10 English as Second Language (ESL) learners.They interpret this finding to support a foreign language lexical processing model which was adapted from Levelt's (1989Levelt's ( , 1993) ) model for L1 speech production.The eight knowledge sources are: 1. sentence level grammar; 2. word morphology; 3. punctuation; 4. world knowledge; 5. discourse and text; 6. homonymy; 7. word associations; and 8. cognates.Although organized in a different way, these knowledge sources generally correspond to categories of Haastrup's (1991) taxonomy.Schmitt and McCarthy (1997) distinguish three categories of knowledge sources: linguistic knowledge, world knowledge, and strategic knowledge.Linguistic knowledge includes syntactic knowledge, vocabulary knowledge, and word schema.The syntactic constructions are considered to provide information for learners at any stage of language acquisition.World knowledge refers to the readers' background knowledge on what constitutes a certain word.Strategic knowledge is the third category of knowledge that involves conscious control over cognitive resources.Nassaji (2003) further categorizes four types of knowledge sources, namely: grammatical knowledge, discourse knowledge, world knowledge, and morphological knowledge.In this category, grammatical knowledge refers to using syntactic categories or grammatical functions such as relative clause (modification clue), verbs or adjectives.Discourse knowledge includes using knowledge of relations between or within sentences and the connectors between words or sentences, such as restatement clues, cause/effect clues, example clues and explanation clues (Nassaji, 2003).World knowledge involves using pre-existing schemata to infer the word meaning, while morphological knowledge refers to the internal clues, such as the prefixes and suffixes (Nassaji, 2003;Soria, 2001).

Researchers who study lexical inference claim that using a single knowledge source does not contribute to a successful inference.In a study with university students, De Bot et al. (1997) found that successful inference depends upon using various knowledge sources ranging from knowledge of grammar, morphology, phonology, and knowledge of the world, to knowledge of punctuation, word association, and cognates.Nassaji (2003) further emphasizes that successful lexical inference depends on how various kinds of knowledge sources connect to strategies.His findings indicate that success in lexical inference is directly related to the effective use of strategies and the use of various knowledge sources in and outside the text.

Other researchers suggest various factors which would contribute to a successful lexical inference, such as context factors (Diakidoy & Anderson, 1991;Frantzen, 2003), student factors (Frantzen, 2003;Levine & Reves, 1998) and text factors (Hu & Nation, 2000;Laufer, 1997cited in Nassaji, 2003;Shefelbine, 1990).Hamada's (2009) findings reveal that all the learners made a transition from employing global to local reading strategies, and that even the learner with the lowest comprehension score demonstrated a consistent increase in number and variety of strategies used.The author offers a discussion on instructional training and its effects on reading.However, very little attention has been paid to investigating whether learners are aware of the clues and knowledge sources that they employ during the inferencing process.Qian (2004) studied the relationship between the perceptions and actual behaviours of ESL learners when encountering a new word in an English text.He conducted a survey with a group of university students who had a Korean or Chinese linguistic background.Information gathered from the respondents indicates that the top-down approach to reading was popular among the learners surveyed and many respondents claimed that they frequently guessed unknown words from contexts.The data from the interviews showed that these learners' actual lexical inferencing practices were significantly different from the self-reported strategies they had indicated in the questionnaire.Loh and Tse (2009) also examine the relationship between reading attitudes, self-concepts as readers, and reading performance of fourth-grade Hong Kong Chinese students.It was found that there were no relationships between attitudes, self-concepts, and the performance of the learners.These surprising results are discussed in detail in their study with regard to the system in Hong Kong.

Within this perspective, the present study focuses on the relationship between the perceptions and actual practices of undergraduate Turkish EFL learners using knowledge sources during the lexical inferencing process.In contrast to Qian's (2004) study, which used interviews to collect qualitative data, the present study applies think-aloud techniques, and a version of verbal report in which participants state their thoughts and behaviours during the comprehension process.This may also help us to compare the pedagogical value of think-aloud and survey techniques while studying learners' cognitive processes in lexical inferencing in a FL setting.More specifically, this study addressed the following questions: 1.What are the most and least favoured behaviours utilized by Turkish EFL learners while dealing with unknown words in English texts? 2. Is there any relationship between the perceptions and actual practices of Turkish EFL learners in the employment of knowledge sources while attempting to guess unknown words in English texts?If yes, what is the nature of the relationship?

Methodology

This study was designed to look into the learners' perceptions and actual practices in deriving word meaning from English texts.The instruments included a vocabulary strategy survey and a vocabulary inferencing test collected through think-aloud techniques.

Subjects

The participants in this study were 40 (12 male and 28 female) intermediate level juniors studying in the English Language Teaching Department (ELT) at Gazi University, Turkey.The study took place in the Lexical Competence course as part of their syllabus in the academic year 2011/2012.All participants in this study were volunteers, and they signed written informed consent forms before participating in the research.All the participants are native speakers of Turkish and none of them know any other foreign languages except English.Their ages range between 18 and 22.

Data collection procedures and instruments

There were two stages for the data collection procedure.At the first stage, participants responded to a two-fold vocabulary strategy survey to indicate their perception of handling unknown words while reading an English text.At the second stage, participants took a lexical inference test with think-aloud techniques in order to indicate to what extent their self reports matched their actual practices when dealing with the target words.

Instruments

Vocabulary Strategy Survey

The survey was constructed to get a response regarding the first research question (RQ): "What are the most and least favoured behaviours utilized by Turkish EFL learners while dealing with unknown words in an English text?"The survey, written in learner L1 Turkish is composed of two parts.The first part focuses on what the learners assume they do when they encounter an unfamiliar word while reading an English text.The second part questions the clues, namely, knowledge sources that were reported as used by the learners when attempting to infer the meaning of an unfamiliar word in an English text.

In the first part of the survey, eight ways of dealing with a new word such as "Looking up the word in an English-Turkish dictionary" or "Guessing its meaning from the context" were described.This was adapted from Harley and Hart's (2000) study.

For the second part, 11 clues were described for making use of various levels and aspects of one's knowledge to handle an unknown word while reading an English text.The main body of the second part of the survey was adapted from Qian (2004) and Shen (2005, cited in Shen, 2009).However, some of the knowledge sources described in the survey were added depending on the participants' response in the pilot study.This part of the survey was pre-tested on a sample of 199 undergraduates who were randomly selected.However, these learners were not included in the respondents in the present study, since they may have recognized the target words which were the same within the main study.The purpose of the pre-testing was to determine the appropriateness of the survey for the target respondents.

The Reading Passage

The reading text used in the present study is a 374-word text used in Haastrup's (1991) and Nassaji's (2003) studies (see Appendix).It contains 374 words, 10 of which are target words used to focus on inferencing strategies.The target words are all content words consisting of four nouns, four verbs, and two adjectives.The reading passage was chosen according to the following criteria: • Student factors (Frantzen, 2003;Levine & Reves, 1998).The text should contain a minimum number of words that the participants would not know (see Laufer, 1989;Na & Nation, 1985;Nation, 2001).Related studies emphasize that readers should know a high percentage (at least 95%) of the words in the text in order to be able to infer the meaning successfully (Na & Nation, 1985).The text should also match the comprehension ability of the readers (Nation, 2003).• Text factor (Hu & Nation, 2000;Laufer, 1997cited in Nassaji, 2003;Shefelbine, 1990).The topic should also be relevant to students' real-life experience with its topic.• Context factors (Haastrup, 1991;Diakidoy & Anderson, 1991;Frantzen, 2003).

Words should invite the use of various knowledge sources and a range of word classes should be presented.In order to test the text relevancy according to the above criteria, a pilot study was conducted: a) Before the main part of the study, the same text was given to a group of students studying in the ELT department who were assumed to be similar to the participants in the main study with respect to language proficiency and level of reading comprehension.The students were asked to underline the words that they did not know in the reading passage.The percentage of unknown words was then calculated for each student (excluding the target words) by dividing the total number of words they underlined as unknown.The reported number of unknown words was less than 3% (ranged from 2.67% to 2.99%).In the main phase of the study, approximately the same percentage was found (2.78% to 3.01%).This indicates that the subjects knew approximately 97% of the words except the test words.

b) The pilot study was also carried out to ensure that while learners of intermediate or high-intermediate level would not normally know these words, they would still be able to infer the meaning of them with the help of clues from the text.The clues mentioned by the learners in the pilot study also helped the researcher to construct the second part of the questionnaire used in the main study.c) Additionally, four experienced EFL teachers, including two native English speakers and two non-native English speakers, evaluated the suitability of the experimental text.The aim was to ensure that the contextualized meanings of the target words were indeed inferable and that helpful clues, beyond the morphological cues, were contained in the target words (Qian, 2004).

Lexical Inference Test

This qualitative part of the study was designed to gain a response to the second re-search question: "Is there any relationship between perceptions and actual practices of Turkish EFL learners in the employment of knowledge sources while attempting to guess unknown words in an English text?If yes, what is the nature of this relationship?"

Two weeks after the survey, the text was presented to the participants and they were asked to read the text individually and to guess the meaning of the underlined words in the text by finding an English or Turkish word as the most likely translation equivalent.They were at the same time required to verbalize and report whatever came to mind.The data collected in the second stage regarding the use of knowledge sources were derived mainly from the think-aloud techniques because they involved more direct and online reporting of what learners are actually doing during the task (Olson, Duffy & Mack, 1984;Hamada, 2009;Riazi & Babaei, 2008).Despite some criticism of the think-aloud procedure which states that such data are not a true reflection of learners' actual practices, it has at least been assumed to be associated with the processes that participants employ in lexical inferences (Olson et al., 1984;Ericsson & Simon, 1993).Moreover, by internalizing and assimilating the text through the think-aloud process, students tend to remember the context of the words better (Peters, 2007).

The participants were given a total of 25 minutes to complete the task.They were asked to think-aloud in both English or in Turkish.Their think-alouds were tape-recorded and transcribed.

Data analysis

Data collected from both the vocabulary strategy survey and the lexical inference test were analysed.The survey data investigated Turkish EFL learners' (i) perceptions of handling unknown words and (ii) use of knowledge sources; while the data of the lexical inference test examined the learners' actual inference practices.

Analysis of the survey

1.In the first part of the survey there are eight items which investigate the perceptions of the learners' most and least favoured behaviours when dealing with unknown words in an English text (taken from Harley and Hart's study, 2000).Quantitative analysis of the survey was conducted by calculating Frequency percentages for each question, using a 3-point scale format.The frequency choices were: often, sometimes, and never.Table 2 illustrates the items and responses of the 40 participants to the first part of the survey.2. The second part of the survey questions the perceptions of learners' making use of knowledge sources while guessing unknown words in an English text.It was mainly compiled from studies by Qian (2004) and Shen (2005cited in Shen, 2009).The same 3-point scale format was used in the second part of the survey.Prior to the principal components (PCO) analysis, the data of the survey were tested using the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and the Bartlett's Test of Sphericity to determine their factorability.KMO value has been measured at 0.79.The Bartlett's test of Sphericity value was significant (p < 0.05) indicating that a factor analysis may be useful using these variables.

Next, a factor analysis, using a PCO analysis, was undertaken to identify the construct validity of the survey.Two factors with eigen values greater than 1 were found accounting for 43% of the total common variance.They were converged under two categories as Contextual and Intralingual based on Haastrup's (1991) taxonomy.Although Haastrup's (1991) taxonomy of knowledge sources includes contextual, intralingual, and interlingual cues, depending on the results of the pilot study the interlingual knowledge sources were eliminated.Actually, interlingual knowledge contains two categories, which are L1 and Ln (Haastrup 1991).For example, second language learners may derive word meanings on the basis of cognates and regularities of phonological transformations from one language to another.Since our participants did not know any other foreign languages other than Turkish and the linguistic structure of Turkish (as a non Indo-European language) is not related to English, interlanguage knowledge sources were not employed by the participants.Haastrup (1991) also attributed learners' not making use of their first language while attempting to guess unknown words to the linguistic structure of the learners' native language.This claim is also supported by Soria (2001:80) who states that "Interlingual cues are judgments made by learners about the identity of similarity of structures in two languages".

The themes and sub-categories of the survey emerged on the basis of the classification of the researchers (see Nassaji, 2003, Qian, 2004;Wang, 2011) and the pilot study.The Cronbach Alpha coefficient for Contextual dimension is .70;and for Intralingual dimension it is .65.The survey reliability coefficient was found to be .77.Table 1 illustrates the survey options and their approximate corresponding knowledge sources.

Analysis of the Lexical Inferencing Test

The Lexical inferencing test, which was used to investigate learners' actual practices in the inferencing process, was collected through think-aloud technique (Olson et al., 1984;Hamada, 2009;Riazi & Babaei, 2008).Tape-recorded think-aloud data were first examined qualitatively using content analysis.The process of analysis involves identifying, coding, and categorizing the data (Patton, 1990).

The reliability of categorizing the think-aloud data was calculated by intercoder agreement with three EFL teachers, one of whom is a native speaker, on a sample of 20% of the data.The intercoder agreement for that 20% of the data was 97%.Then, through discussion, discrepancies were resolved to achieve 100% agreement.The data were coded by the researcher according to the agreement reached.As illustrated in Table 2, 77.5 % of Turkish learners report that they sometimes look up the word in an English-Turkish dictionary.Another 20% stated that they always use an English-Turkish dictionary.Guessing the meaning from the context was another popular practice reported by the learners.Seventy percent of these learners stated that they sometimes guess the meaning from the context and another 30% reported that they always use contextual guessing.As Table 2 indicates, 60% of the subjects reported that they sometimes look for clues to meaning in the word itself, while 30 % of them always look for clues to meaning in the word itself.Parallel with Qian's (2004) study, asking for help from a teacher was perceived as one of the least used strategies in the present study, since 62.5% of the learners stated that they never ask for the teacher's help for an unknown word.

The high rate of guessing the word's meaning from the context is consistent with the earlier studies that identify lexical inferencing to be a favoured behaviour (e.g.Gu & Johnson, 1996;Harley & Hart, 2000;Qian, 2004).Surprisingly, the high rate of looking up the word in an English-only dictionary (with the rate of 67.5% sometimes and 27.5% always) does not corroborate with Harley and Hart (2000), who found the use of monolingual French dictionaries as an infrequent behaviour in their study.On the other hand, this finding is consistent with Qian's (2004) study, who found a high mean ranking for using monolingual English dictionaries.Additionally, 77.5% of the participants in the present study stated that they sometimes look up the word in an English-Turkish dictionary and another 20% stated that they always use bilingual dictionaries.This high rate is in line with Kudo's study (1999) where consulting bilingual dictionaries was stated as the most frequent behaviour.

Table 2 Frequency percentages of learners' responses on how they handle unknown words (n = 40)

The ways of handling unknown words Never (%) Sometimes (%) Always (%)

Look up the word in an English-Turkish dictionary Look up the word in an English-only dictionary Guess its meaning from the context Ignore the word Ask the teacher for assistance Ask a friend if they know the word Look for clues to meaning in the word itself Make a note of the word (i.e.write it down) Pearson's Correlation Coefficients were used to determine how the survey results relate to the findings from the think-aloud verbal protocols.The Turkish EFL learners in this study made use of the two knowledge sources identified by Haastrup (1991): contextual and intralingual.As for the contextual dimension, there is a negative insignificant relationship between the perceptions and actual practices of knowledge sources (r = -0.23;p > 0.05).As tabulated in Table 3, findings suggest that the higher the perceptions of the students are, the lower their actual practices for the contextual dimension.As for the intralingual dimension, there was a negative but insignificant correlation between perceived and actual use of knowledge sources (r = 0.03; p > 0.05).We can conclude that there is no relationship between students' perceptions and actual practices of using knowledge sources for the intralingual dimension in the inferencing process.3 and 4 indicate that the two variables of the data, namely, learners' perceptions and actual performances, both for the contextual and the intralingual dimensions in the inferencing process, change independently from each other.

Discussion and conclusion

Second/foreign language readers often claim that the existence of even a limited number of unknown words may cause problems for the comprehension of the text (Coady, 1991;Huckin & Bloch, 1993).This problem exists even among university students who have chosen teaching English as a FL as their field of study.The reason for this problem is beyond the scope of this study.What has been investigated here is how learners think they can overcome unknown words while reading, and to what extent their perceptions and real performances coordinate with one another.

Obviously, this study focuses on the question of whether students are aware of the strategies and knowledge sources they apply while guessing the meanings of the unknown words.As mentioned previously, some reported attitudes of the learners in the current study were not in line with their performances, which can be seen through various perspectives.

The results of the quantitative data in the first part of the survey reveal the most and least frequent behaviours of the learners when they encounter unknown words.The frequency percentages indicate that Turkish EFL learners handle unknown vocabulary in various ways.Among other strategies such as consulting a dictionary for their meanings, attempting to infer their meaning from context is a popular way of handling unknown vocabulary by the learners.This is similar to some of the previous studies such as Gu and Johnson (1996); Harley and Hart (2000); Qian (2004); Laufer (1997cited in Nassaji, 2003) and Paribakht (2004).The first and most important matter here is whether the learners make use of knowledge sources consciously while attempting to infer the meaning of unknown words from the context or not.The comparison between the survey data and think-aloud procedure reveals that learners' perceptions and actual practices of making use of knowledge sources are surprisingly different from each other.For example, although they report that they generally use contextual knowledge sources such as "world knowledge" in the survey data, in their actual performances gathered from think-aloud data, it was found that they make use of intralingual clues such as looking for grammatical clues in the surrounding sentence or examining the unknown word to see if any part of it is familiar in meaning.This finding of the present study is in line with Bensoussan and Laufer's (1984:27) observations that "Some words do not have clues in the text in which they appear; when there are clues for such words foreign language learners will not necessarily look for them; and when readers do look for these clues very often they cannot locate or understand them."

The surprising discrepancies between the two parts of the data are consistent with Qian's (2004) study which reveals that Korean or Chinese learners' actual lexical inferencing practices were significantly different from the self-reported strategies they had indicated in the questionnaire.

Similarly, the results support the findings of Loh and Tse (2009) who also found no relationships between attitudes, self-concepts, and the reading performance of the Chinese students.

There may be a few possible reasons for this difference.Learners' metacognitive strategies for FL learning (O' Malley & Chamot, 1990), learners' habitual use of strategies dictated by their teachers, and the way some target words appeared in the ex-perimental text can be counted among these reasons.Thus, the attempts of learners' lexical inference practices were not successful on every occasion.Additionally, their choice of knowledge sources both perceived and practised may be affected by their native languages and cultural background.

We assume that lack of awareness of the knowledge sources they employ while inferencing lexical items may also interfere with successful guessing and comprehension.Therefore, the lack of comprehension adversely affects academic performance (Bharuthram, 2012).Consequently, as suggested by Shen (2009), it is necessary to make the students aware of the taxonomy of knowledge sources and strategies and to train them how to use various sources effectively for developing their lexical inference skills.

Implications

This study has some implications primarily for teachers to enhance FL learners' awareness of the lexical inferencing process.Firstly, they should be aware of the fact that expecting a favourable result from lexical inference practice without training the learners is difficult."When the instruction is given to them, a systematic training with a robust lexical knowledge for FL vocabulary development in both breadth and depth might help undergraduate university EFL learners benefit more" (Shen & Wu, 2009: 199).Furthermore, the effect of guidance regarding the use of lexical inference strategies was also supported by Macaro and Mutton (2009).In their study they observed a higher level of performance in inferring the meaning of unknown words and in the learning of function words by the graded French readers who were given instruction, when compared to the students who were simply exposed to more text without any strategy instruction.

However, they should be cautious while developing strategies and techniques of vocabulary teaching since students may not always do in practice what they believe or report is right for them.The findings of the present study reveal that learners' selfreports on handling vocabulary do not always reliably reflect their actual practices.

The results of the study should be handled cautiously, especially in terms of questioning the reliability of survey data while assessing the inferencing process of the learners.Since it is impossible to control the students' attitudes in responding to the survey, research on vocabulary instruction solely based on survey data is ambiguous.This may have a practical implication for language teachers and researchers of the necessity of collecting more in-depth data, and utilising a think-aloud procedure to examine the actual practices of learners' ways of handling vocabulary.This is consistent with the results of Qian (2004:167), who explains that "In learning English vocabulary, students might not always do what they believe or say is right for them".Their actual performances may differ significantly from what they believe they use.It would therefore be helpful if teachers and researchers take into consideration this possible deviation when teaching or planning and organizing vocabulary acquisition studies.Further studies may be necessary to focus on the comparison of the different methods of collecting and analysing data to assess the inferencing performances of the learners.

Finally, we strongly suggest that further studies should attempt to identify affective factors that might cause success or failure in lexical inferencing.Future research should focus on more salient individual difference factors, such as learning styles, cognitive styles, motivation, anxiety; pedagogical factors such as metacognition, prior knowledge, and content area reading (Oboler & Gupta, 2010); and social factors such as cultural and language variables that affect the reading process.

background knowledge of the topic of the text to guess the meaning of the unknown word.I use the knowledge of the content or the topic that goes beyond what is in the text.I use the meaning of other words in the same sentence to help me guess the meaning of the unknown word.I make use of the meaning of the paragraph or text as a whole to guess the meaning of the unknown word.I use the knowledge about the relation between or within sentences and the devices that make connections between the different parts of the text.I examine the specific parts of the text other than the sentence of the test word, for instance to the sentence immediately following it.I examine the unknown word to see if it contains any grammatical clues to tell me what part of speech it belongs to.I look for grammatical clues in the surrounding sentence to help me guess the meaning of the unknown word.I examine the unknown word to see if any part of it is familiar in meaning.I make use of phonological features of the test word I make use of other expressions that go with the .1.What are the most and least favoured behaviours utilized by Turkish EFL learners while dealing with unknown words in an English text?

.2.Is there any relationship between perceptions and actual practices of Turkish EFL learners in the employment of knowledge sources while attempting to guess unknown words?If yes, what is the nature of this relationship?

Table 1
1
Survey options and their approximate corresponding knowledge sources

Table 3
3
Correlation between Turkish EFL learners' perceptions and actual practices of knowledge sources for contextual dimension
PerceptionsActual practiceSignificancePerceptions1-0.2310.15Actual practice-0.2311

Table 4
4
Correlation between Turkish EFL learners' perceptions and actual practices of knowledge sources for intralingual dimension
PerceptionsActual practiceSignificancePerceptions10.270.86Actual practice0.271Tables
AppendixReading Passage: Health in the Rich World and in the Poor An American journalist, Dorothy Thompson, criticises the rich world's health programmes in the poor world.She describes her trip to Africa where she got food poisoning and her friend malaria:The town is very dirty.All the people are hot, have dust between their toes and the smell of sewage in their noses.W e both fell ill, and at ten o'clock in the morning I got frightened and took my friend to the only private hospital in town, where you have to pay.After being treated by a doctor, we caught the next aeroplane home.Now, I believe that the money of the W orld Health Organisation (W HO) should be spent on bringing health to all people of the world and not on expensive doctors and hospitals for the few who can pay.But when we ourselves become ill, our beliefs waver.After we came back to the States we thought a lot about our reaction to this sudden meeting with health care in a poor country.W hen assessing modern medicine, we often forget that without more money for food and clean water to drink, it is impossible to fight the diseases that are caused by infections.Doctors seem to overlook this fact.They ought to spend much time thinking about why they themselves do not contract some of the serious and infectious diseases that so many of their patients die from.They do not realize that an illness must find a body that is weak either because of stress or hunger.People are killed by the conditions they live under, the lack of food and money and the squalor.Doctors should analyze why people become ill rather than take such a keen interest in the curative effect of medicine.In the rich world many diseases are caused by affluence.The causes of heart diseases, for instance, are far from being mysterious and unfathomable -they are as well known as the causes of tuberculosis.Other diseases are due to hazards in the natural conditions in which we live.Imagine the typical American worker on his death-bed: every cell permeated with such things as chemicals and radio-active materials.Such symptoms are true signs of an unhealthy world.FromHaastrup (1991:234)andNassaji (2003:670)
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