The Effect of Lexical Strategy Instruction on the Reading Ability of EFL Learners across Proficiency Levels

Lexical inference strategy plays an important role in increasing the level of reading comprehension of second or foreign language learners. Lexical inferencing as an efficient strategy to deal with unfamiliar words has attracted much attention in the comprehension literature. However, few studies on lexical inferencing have been conducted in an English as a foreign language (EFL) setting. To fill in the existing gap, the current study aimed at investigating the effect of lexical inferencing strategy instruction on Iranian EFL students’ reading comprehension. Fifty five upper-intermediate students and ۴۰ pre-intermediate students from a language were selected based on their scores on the Oxford Placement Test. The participants were randomly divided into two groups: control and experimental. The participants in the control group received traditional instruction, while the participants in the experimental group were treated using lexical inference strategies. The instruments used for collecting data were Oxford Placement Test, and a reading comprehension test. A pre-test and post-test were administered for control and experimental groups. The results of the independent samples t-test and ANCOVA revealed that teaching inference skills had a significant effect on reading comprehension performance among EFL learners on both levels. The results of showed that lexical inferencing instruction had a statistically significant effect on EFL learners’ reading comprehension development. It was concluded that lexical inferencing strategies were recommended to teach to improve the students’ reading comprehension performance .

کلیدواژه ها:

Reading comprehension ، Lexical inferencing ، Proficiency level ، Pre-intermediate ، Upper-intermediate.