Target Situation Analysis for integrating L1 to a Sri Lankan TESL environment Rohini Chandrica Widyalankara Observing and evaluating

current pedagogical practices to identify a systemic, rational mode of integrating L1 to the TESL environment under Pre research task I, a classroom observation, identified the pragmatism of restricting the area of integration to vocabulary enhancement. Pre research task II selected the participants for the main research through classifying three L2 proficiency groups: low, intermediate and high, through prior performance data and selected participants using stratified random sampling procedures. The Pilot Studies conducted research and analyzed contrasting descriptive statistics to ascertain whether the ability to infer lexical meaning, dictionary skills vary across the three proficiency groups. Findings were examined to ascertain whether judicious integration of L1 is viable and pragmatic across all three proficiency groups. In sum this chapter identified the impetus for judicious integration of L1 through classroom observation, shortlisted participants for the main research and the research based components of the target situation analysis identified and formulated the foreground for the main research which examines, across the three identified proficiency groups, the effects of the provision of two gloss conditions, English, and Sinhala glosses, which are independent variables in contrast with the control No gloss condition on text comprehension. 2.1 Stage I - Pre research tasks 2.1.1 Pre research task I- Need for L1 translations in an ESL classroom Research method - Classroom observation

Objective - to identify whether there is a need for L1 translations in an ESL classroom and whether adequate resources to obtain the right meaning of difficult English words are available outside the classroom. Research questions1. Do teachers use L1in an ESL classroom? 2. How often do learners check the English-Sinhala dictionary by Malalasekara, or any other English-Sinhalese dictionary for the Sinhala meaning of a difficult English word? 3. If vocabulary items go uncomprehended are the resources available outside the classroom adequate to obtain the right meaning? Research method: classroom observation and short interviews Participants 50 intermediate proficiency learners Procedure the researcher observed a classroom teaching session and collected data from the participants through interviews. Results Research questions1. Do teachers use L1 to accelerate vocabulary comprehension? Observation The researcher followed the research procedure classroom observation to identify techniques used by facilitators to integrate L1 into the ESL classroom. According to the researchers contention the observed practice is one of the most suitable methods which can be used at undergraduate level. This method was defined as judicious integration of L1 in the ESL classroom.

During the lesson prior to testing presentations the facilitator1, stated, If you do not prepare beforehand for the presentations the examiners will know that you are bluffing. Realizing that some of the weaker students would not understand bluffing, the L1 translation in Sinhala was immediately provided, Do you know what bluffing is? Its /pacha gahanawa/ It was observed that a facilitator who possessed high exposure to teaching English to the students of the Department of English, where English is L1, used a different judicious approach when required to teach ESL. Though colloquial in usage /pacha gahanawa/ provided an effective definition which was clear, short and familiar. This usage activated the necessary schemata and accelerated comprehension, the symptomatic result being the shy, embarrassed expressions on the faces of the students. 2. How often do learners check the English-Sinhala dictionary by Malalasekara, or any other English-Sinhalese dictionary for the Sinhala meaning of a difficult English word? Table 12: Frequency of consulting a bilingual dictionary Response Almost always Often Not very often Almost never # of respondents / 50 33 9 8 0

Statistics collected through short interviews bear evidence that the majority of learners consulted English-Sinhala dictionaries. 3. If vocabulary items go uncomprehended, are there adequate resources to obtain the right meaning outside the locale of the classroom?

Professor Manique Gunesekera

The researcher referred to the English-Sinhalese dictionary (Malalasekara, 1958, revised version 2001) and the Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary for the meaning of bluff. bluff - Talking in a rough, kind manner. Innocent, rough behaviour. False threats. Showing false cleverness. A steep incline/ hill.* 2 (Malalasekara, 1958)

bluff False pretension to obtain favours. Deceiving through falsehood. bluff A very steep incline. Telling something to the face. A precipice. An abyss* (Malalasekara, Revised version 2001). The Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary bluff a. Making believe that you will do something when you really have no intention of doing it. b. You show that you know something when, in fact, you do not know it. Analysis 84% of the interviewees often or almost always refer to an English-Sinhalese dictionary for the meaning of a difficult English word. The most popular source used was a bilingual dictionary by Malalasekara (1958, Revised version 2001).The Malalasekara dictionary contained only the probable meanings to the word bluff. It did not provide contexts as in the Oxford dictionary. The contrasting meanings provided are assumed to result in confusion and lead to selecting the wrong meaning. Whereas /pacha gahanawa/ used by the facilitator not only activated the associating schemata immediately, it also provided a concise Sinhala equivalent to the glosses provided in the Oxford dictionary. Analyzing the findings of pre research task I the researcher assumes the following: The majority of ESL learners does not possess good inferring abilities and seeks the help of a bilingual dictionary instead of a monolingual one. The multi meanings provided would hinder identification of the appropriate meaning in context. The selection of the wrong meaning will result in Erroneous input erroneous intake fossilization of wrong schemata Based on these assumptions this research identifies the natural order of self meaning identification the learners would follow if the meaning of bluff was not provided by the facilitator: infer, refer to the dictionary for clarification of inferred meaning or to obtain the
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Translations which retains the linguistic quality of the Sinhala glosses.

meaning. This order of self meaning identification is supported by Koren (1999) who states that in order for the learners to understand the meaning of a word they have to either infer it from context or from its structure, or look up the word in a dictionary. Thus the study conceptualizes the following model to illustrate natural order of self meaning identification followed by ESL learners when encountering difficult English words. Figure 2: Natural order of self meaning identification followed by ESL learners when encountering difficult English words. Learner encounters difficult English word

Step 1

Attempts to infer the meaning

Success

Arrives at a meaning but is in doubt

Failure

Step 2

Refers to dictionary for clarification

Refers to dictionary for meaning

Clarifies as correct

Confusion due to multiple meanings

Success

Failure to identify the correct meaning

Failure to identify the correct meaning

Success

Fossilization of wrong meaning

2.1.2 Pre research task II: Needs analysis and group divisions Objective - to short list the participants through needs analysis procedures and group divisions through stratified random sampling procedures for the research components. .Research questions(1) Does the undergraduate population reflect a need for vocabulary enhancement through judicious integration of L1? (2) Is there a relationship between their lexical knowledge and a) b) Ability to produce a body of written text in the form of an essay? ESL proficiency?

(3) Which population (Arts/Science) is more in need of vocabulary enhancement? Research method: Proficiency identification test in the form of a needs analysis. Participants: a random sample of 100 final year students ( Arts-50, Science 50) who applied for the English for final years programme conducted under the IRQUE project at the ELTU, University of Kelaniya, 2005. Instrument a question paper consisting of the following: 1) A comprehension passage Target question Write the meanings of the 5 given words (tested the meaning inferring skills of the participants) 2) Composition Write a short essay Procedure a random sample of 100 answer scripts was taken from the total population who sat the test. The papers were marked by 6 staff members (the researcher excluded) of the ELTU. The final mark obtained represented overall proficiency, the marks obtained for the composition

represented the ability to produce a short essay on a given topic and the mark obtained for the meaning guessing task represented the inferring skills of the participants. Results: Performance statistics Table 13: Descriptive statistics: inferring skills, composition and overall performance at the test and their contrastive % mean. (n = 100) % Mean Faculty Inferring skills composition Overall performance Arts (n=50) 4.6 44.4 40.8 Science (n=50) 12 56.3 48.26667

Graph 2: Graphical representation for Contrastive % mean for inferring skills, essay and overall proficiency

Descriptive statistics: inferring meanings, essay and overall proficiency

60 50 40 % mean obtained 30 20 10 0 Inferring meaning Essay Overall Arts % Mean science % Mean

Analysis (1) Does the sample population reflect a need for vocabulary enhancement through judicious integration of L1?

Yes. Compared with the % means obtained for essay writing (Arts- 44.4, Science- 56.3) the target question which was a meaning inference test had a very low % mean. (Arts- 4.6, Science- 12) (2) Is there a relationship between lexical knowledge and (a) The production of a body of written text in the form of an essay? Within the limited lexical knowledge the sample population could produce a body of text which obtained a fairly high % mean (Arts 44.4, Science 56.3). (b) ESL proficiency? The % mean of the overall performance (Arts 40.8, Science 48.27) was affected by the low % mean obtained for the target question which reflected the poor vocabulary knowledge and the low inferring skills of the sample group. This caused the overall performance to fall below the %mean obtained for essay writing. (3) Which population (Arts/Science) has very low inferring skills and is more in need of vocabulary enhancement through judicious integration of L1 ? The sample population from the Faculty of Arts was short listed as the target population for the study as they statistically reflected a dire need (% mean 4.6) for vocabulary enhancement through judicious integration of L1. Analyzing the findings of pre research task II the study short lists its target population, undergraduates of the faculty of Arts of the University of Kelaniya who follow ESL courses at the English Language Teaching Unit, as the participants for the research component of the study Group division of participants

The group divisions were conducted according to the statistical procedure- stratified random sampling. The participants were stratified into distinct sub groups based on their proficiency in English and then a random sample was taken from each stratum. Table 14: The participant population Grade W (weak= fail) S (ordinary pass) C (credit pass) B (very good pass) A (distinction pass) Total # of students 281 213 84 33 10 621 participants 60 60 60 180

Table 15: Categorization of participants

Group categorized according to proficiency Grade obtained for A/L General English = Group title Group divisions # of participants obtained through stratified random sample selection

Low W W1 30 W2 30

Intermediate High S,C SC1 SC2 30 30 A,B AB1 AB2 30 30

Two groups W1 (n=30) and W2 (n=30) were selected through stratified random sampling procedures from the undergraduates who had obtained a W grade at the G.C.E. Advanced level examination and they represented the low proficiency learner category. The undergraduates who had obtained S (ordinary pass) and C (credit pass) were identified as the intermediate proficiency level and two groups SC1 (n=30) and SC2 (n=30) were obtained through random sampling procedures. Undergraduates who had obtained B (very good pass) and A (distinction pass) totaled 43. Thus 17 undergraduates who had not registered for ELTU courses were included as

participants for the high proficiency group. Two parallel groups from each proficiency level were obtained as the two instruments (Appendix D and Appendix E) used for collecting data for inferring skills and dictionary skills used the same ten target words as instrument components. Thus when participants have been exposed to one instrument the exposure to the same target words at a second test where another skill is tested creates difficulties in qualitative analysis. This is due to the fact that retention of details from the first exposure might affect the processing skills of the second instrument. Thus groups W1, SC1 and AB1were the participants for testing inferring skills (pilot study I) and groups W2, SC2 and AB2 were the participants for testing dictionary skills (pilot study II). 2.2 Stage II: Pilot studies The pilot studies followed the natural order of self meaning identification (Figure 2) the ESL learners would proceed through when trying to obtain meanings for difficult English words. In has to be stated that progress in this order necessitates a high motivation towards obtaining the meaning of a difficult English word which is not provided in the classroom. If such motivation is lacking this process will not be followed and the lexical items go uncomprehended by the learners. The progress of the learners along the natural order of self meaning identification is empirically tested to collect data at two levels. Step 1 tested the inferring skills of the learners through pilot study I and Step II tested the dictionary skills of the learners through pilot study II. Pilot study I Research question I: Is the ability to infer the meanings of difficult English words dependant on the proficiency in English, and if dependant, how does this dependency vary across proficiency levels?

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Pilot study II Research question II: What is the dictionary preference (bilingual /monolingual) of ESL learners when required to obtain meanings or clarify an inferred meaning? Research question III: Do the participants consult a dictionary for pronunciation? Pilot study III Research question IV: Are the bilingual dictionary skills of ESL learners dependant on their proficiency in English and does this dependency vary across proficiency levels? 2.2.1 Pilot study I: Testing inferring skills across three proficiency levels Objective - to collect performance data on research question I: Is the ability to infer the meanings of difficult English words dependant on the proficiency in English, and if dependant, how does this dependency vary across proficiency levels? Research method: Meaning inferring test. Instrument: 10 meaning inferring tasks where the target words were given in context. The target words were selected at random, their main requisite feature being the multi meanings provided in the Malasekara dictionary, of which only one would suit the context (Appendix D). Table 16: Descriptive information of research instruments- inferring skills Instrument Allocation conditions Participants

Appendix D 10 meaning identification tasks were given as W1, n= 30 Inferring skills multiple choice questions. Three probable SC1, n= 30

meanings in English were given for each target AB1 n= 30 word to test participants ability to infer the correct meaning

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Participants: 30 low proficiency participants (W1) and two groups SC1 (n=30) and AB1 (n=30) from the intermediate and high proficiency groups from Table15: Categorization of participants. Results Histogram representing results on measures of English inferring skills across three proficiency groups: low, intermediate, high.

Graph 3: Graphical representation for contrastive performance at inferring skills: low (n=30), intermediate (n=30), high (n=30)

12 10 freq u en cy 8 6 4 2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 # of corect answ ers low proficiency intermediate proficiency high proficiency

Table 17: Mean scores on measures of English inferring skills Group Proficiency Instrument # of participants Mean Percentage mean Median S. D. W1 Low Test 1 30 2.633 26.33% 2 0.912 SC1 Intermediate Test 2 30 3.1 31% 4 1.47 AB1 High Test 1 30 7 70% 8 1.653 12

Data analysis for the success rate at obtaining the right meaning for the lexical item bluff (classroom observation, pre research task I). Question 2 - If you dont prepare for the presentation the examiners will know that you are bluffing. (Appendix D) Multiple choice category a. going to demand for a re-examination b. trying to deceive by pretending to have prepared c. going to fail as you have not prepared 30 . # of choices / 90 49 21
23.33 33.33

% of choice
54.44

Analysis Table 17 summarizes the performance levels of the three proficiency groups low, intermediate and high. Mean scores on measures of inferring skills indicate that a significant difference exists between the performance levels of the three proficiency groups. While the resulting mean of the high proficiency group (70% success rate) indicates a fairly developed ability to infer while the ability of the low proficiency learners to infer the meaning of the target words resulted in a very poor success rate (26.33%). Data analysis for success rate at identifying the meaning of the lexical item bluff indicates that 87.77 % of the participants failed to infer the right meaning. 2.2.2 Pilot study II: Evaluating dictionary usage patterns of the target population. 0bjective: to collect data for research questions II and III Participants: the total population in Table15: Categorization of participants 2.2.2.1: Research question II - What is the dictionary preference (bilingual /monolingual) of ESL learners when required to obtain meanings or clarify an inferred meaning? Instrument: Question 6 (Appendix C) - What dictionary would you check for

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meanings of difficult English words? Results Table 18: Dictionary preference of participant

Group allocations and percentages of Dictionary type W English-Sinhala - Malasekara English-English Both # of participants 58 0 2 60 % 96.67 0 3.33 preference SC 32 3 25 60 % 53.33 5.00 41.67 AB 0 18 42 60 % 0 30 70

Graph 4: Graphical representation of dictionary preference of participants

dictionary preference
80 frequency 60 40 20 0 W SC Group title AB Malasekara English dictionary Both

Analysis Recalling literature on prior research (Laufer & Hardar, 1997; Luppescu & Day, 1993; Schmitt, 2000) which restricts bilingual dictionary consultation to low level learners the study illustrates through statistical analysis of data that bilingual dictionary consultation cannot be restricted to the low proficiency learners of this study. A high percentage of intermediate and high proficiency groups consulted bilingual and monolingual dictionaries. The analysis of data

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indicates that the majority (96.67%) of low proficiency learners (W) are heavily dependant on bilingual dictionaries when attempting to find meanings of difficult English words. Only a very low percentage (3.33%) referred to both bilingual and monolingual dictionaries and their usage of only monolingual dictionaries was zero. 53.33% of the intermediate proficiency learners (SC) too depended only on bilingual dictionaries but a very close 41.67% used both bilingual and monolingual dictionaries. Though the study expected the high proficiency learners to claim a higher usage of monolingual dictionaries the statistics indicate that 70% of them use both bilingual and monolingual dictionaries. 2.2.2.2 Research question III: Do the participants consult a dictionary for pronunciation? Instrument: Question 7 (Appendix C) - Do you consult a dictionary for pronunciation? Table 19: Results- Dictionary consultation for pronunciation

Response

Group allocations and percentages of preference W % 0 100 100 SC 0 60 60 % 0 100 100 AB 2 58 60 % 3.3 96.7 100.0

Yes No Total

0 60 60

Analysis: Through high exposure to dictionary consultation practices of the learners it was assumed that the majority of them do not consult dictionaries for pronunciation. This research component confirms what experience judged to be true: Almost all learners across all three proficiency groups do not consult a dictionary for pronunciation.

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2.2.3 Pilot study III: Testing dictionary skills Objective - to collect performance data for research question IV: Are the bilingual dictionary skills of ESL learners dependant on their proficiency and does this dependency vary across proficiency levels? Instrumentin English

Table 20: Descriptive information of research instruments- dictionary skills Instrument Content Participants

(Appendix E) The same ten target words in Group W2, n=30 Dictionary skills context in Appendix B with Group SC2, n=30

authentic dictionary extracts of the Group AB2, n=30 Sinhala meaning were provided from Malasekara(2001).

Participants: The participants were obtained from the populations in Table15: Categorization of participants. Procedure: Data were collected from 10 given items in the instrument (Appendix E). The number of correct answers out of 10 was utilized for evaluating performance. Results Histogram representing results -Test for bilingual dictionary skills

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Graph 5: Graphical representation for contrastive performance at dictionary skills: low (n=30), intermediate (n=30), high (n=30)
14 12 10 frequency 8 6 4 2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 # of correct answ ers low proficiency intermediate proficiency high proficiency

Table 21: Descriptive statistics for performance - Mean scores on measures of bilingual dictionary skills Group Proficiency Instrument # of participants Mean % Mean Median S. D. W2 Low Test 2 30 2.67 26.7 2.00 1.193 SC2 Intermediate Test 2 30 5.5 55.0 5 1.43 AB2 High Test 2 30 6.37 63.7 6 1.66

Data analysis for the success rate at obtaining the right meaning for the lexical item bluff (classroom observation, pre research task I) Question 2 - Test for dictionary skills (Appendix E) Q 2 - If you dont prepare for the presentation the examiners will know that you are bluffing. 17

(The following are English translations of the multiple choices available in the bilingual dictionary) a) b) c) d) going to talk in a rough, kind manner going to make false threats making false pretensions to obtain favours going to tell it to the face

Table 22: Success rate at obtaining the right meaning for the lexical item bluff Multiple choice category a b c d # of choices / 90 28 11 19 32 % of choices
31.11 12.22 21.11 35.55

Analysis Table 21 summarizes the performance levels of the three proficiency groups low, intermediate and high. Mean scores on measures of dictionary skills indicate that a significant difference exists between the performance levels of the three proficiency groups. While the resulting mean of the high proficiency group (63.70% success rate) indicates a fairly developed ability to obtain the right meaning of a difficult English word from a bilingual dictionary extract, the ability of the low proficiency learners to identify the meaning of the target words resulted in a very poor success rate (26.70%). Data analysis for success rate at identifying the meaning of the lexical

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item bluff from the bilingual extract indicates that 78.88 % of the participants failed to identify the right meaning. 2.2.4 - Pilot study IV: Preference for L1 glosses Objective- to identify the preference to the use of L1 and the method of providing the Sinhala translations for difficult English words in the classroom, Research method: needs analysis (Appendix C) Participants: The total number of participants (n =180) in Table15: Categorization of participants. Instruments: Question numbers 4 and 5 (Appendix C). Q. 4 - Do you think the Sinhala translations for difficult English words should be provided within the ESL classroom? Q. 5 - If your answer is yes how should they be presented? Tabulation procedureFor both Q. 4 and Q. 5 the data were tabulated according to the three proficiency levels and percentage preferences were calculated to identify whether preference differed across proficiency levels. Results Table 23: Tabulated results for Q-4 - % preference for L1 translations

W Yes No Column total 55 5 60

SC 53 7 60

AB 46 14 60

Row Total 154 26 180

% 85.56 14.44 100.00

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Table 24: Tabulated results for Q. 5 - % preference for the mode of provision of L1 translations
Mode In the material provided On the board Verbally Total W 54 1 0 55
% 98.2 1.82

SC 39 9 5 53

.
% 73.6 17 9.43 100 AB % 6.52 17.4 76.1 100

3 8 35
46

0
100

Analysis Across all proficiencies a high percentage of the participants (85.56%) declared a preference for the provision of L1 translations for difficult English words in the ESL classroom. When asked to decide on the mode of provision, the proficiency levels differed in their choice of the preferred method. 98.2% of the low proficiency group (W) wanted the L1 meanings on the material provided while 73.6% of the intermediate (SC) students preferred the same method of provision. 76.1% of the high proficiency (AB) learners wanted their meanings verbally. Thus the study recognizes that the low and intermediate proficiency groups identify a need for more a concrete form of L1 meanings for difficult English words they come across in the classroom. This need reflects their preference for a permanent, recorded resource which could be reviewed when necessary. Distributed repetition, the controllable time factor and self checks on recalled meanings can accelerate the learning of the new lexical items. The final outcome would be learner autonomy in and an increase of their breadth of vocabulary.

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On the other hand the 76.1% of the high proficiency group (AB) preferred to have the meaning verbally. For this population once the schemata are activated their better lexical processing capabilities make the process towards learner autonomy quicker. The low percentage (16%) obtained for the provision of meanings on the board is an indication that its time consuming nature is a drawback 2.3 Discussion 2.3.1 Findings of the pre research tasks Pre research task I provided evidence for the utilization of judicious integration of L1 in an ESL classroom. The main research of this study wishes to empirically test how beneficial this integration is to text comprehension and to vocabulary acquisition. Thus the key words judicious integration are analyzed to arrive at a broad definition through the classroom observation. Firstly judicious integration negates arbitrary, extensive usage of L1 which spells pedagogical disaster as the learners need to gain proficiency in English their second language. The study vehemently argues that word to word translation of sentences should not be provided as the ESL classroom should not be converted into a locale which practices translation. Neither does judicious integration resort to the pedagogical practices of Grammar Translation Method which is a classical approach to the integration of L1 into ESL pedagogical practices. Grammar Translation Method uses L1 not only to translate vocabulary but also in contrasting the syntactic patterns of L1 with L2 to the detriment of acquiring the L2 syntactic order. Many theorists consider this as a violation of the basic psychological principles of language learning (Goodman, 1975; Nation, 2001, 2005; Stanovich, 1998)

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Secondly judicious integration of L1 requires sensitivity towards the linguistic needs of the learners. To generalize that all undergraduates who register for ESL courses need judicious integration of L1 is pedagogically not feasible. Thus judicious integration should identify the different proficiency levels of the learners and advocate the integration of L1 judiciously through a needs analysis. Pre-research task I identified the natural path the learners would follow if they encounter a difficult English word in the absence of outside language support. This is given the title the natural order of self meaning identification (Figure 2). There were two main steps in this process inferring and referring to a dictionary for clarification or meaning identification. This led to the discovery that bilingual dictionaries that many of the learners refer have multiple,

contrary meanings to most difficult words. This generated a need for empirical evaluation of the extent of misidentifications which would justify the need for judicious integration of L1 within the ESL classroom. Pre-research task II bears evidence to the fact that the students who graduate after following ESL courses have obtained an adequate overall proficiency level in English. It also bears evidence to the fact that they graduate with low inferring skills in English and a very limited exposure to vocabulary but are able to perform, on average, at a satisfactory level when required to produce a short written text. The low inferring skills and the narrow vocabulary will affect their receptive skills as well as their productive skills. These features are strongly evidenced in the graduates of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Thus the target population of the study was short listed to undergraduates of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences who register for ESL courses at the English Language Teaching Unit. On average they are assumed to possess a very narrow register with low inferring capabilities. Thus the study identified that the feasibility and

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the benefits of judicious integration of L1 should be empirically tested on the short listed population - undergraduates of the Faculty who registered for the first year ESL course English for Communication in 2007. Furthermore the researcher recognizes that L1 is used by many facilitators but considers that they should acknowledge the following in the undergraduate population they facilitate. The high L1 literacy rate and IQ level3 The fact that they differ in proficiency levels in English. They are at the threshold of entering a job market which requires good communicative

skills in English, a good breadth of word knowledge (knowing many words) and a well developed depth of word knowledge, i.e. knowing many things about a word- its literal meaning, various connotations, the sorts of syntactic constructions into which it enters, the morphological options it offers, semantic associations such as synonyms and antonyms (see Nagy and Scott, 2000 for a review). The time limitation (3 or 4 years) which necessitates an accelerated gain in vocabulary

knowledge with strategies which minimize the time used and maximize the breadth and depth of vocabulary. Thus through the methodology followed in pilot studies the researcher builds an argument that judicious integration of L1 will recognize the intelligence of the undergraduate population by not resorting to extensive usage of L1, will satisfy their diverse linguistic needs through proficiency level groupings and make maximum use of the narrow time frame available for lexical enhancement. 2.3.2 Findings of the pilot studies

Based on the results of the IQ test conducted at the A/L examination.

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The pilot studies followed the natural order of self meaning identification the learners would proceed through when trying to obtain meanings for difficult English words (Figure 2). This natural order is mostly followed by learners who posses a high motivation towards enhancing lexical knowledge. It is ironical to acknowledge that in real learner situations low proficiency learners are less inclined to attempt following this natural order. According to many theorists (Gass & Selinker, 1994; Paribakt & Wesche, 1999; Pulido, 2004) when confronted with difficult lexical items in texts most learners ignore them. The pilot studies I and II collected statistical data for the success and failure rates at two levels of the natural order: a) Step I where the learner attempts to infer the meaning of a target word.

b) Step II where the learner attempts to obtain the meaning of a target word From a bilingual dictionary The analyzed data of pilot study I indicated the magnitude of success at inferring skills. According to analyzed findings, success rates not only of the low proficiency learners (% mean = 27.33) but also the intermediate proficiency learners (% mean = 31.00) illustrated that they possessed poor inferring skills. Many theorists have attributed these poor inferring skills to the lack of sight vocabulary. Haynes and Baker (1993) state that in order to guess the meanings of unknown words in context the learner must be able to recognize, on sight, most of the surrounding words. Nation and Hwang (1995) are not only more numerically specific they upgrade words to word families. They state that sight recognition knowledge of the 2000 most frequent word families is needed for successful inferring. These word families consist of a base form and all its derived and inflected forms. But Laufer (1997a) has upgraded the sight vocabulary requirements further by stating that for successful inferring learners should know 98% or more of the surrounding vocabulary, which in many cases, amounts to knowledge of at

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least 5000 word families. Thus the lack of sight vocabulary in low level learners would result in either failure to infer the right meaning or being at doubt whether the inferred meaning is correct. The next step of the natural order in meaning identification (figure 2) is to refer to a dictionary. The analyzed results of pilot study II indicated that the low proficiency learners with very poor inferring skills heavily and exclusively depended on bilingual dictionaries (96.67 %) when required to obtain meanings of difficult English words while intermediate proficiency learners dependency was middling (53.33%). But an almost equal 41.67 % of this group and 70% of the high proficiency learners referred to both bilingual and monolingual dictionaries. This indicated that across all proficiency groups the bilingual dictionary was a popular source for finding the meaning of a difficult English word. Thus the study could generalize that most learners refer to bilingual dictionaries. This is supported by surveys of dictionary preferences which provide statistical evidence to indicate that ESL learners strongly favour bilingual or bilingualized dictionaries. According to Hulstjn, Hollander& Griedanus, (1996) and Knight, (1994) learners value bilingual dictionaries as they assist vocabulary development at all levels of proficiency and the reading proficiency, especially of low level learners, can be greatly improved through the consultation. But Tang (1997) states that with the exception of comprehensive bilingual dictionaries they contribute to over reliance on one-to-one word translation and have little information in their entries. This is applicable to bilingual dictionaries in Sri Lanka and furthermore as evidenced in pre research task I they are devoid of usage information and very often contain multiple contradictory meanings. Very many of them are archaic Sinhala usages which are unnecessary distracters. bilingualized English Sinhala dictionaries which contain the advantages of the bilingual and monolingual dictionaries combined together are yet to be created in Sri Lanka. A bilingualized

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entry typically includes: L2 definitions, L2 sentence examples, and either full L1 translations of the L2 information or L1 synonyms of the headword. Furthermore, according to Laufer & Hadar, (1997), and Laufer & Kimmel, (1997) using a bilingualized dictionary is more efficient than using separate bilingual and monolingual dictionaries. Monolingual dictionaries, on the other hand, contain a wealth of information, and provide up to date reliable sentence examples drawn from corpus data that provide information about meanings, grammar and usage (Harvey & Yuill, 1997), and their definitions are often within a controlled vocabulary. But according to Tang (1997), the definition vocabulary usually consists of about 2000 words. Thus to use a monolingual dictionary effectively, learners need to have at least a receptive vocabulary of 2000 words and they need to interpret definitions which are more difficult than L1 synonyms. This makes the low level learners who possess very narrow vocabulary knowledge prefer to enter the comfort zone of L1 synonyms provided in the monolingual dictionaries. Further difficulties await the learners who consult monolingual dictionaries. Amritavalli (1999) provides evidence for the presence of overly difficult and culturally bound examples drawn from corpus data. These difficulties contribute to the reluctance of even the high proficiency learners to be exclusively dependent (18%) on monolingual dictionaries. This plethora of deficiencies and difficulties in dictionaries results in the poor success rate evidenced in pilot study III which tested step 2 of the natural order of self meaning identification- dictionary skills. The results bore evidence to the fact that the success rate of this dependency on bilingual dictionaries to obtain the correct meaning differed according to the proficiency group of the learners. The percentage mean obtained by the proficiency groups: low - 26.7%, intermediate - 55%, high 63.7% indicate that the low proficiency learners had little success and intermediate proficiency learners had middling success in obtaining the

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right meaning from the bilingual dictionary extracts provided in the instrument. It is my contention that not only the linguistic proficiency of the learners but also the inherent drawbacks in bilingual dictionaries and the high linguistic demands of the monolingual dictionaries available for them contribute towards the poor performance in dictionary skills. Statistics bore evidence to the fact that only 3.3% of the learner population refer to a dictionary for pronunciation of a word. Pronunciation of English words, though available in bilingual dictionaries, is complex to uncipher and it is a time consuming task. The phonetic transliterations available in monolingual dictionaries are not accessed as the learners have had no exposure to the phonetic alphabet, not even the one provided in a dictionary, and thus do not possess the ability to obtain the pronunciation of a word from a dictioary. The study finds this a drawback to its aim of vocabulary enhancement within the learner population. Thus the pedagogical

implementations of the study gives recognition to the area of pronunciation and discusses a L1 integrating strategy, utilization of loan words, to provide the learners the necessary exposure to the phonetic alphabet of English. Thus the three forerunners to the main study pilot studies I, II and III identified that a high percentage of low and intermediate learners did not perform successfully in inferring skills and identified wrong meanings at the test for dictionary skills. As indicated by the natural order of self meaning identification the corollary would be the fossilization of the wrong meaning. Focusing on the high proficiency learners, though their inferring skills are fairly developed most of them too refer to bilingual dictionaries and face difficulties. Thus the resultant probability of identifying the right meaning is middling. The study argues that there is a pedagogical requirement to intervene at step 1 through judicious integration of L1 where meanings are provided for words judged as difficult to infer and would

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result in the time consuming and very often unsuccessful procedure of dictionary consultation. Given the intelligence of the learners, the provision of the L1 equivalent will immediately activate the relevant linguistic associations within the given context. The non provision will activate a multitude of associations creating a web of misconceptions. Evidence for this comes from the analysis of success levels at inferring and dictionary skills tested on the following statement (pre research task I, classroom observation). If you dont practice for the presentation the examiners will know that you are bluffing. The learners immediately comprehend the lexical items practice, presentations as these occur in the form of borrowings from English in the code repertoire of their L1- Sinhala. Examiners on the other hand can be guessed in context as a derivative of exam which is again a borrowed from English to Sinhala. This is possible as lexical comprehension according to Goodman (1975) is a psycholinguistic guessing game The negative form dont is again within their inferring level due to its high frequency of occurrence. Thus though the context is understood the failure rate was a high 87.77% at inferring the meaning and an equally high 78.88% at identifying the right meaning from a dictionary extract. This according to my contention is the result of the psychological affinity the learners, especially the low and intermediate, feel towards the distracters. The possibility of demanding a reexamination or talking in a rough, kind manner (this is one meaning given in the bilingual dictionary though an interlocutor might find the combination of two antonyms difficult to produce in short discourse) explaining that you have not prepared for the presentation are very attractive associations activated by the context. More evidence comes from the low preference (12.22%) given to going to make false threats as the possible meaning for bluffing. This is rendered as impossible as the learners cognize that an examiner- examinee relationship cannot evolve into the generation of threats. On the other

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hand the immediate provision of the L1 equivalent pacha gahanawa resulted in the immediate activation of the right schema for comprehension. Thus at the end of pilot study III the study has justified the need for and clinched the argument towards judicious integration of L1 in the ESL context targeted in this study. But as further justification, pilot study IV, was conducted to obtain the preference of the learners towards the judicious integration of L1 in the ESL classroom and the preferred mode of provision. The high percentage (85.6%) of preference to judicious integration of L1 bore evidence for the feasibility of its introduction into pedagogical practices. It is to be noted that 76.66% of the high proficiency learners too preferred such integration. But the preference of the mode of provision differed indicating that the high proficiency learners preference (76%), was for verbal provision while the intermediate and low proficiency groups wanted a more concrete form of the meanings to difficult English words provided. This identifies a pedagogical need for two different modes of providing meanings through judicious integration of L1 in the ESL classroom. The pilot studies tested lexical comprehension at sentence level and obtained data which statistically validated that most low and intermediate proficiency learners have poor inferring and dictionary skills which hindered their process of arriving at the meaning of difficult English words. Based on these findings the study wishes to upgrade the area of research of the main study from sentence comprehension to text comprehension. The main research will continue to retain the priority given to lexis over grammar in the forerunners. Judicious integration in this context will be identified as the provision of L1 glosses to difficult English words which occur in the given text. In conclusion this study forms the following hypothesis which will be the statistically tested for validity in the main research.

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Hypothesis I: Provision of Sinhala glosses for difficult English words which occur in comprehension passages will accelerate and increase comprehension in low and intermediate proficiency groups.

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