The Effectiveness of Teaching Reference Words Using Two Strategies

In achieving good reading comprehension, the ability to recognize and use reference words and phrases in texts is essential From informal observations, it has frequently been found that one of the major hurdles in comprehending texts is th recognition of words and phrases that refer to the same idea which traditionally have been called ‘reference words’ o referential expressions. The objectives of this research are to analyze and compare pedagogical approaches and strategies fo teaching reference words to MUET Band 3 students in reading. The study indicates that for most of the referent words an phrases, and hence for overall performance, both the deductive and inductive groups did equally well. However, a mor detailed analysis revealed that the few referential expressions in which the deductive group did much better are those tha require a more mechanical application of rules whereas the few that the inductive group did significantly better are those tha require a more challenging processing of the information in the article.