Reference and inference in English reading and implications in vietnamese language classrooms

REFERENCE AND INFERENCE IN ENGLISH READING 
AND IMPLICATIONS IN VIETNAMESE 
LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS 
Le Do Thanh Hien* 
Can Tho University 
Received: 20/12/2019; Revised: 17/01/2020; Accepted: 27/04/2020 
Abstract: This study employed a quasi-experimental design in which guided strategies and practice 
exercises were integrated into the curriculum to measure effects of the treatment in improving students’ 
referring and inferring ability. Besides, a descriptive study based on questionnaire, pre and post - 
reading tests was designed to complement the experimental study and to investigate the factors causing 
their difficulties in answering these types of questions in English. Results indicate that students’ 
insufficient knowledge of the language, their inexperience in answering the questions, their teachers’ 
neglect of the questions, and the absence of the questions in the course books are the four causes of 
their struggling. Also, students’ referring and inferring ability can be developed by teacher’s adapting 
certain reading tasks in the course book. 
Keywords: English reading ability, difficulty, inference, reference 
1. Introduction 
Referring is one of the basic things we do with words and it would be a good idea to understand what 
that involves and requires. According to Yule (1996), reference is an act by which a speaker (or writer) uses 
language to enable a listener (or reader) to identify something. However, words that we use to identify 
things are not in direct relation to these things. Thus, almost any referring expression, whether a proper 
name, a pronoun, or a noun phrase, can be used to refer to different things in different contexts. Therefore, 
to help listeners/readers identify exactly the referents in particular and understand the implicit meanings of 
speakers/writers in general, the role of inference is indispensable. In terms of Teaching English as a Foreign 
Language, reference and inference questions are very common, especially in reading and listening skills. 
We can easily find these two kinds of questions in almost all tests such as TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS, etc. 
However, in the context of teaching English in high school in Vietnam, these two kinds of questions are 
seldom used. Therefore, Vietnamese learners of English, especially those at high school, may 
encounter difficulties when responding to such kinds of question. Although many studies have been carried 
out in the use of pragmatic aspects in teaching English, there is not any research that has been done to see 
how Vietnamese students respond to reference and inference questions when they read English texts. This 
study aims to fill this gap with the hypothesis that the differences in the use of reference in the two languages 
and the lack of linguistic knowledge, contextual knowledge and background knowledge might cause some 
difficulties in the students’ inferring process. Therefore, the study attempts to answer the following 
questions: 
1. What difficulties do Vietnamese upper secondary school students encounter when answering reference 
and inference questions in English? 
* Email: ldthien@ctu.edu.vn 
2. Can students’ referring and inferring ability be developed by teacher’s adapting certain of reading tasks 
in the coursebook? 
It is hoped that the present study will shed light on the most common difficulties for Vietnamese 
students when responding to reference and inference questions in English and that it will be of great value 
for the implication for teaching-learning EFL in Vietnam. 
2. Literature review 
2.1. Reference in English 
2.1.1. Definition of reference 
In semantics, reference is discussed as the relationship between words and the things, actions, events, 
and qualities they stand for (Lyons, 1977). An example in English is the relationship between the word 
table and the object “table” (referent) in the real world. According to Crystal (1985), there are two senses 
for reference. First, reference is the symbolic relationship that a linguistic expression has with the concrete 
object or abstraction it represents. Second, reference is the relationship of one linguistic expression to 
another, in which one provides the information necessary to interpret the other. 
In pragmatics, Yule (1996) defined reference as an act in which a speaker, or writer, uses linguistic 
forms to enable a listener, or reader, to identify something. Those linguistic forms are called referring 
expressions, which can be proper nouns (for example, “Shakespeare”, “Ronaldo”), noun phrases which are 
definite (for instance, “the singer”, “the forest”), or indefinite (for example, “a girl”, “an ugly cat”), and 
pronouns (for example, “he”, “them”). 
2.1.2. Types of reference 
In this research, reference is classified into three different types: co-reference, endophora, and 
exophora. 
 Co-reference 
Co-reference is the reference in one expression to the same referent in  ... one-sample t-test was conducted on the students’ ability to refer and infer in the pre-test scores to 
evaluate whether the mean was significantly different from 0.5, the accepted mean for the students’ ability 
to refer and infer in general. The results were presented in Table 4. 
Table 4. Mean score of the pre-test in comparison with the accepted mean 
 Test Value = 0.5 
 Mean 95% Confidence Interval of 
 T Df Sig. (2-tailed) Difference the Difference 
 Lower Upper 
MEANPRE 3.004 81 .004 .0524 .0177 .0872 
As shown in Table 4, the mean score of the pre-test (M=.5524, SD=.15809) was significantly 
different from 0.5, (t=3.004, df=81, p=.004). It can be concluded that the mean score of the pre-test was 
just a little (.0524) higher than that of the accepted mean. In other words, the results showed that in the pre-
test, when the students had not been trained, the mean score was nearly the same as the accepted mean. 
Another one-sample t-test was conducted on the students’ ability to refer and infer in the post-test 
scores to evaluate whether the mean was significantly different from 0.7, the good mean for the students’ 
ability to refer and infer in general. The results were presented in Table 5. 
Table 5. Mean score of the post-test in comparison with the good mean 
 Test Value = 0.7 
 Mean 95% Confidence Interval of 
 t Df Sig. (2-tailed) Difference the Difference 
 Lower Upper 
MEANPOST -.274 81 .785 -.0043 -.0353 .0268 
Table 5 revealed that the mean score of the post-test (M= .6957, SD= .14125) was not significantly 
different from 0.7, (t=-.274, df=81, p=.785). It can be concluded that the mean score of the post-test was 
the same as that of the good mean. The results indicated that the meanscore increased remarkably from the 
nearly average level in the pre-test to the good or high level in the post-test. 
A Pearson’s correlation was computed to assess the pre- and post-test reliability of the scores that 
the students achieved. Table 6 displayed the results. 
Table 6. Correlation between the results of the pre- and the post-test 
 MEANPRE MEANPOST 
MEANPRE Pearson Correlation 1 .616(**) 
 Sig. (2-tailed) . .000 
 N 82 82 
MEANPOST Pearson Correlation .616(**) 1 
 Sig. (2-tailed) .000 . 
 N 82 82 
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) 
The results from Table 6 showed that almost all students gained higher scores in the post-test than in 
the pre-test. The correlation between pretest-pretest and posttest-posttest (r=1, p=.000) indicated that the 
students who achieved high marks in the pre-test also gained high marks in the post-test, and those whose 
scores were low in the pre-test also got low scores in the post-test. 
4.2. Findings from the questionnaire 
Table 7. Four Factors causing Difficulties (N=30) 
Factors Mean SD 
Students’ knowledge of language 3.7857 .34942 
Students’ learning methods and habits 3.5417 .53067 
Teachers’ professionalism 3.3333 .31238 
Teaching and learning materials 3.0417 .56126 
The results from Table 7 indicated that teachers agreed that these are factors causing difficulties to 
students. The highest mean is for the students’ knowledge of language (M=3.7857) suggesting that this is 
the main factor causing a number of difficulties to their students when answering reference and inference 
questions and the lowest mean is for “Teaching and learning materials”. 
The data were also subjected to SPSS Program for the mean scores of all respondents’ perception 
about the factors causing difficulties to their students. The results were presented in Table 8. 
 Table 8. The mean scores of the questionnaire 
 N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation 
TOTAL MEAN 30 2.73 3.92 3.4744 .30087 
Valid N 
30 
(listwise) 
As presented in Table 8, the descriptive statistics showed that the mean scores of the questionnaire 
and the standard deviation were M=3.4744, SD=.30087. This revealed that the respondents, on the whole, 
agreed that their students encountered difficulties concerning the factors stated in the questionnaire. This 
conclusion was statistically proved by the following results. 
Table 9 showed that the mean score of the questionnaire was 3.4744. This number was between the 
range of scale 3 (Unsure) and scale 4 (Agree). Therefore, another test was also run to compare this mean 
score with the scale 3. 
A one-sample t-test was performed to check whether the total mean score of the questionnaire 
(M=3.4744) was significantly different from scale 3 or not. The results were shown in Table 9. 
Table 9. Comparing the mean scores of the questionnaire and the scale 3 (Unsure) 
 Test Value = 3 
 95% Confidence 
 Mean Interval of the 
 T Df Sig. (2-tailed) Difference Difference 
 Lower Upper 
TOTAL MEAN 8.635 29 .000 .4744 .3620 .5867 
The results from Table 9 indicated that the mean scores of the questionnaire (M=3.4744, SD=.30087) 
was different from 3 (t=8.635, df=29, p=.000). The results, therefore, supported theconclusion that most 
of the teachers agreed upon the factors causing difficulties to their students stated in the questionnaire. 
5. Discussion 
Among main causes of students’ difficulties, students’ knowledge of language, especially their 
vocabulary shortage was the most common difficulties for Vietnamese high school students when 
answering reference and inference reading questions in English. Besides, if the students could not translate 
the text into Vietnamese, they could not make any inference; the students did not know the importance of 
the lay-out, and punctuation of a text, they could not draw the organization of a text, and identify the 
grammatical and lexical relationships between different elements of a text. These items were available 
helpful clues (Gabrielatos, 2002) for successful inferencing to take place. When students read English texts, 
they paid little or no attention to these clues; as a result, they could not make inference. However, the 
majority of their students were not good at grammar, and their students’ English was influenced much by 
their Vietnamese. It was showed that Vietnamese students were not bad at English grammar and this might 
not be a common reason for their poor performance in answering reference and inference questions. 
Particularly, the students tent to choose the answer that was the most literally the same as what was 
stated in the text. In a quick look for reference and inference questions in the three course books (English 
10, 11, and 12), the researcher found that these two kinds of questions were rarely included. Moreover, the 
students only practiced English reading skill in class. These findings supported the conclusion that 
Vietnamese students got familiar with literal questions and, therefore, failed to answer reference and 
inference questions which students did not need to “pull the answer out of thin air” when answering 
(Worceter et al., 2006). They might be easily deceived into choosing the most literally the same but wrong 
options. 
In addition, their students paid little attention to reading and interpreting repeated words in sentences 
and they did not usually integrate the ideas from various sentences in a text. These might also cause some 
difficulties for students because, according to Gabrielatos, cohesion was one of the helpful clues for 
successful inferencing to take place. 
However, not many teachers often included test items which required students to identify referents 
and make inferences in most of the tests because their students were not interested in questions which 
required them to make inference and identify referents. This was really an obstacle to inferencing because 
when interpreting language, the nature and quantity of knowledge that were activated would depend on the 
particular context, co-text and our needs (Garbrielatos, 2002). When students were not interested, not 
encouraged, and even not asked to answer these two kinds of questions, they would fail to do it. 
Another amazing thing is that the teachers had been rarely trained to design reference and inference 
questions or provided their students with useful strategies and processes to answer these two kinds of 
questions. Besides, they don’t often gave their students homework assignments with reference and inference 
questions. Based on these figures, we can conclude that teachers pay little or no attention to these two kinds 
of questions and that they are not skilled enough in teaching reference and inference questions. 
About teaching and learning materials, the findings indicated that the topics in the textbooks were 
more of a help than a hindrance to students because they could efficiently use their knowledge of context 
and background knowledge which, according to Gabrielatos, were very helpful in inferencing. However, 
reference and inference questions rarely appeared in the textbooks and tests and their students did not have 
enough time and English materials to read outside classroom. These figures once again confirmed that 
Vietnamese students lacked practice on reference and inference questions. 
The most notable findings of the study were that the adaptation instruction had a remarkable effect 
on students’ performance in referring and inferring when reading in English. Specially, the participants who 
got high marks in the pre-test certainly got high marks in the post-test, and those whose scores were low in 
the pre-test also got low scores in the post-test. The result also indicated that the intervention program 
benefited a certain group of participants. Lower-skilled readers encountered more difficulties with 
inferential questions and improving their inferring ability than skilled ones. This result was also supported 
by Stanovich (1980), which suggested that lower-skilled readers had not acquired automatic decoding skills 
and therefore needed more time for processing. The finding of the present study was also similar to that of 
Takahashi & Tamaoka (1992), which showed that the performance of the skilled group on the inferential 
questions was better than that of the less-skilled group and that less able readers were inferior to the skilled 
readers in this area demanding the integration of ideas from varioussentences in a text and the retrieval and 
utilization of background knowledge from long-term memory. 
6. Conclusion 
The study aimed to investigate common factors that cause difficulties for Vietnamese high school 
students when answering reference and inference reading questions in English and whether students’ 
referring and inferring ability can be developed by teacher’s adapting certain of reading tasks in the course 
books. On the evidence provided, it can be concluded that Vietnamese high school students face some 
difficulties mostly due to their poor knowledge of the language, their inexperience in answering the 
questions, their teachers’ neglect of the questions, and the absence of the questions in the course books. 
However, students’ referring and inferring ability can be developed by teacher’s adapting certain of reading 
tasks in the course books. From the findings of the present study, some implications can be set up to high 
school teachers of English in Vietnam in the field of teaching reading, particularly, teaching reference and 
inference questions. Firstly, reference and inference questions should be included in the course books 
(English 10, 11, 12 as well as tests and national examinations like the General Certificate of Highschool 
Education examination. By doing this, referring and inferring ability will become a must to develop and, 
therefore, teachers and students will pay much more attention to it. Also, when designing reference 
questions teachers should cover common types of reference and vary them in different units. Since there 
are so many types of reference and each of them is used differently, students may find it hard to identify 
and need to practice adequately. It is the same for inference questions, teachers need to help students 
practice inferring by using different kinds of clues, ranging from linguistic to contextual and background 
knowledge. Hopefully, the results will encourage an extension of research into students’ referring and 
inferring ability. 
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CÂU HỎI VỀ TỪ ĐƯỢC QUY CHIẾU VÀ HÀM Ý 
TRONG MÔN ĐỌC TIẾNG ANH VÀ ỨNG DỤNG 
TRONG LỚP HỌC NGÔN NGỮ Ở VIỆT NAM 
Tóm tắt: Nghiên cứu được triển khai theo hướng ngụy thực nghiệm nhằm tích hợp các chiến thuật đọc 
và bài tập thực hành vào chương trình học để đo lường tính hiệu quả của việc nâng cao khả năng trả lời 
dạng câu hỏi về từ quy chiếu và hàm ý của học sinh. Ngoài ra, những tác nhân gây khó khăn trong việc 
trả lời những dạng câu hỏi tiếng Anh này cũng được miêu tả. Kết quả cho thấy việc thiếu kiến thức ngôn 
ngữ, thiếu kinh nghiệm trả lời của học sinh, việc giáo viên không chú trọng các dạng câu hỏi này và sự 
xuất hiện hiếm hoi của chúng trong sách giáo khoa là bốn tác nhân chính. Ngoài ra, năng lực trả lời các 
dạng câu hỏi này của học sinh có thể được cải thiện thông qua các loại hình bài đọc trong sách. 
Từ khóa: Năng lực đọc hiểu tiếng Anh, khó khăn, hàm ý, từ quy chiếu