Strategies for meaning making

Besides commenting on the above sources for meaning making, participants also reported using different strategies while navigating through PAT GRAM. To be more specific, they compared meanings of patterns, compared example sentences to their self-produced sentences, substituted interchangeable verbs, and imitated example sentences:

Compare meanings of patterns. To compose sentences with different patterns of a verb,

participants attempted to compare and distinguish the meaning of patterns. Utilization of this strategy demonstrated that participants understood one of the observations of pattern grammar that different patterns of a verb may have different meanings. The following comments produced by participants in verbal protocols and interviews illustrate their efforts of comparing and

contrasting meanings of patterns of a verb:

I also don’t know what’s the difference between consist of and consist in so I read the meaning. I tried to figure out the difference between these two patterns. (Student 3, retrospective verbal protocol)

I am looking at another pattern “V n out of n,” I was reading the example sentences to compare the meaning of the two patterns. (Student 6, retrospective verbal protocol) I went back to the front page to compare the two patterns, because I thought the two patterns were similar. (Student 11, retrospective verbal protocol)

I tried to compare the patterns and write different sentences with different pattern and different meanings. (Student 3, semi-structured interview)

I tried to tell the differences between patterns so as to make different sentences. (Student 4, semi-structured interview)

Compare example sentences to self-produced sentences. In the sentence construction

activity, participants also applied the strategy of comparing example sentences to their self- produced sentences. This strategy was used by participants to ensure that they composed sentences with the correct meaning of the patterns. The comments listed below were selected from verbal protocol and interview data to illustrate how participants tried to make sure they produced patterns with correct meaning by comparing example sentences to their self-produced sentences:

I was comparing the pattern in the example sentences to my sentence to make sure I have the correct meaning. (Student 5, retrospective verbal protocol)

I read all the example sentences. Every time I read, I compare that to my sentence. I tried to see wrong meaning or pattern, and make change to my sentence. (Student 6,

retrospective verbal protocol)

I compare example sentences with my sentences. I examined whether my sentences were correct or not. (Student 1, semi-structured interview)

I just compared my sentence directly with the example sentences to see whether I used correct meaning. (Student 9, semi-structured interview)

Substitute interchangeable verbs. When the target verb pattern was not included in the

example sentences, participants attempted to obtain inspiration for constructing sentences by substituting verbs in the example sentences with the target verbs. Utilization of this strategy indicated that participants understood one of the observations of pattern grammar, and that verbs under the same meaning group share a similar meaning. The following utterances selected from verbal protocols and interviews exemplify how participants utilized their knowledge of pattern grammar to facilitate their meaning making:

“Yield” is not there, but I know these verbs have same meaning with “yield,” so I tried to put “yield” in these sentences. (Student 2, retrospective verbal protocol)

I just read the sentences in the paragraph. And find another similar word. (Student 3, retrospective verbal protocol)

I first looked for the target verb in the example sentences. It was not there. I tried to replace “include” with the highlighted verbs in the sentences and tried to make sense of it. (Student 5, retrospective verbal protocol)

I tried to put the highlighted verbs in the example sentences to understand the meaning. (Student 6, retrospective verbal protocol)

If the target verb is not in the example sentences, I substitute my word with the

underlined verb in the example sentences to understand how to use it. (Student 9, semi- structured interview)

Imitate Example sentences. Even though participants were aware of meaning of

patterns, constructing sentences was still difficult for them. For many cases, students composed their own sentences by imitating the example sentences. The following utterances demonstrated participants’ use of the strategy of imitating example sentences:

I learned the meaning of “associate,” but it was difficult to make sentence, so I relied on example sentences to get ideas. (Student 8, retrospective verbal protocol)

I copied the example sentence with “lack,” and then I typed a new sentence with “lack,” kind of similar to the example sentences. (Student 10, retrospective verbal protocol) I knew the meaning, so I went to the example sentences directly. From there, I learned to how to make sentences with similar meaning. (Student 3, retrospective verbal protocol) If I can find similar meaning between the target verb and verbs in the example sentences, I will make a sentence based on the example sentence. (Student 10, semi-structured interview)

Evidence of strategies collected from introspective data indicated that participants understood the two important observations of pattern grammar and attempted to use this knowledge actively while consulting PAT GRAM. First, participants were aware that different patterns tend to be associated with different meanings. Therefore, they compared the meanings of the patterns by consulting various sources so as to produce sentences that were

comprehensible to others. Also, participants’ knowledge of the principle of pattern grammar, that

through the strategy of substituting interchangeable verbs. Specifically, when the example sentences did not include the target verb, but incorporated other verbs in the same meaning group, participants chose to replace these verbs with the target verb to deduce how the target verb could be used in an authentic context. However, all participants emphasized the importance of providing example sentence(s) for the target verb. When the target verbs were absent from the example sentences, nine participants reported that they were still able to extract meaning from the example sentences by replacing the highlighted verbs in the example sentences with the target verbs, because they grasped the idea that the highlighted verbs and the target verb belong to the same meaning group. One participant, however said, “When the target verb was not in the example sentences, I feel confused” (Student 7, retrospective verbal protocol). Despite the fact

that the majority of the participants were able to process meaning embedded in example sentences, they all agreed that the provision of sentences for the target verbs more strongly supported their meaning construction. Besides utilization of the other strategies, “compare example sentences to self-produced sentences” and “imitate the example sentences” also

reflected the importance of providing example sentences with the target verb. As reported by six participants in the semi-structured interviews, providing example sentences with the target verb could promote the efficiency of sentence construction, since they would not have to “substitute interchangeable verbs.”