Making Inferences
Does it make sense to you? (warm-up task) “He put down $10 at the window. The woman behind the window gave $4. The person next to him gave $3, but he gave it back to her. So, when they went inside, she bought him a large bag of popcorn.”
Possible inferences… Man & woman: went on a date to the movie Ticket: $3 each man paid for both himself and the woman (total = $6). Man got the change back ($10-$3-$3=$4) The woman wanted to give him $3 for the ticket but he declined. Therefore, she bought popcorn to call it even.
What if we don’t know how to make inferences? Tom: Are you free tonight? Mary: yes. Tom: I’ve two tickets for the concert. Mary: I see. Tom: So… Mary: What? Tom: Do you like to go with me? Mary: Oh! Sounds good
Decoding inferences “Are you free tonight”= want to ask her to do something. “I’ve two tickets”= want to take her out to the cinema.
Definition
Making inferences “When a reader adds information that he or she already knows to what is stated, the reader is making an inference!” Beech (2005) It is a kind of guess!
In simple words, making inferences is… Reading between the lines!
Inside the classroom…
How to begin with the students? 1) use an everyday occurrence to demonstrate the idea of making inferences. 2) use a short piece of text and ask the students to annotate as many inferences as they can. 3) can use bumper stickers to write the internal text that comes from the external text 4) use the think aloud approach!
Non-fiction text Text type: News report (Longman Express 2B)
Activity 2 Inferring the meaning of unknown words 1st paragraph (example): A wealthy local businessman was found dead yesterday at his home on The Peak. Police believe that Albert Sung, a jewellery shop owner, was murdered.
Activity 2 Inferring the meaning of unknown words died because of money? 1st paragraph (example): A wealthy local businessman was found dead yesterday at his home on The Peak. Police believe that Albert Sung, a jewellery shop owner, was murdered. involving police perhaps he didn’t die naturally passive voice! discovered later, rather strange!
Think Aloud Approach! “Um…let me think…in this paragraph I can see that the dead man was wealthy, that means he had a lot of money…but he died suddenly, and that attracted the police to come…seems a bit strange, so I guess he didn’t die naturally. At the end I spot the use of passive voice, that means he didn’t cause the death himself, or die from an illness. Perhaps... he was killed by someone.”
Remember, when using the think aloud approach… Don’t be shy
Guess result Murdered = killed by someone!
Useful text types for teaching inferences 1) editorials (e.g. by comparing the headlines of 2 newspapers reporting the same news) 2) documentary (e.g. 60 mins. plus) looking for the director’s point of view any biases?
Other means of learning to make inferences
Using logic problems can help students develop their ability to make inferences New Shoes… One day, two mothers and two daughters went shopping for shoes. Their shopping spree was successful — each bought a pair of shoes, and all together, they had three pairs. How is this possible?
Answer Only three people went shopping: a grandmother, a mother, and a daughter — but remember that the mother was the grandmother's daughter! Source: Little Brown, Zoom Zingers, p.49