VietTESOL International Convention 2026

Lexical inference is widely recognized as a crucial strategy for reading comprehension, yet its application in disadvantaged educational contexts remains under-explored. This case study investigated English teachers’ and students’ perceptions, self-reported practices, and pedagogical challenges regarding lexical inference strategies in reading lessons at a non-specialized high school in rural Nghe An Province. The study employed a mixed-methods design, with the data being collected and triangulated from student questionnaires, semi-structured teacher interviews, non-participant classroom observations. The findings revealed that both students and teachers held highly positive perceptions, acknowledging the benefits of inference in compensating for vocabulary gaps, reducing anxiety, and fostering learner autonomy. Quantitative data indicated that students self-reported to frequently utilize both intralingual and contextual strategies, with a slight preference for using surrounding context and general world knowledge. Qualitatively, classroom observations and interviews with the teachers showed that they actually integrated these strategies into pre-reading stages, encouraged the combination of different strategies and constantly provided support and scaffolding to assist their students in guessing the unknown words. Despite their positive attitudes, both teachers and students encountered significant challenges in the implementation process. The students mainly struggled with a severe lack of vocabulary and background knowledge, while the teachers were constrained by strict curriculum pacing guidelines and the proficiency gaps among students in mixed-ability classes. The study concludes that successful strategy instruction in rural high schools requires continuous pedagogical scaffolding and adaptive teaching methods from teachers to support students, especially low-level ones.