As what has been previously discussed in the high basic and low intermediate indicator, a word may take on a multiplicity of meanings unless properly used in context. Let us look at another example. When a student looks up for the meaning of the word ‘appear’ in the dictionary, he/she may find these two most common meanings: firstly, the word ‘appear’ like ‘The new treatment for influenza doesn’t appear to work’ may be defined as a state of being similar to the word ‘seem’. Secondly, the word ‘appear’ as in ‘Madonna often appears in musicals on Broadway’ may also be defined as an action word similar in meaning to the phrase ‘take part’. Now if a student being given any of the two sentences mentioned were able to pick or locate the correct meaning of ‘appear’ in the dictionary, then the student is best placed in the high intermediate level. Why? It is because the student already has the skill to make a distinction between and among the different meanings provided by the dictionary. This skill is one of the benchmarks of students in the high intermediate level.

Moving on one step farther to low advanced, mid advanced, and high advanced levels, we need to at least have a basic idea of what context is all about. To help us better understand this idea, please take a look at the following sentences:

1. The sun is very bright.

2. The future looks bright for the company.

3. He is a very bright student.

Although all the three sentences contain the word ‘bright’, the meaning is not the same for each and every one of them. In the first sentence, the word ‘bright’ may be defined as a word similar in meaning to the word ‘dazzling’; in the second the same word may well be related to the word ‘optimistic’; and in the third it may be comparable to the word ‘intelligent’. The question here does not lie on sheer synonymy of words but rather on how a student without using a dictionary is able to make out different meanings for the same word. Context comes in handy in unlocking the meaning of a word without the help of a dictionary especially during examination where students are prohibited from bringing dictionary to school. Just what is context exactly? How does it work? Context in layman’s term refers to how a word helps another word create meaning in the sentence. This process is called context cluing. So going back to the discussion, the student understands that the word ‘bright’ in the first sentence is similar to the word ‘dazzling’ because of the word ‘sun’. ‘Sun’ is the context clue of the word ‘bright’ which helps the student create the appropriate meaning in the sentence. Context cluing is the common indicator of students in low, mid, and high advanced levels. The only thing that makes it different is the amount of context cluing skills present in a student. Thus it can be said that students in low advanced level has low context cluing skills, mid advanced level with mid context cluing skills, and high advanced levels with high context cluing skills plus the ability to assign meaning to a word using word order. Word order simply means how a word changes the meaning of the sentence according to the position it occupies in it. For example, consider the two sentences: He left the station and He was left at the station. Although both sentences have the same word ‘left’, the meaning of the two sentences is entirely different. The difference lies in the position the word ‘left’ occupies in the sentence. In the first example, the sentence is said to be in the active voice. This means the subject is the performer of the action. The second sentence on the other hand is a sentence in the passive voice. This means that the subject of the sentence is no longer the performer of the action but is now actually the receiver. In summary, the meaning of the sentence simply changes from active to passive by virtue of the position the word occupies in the sentence.

Moving down to the next area of the indicator, we can see that more than 85 % of the skills listed in the grid focuses on a student’s ability to answer questions with regard reading passages. We can also observe that there is a sequence of skills being developed from one level to the next such that the skill indicator in one level becomes a notch more complex than the skill that precedes it. The progression is as follows:

1.   It starts off in high basic level where the student orally answers simple factual questions based on a reading passage.

2.   After this comes the low intermediate level where the student displays not only his/her ability to orally respond to factual questions but also his/her ability to locate the answers to the questions in the text.

3.   Still moving on to the right side of the grid is the mid intermediate level where the student answers factual questions in writing.

Please note that it is expected that the student will show some signs of difficulty as he/she tries to move from high basic level up to mid intermediate level. This behavior should not be taken against the student’s level.

4.   Next to our right is the high intermediate level which is strikingly similar to high basic indicator. Although they share the same indicator in answering factual questions, they differ in the fact that the high intermediate level does not require assistance from the teacher anymore. A student at this level has more or less developed learner independence and can generally handle questions using his/her own ability.

5.   Moving on to low advanced level, we can observe that the student already has the skill to answer factual questions both orally and in writing.

6.   Next to follow is the mid advanced level where the student displays a more developed skill by responding to evaluative questions about the effectiveness or practicality of a reading passage. A student at this level also attempts to retell reading passages with the teacher’s assistance.

7.   Last is the high advanced level where the student exhibits his/her ability to respond orally and in writing to opinion and inference questions including complicated academic reading passages.

In basal reading, words are generally categorized into two classes: one, those that follow the rules of phonics for reading/decoding and two, those that don’t. For the latter, they are called sight words. They are called sight words because students learn them according to how they look like. Students who have learned a lot of sight words read these words automatically by merely looking at them as opposed to phonologically decoding them. Most basal readers who have spent much time practicing reading phonic words eventually become so familiar reading them that they have come to the point that they no longer need to read/decode these words using phonics. The mere sight of these words automatically brings sound and meaning into the reader’s mind. In other words, sight words in this context simply refer to the words that the reader can read and not to the actual sight words per se. To summarize, a student at this level has very limited vocabulary which hinders his/her reading comprehension.

The ability of a student to identify abbreviations makes up a part in the mid intermediate indicators. Although a great many teachers believe that interpreting abbreviations play only a small part in the learning process, we believe otherwise. We believe that the importance of learning abbreviations must not be overlooked in the context of modern business setting especially when most of our adult learners are in one way or another involved in business and trade. Taken against a business context, these abbreviations: R.S.V.P., qty, E.T.A., pls cfm, a/c, A.G.M., attn, re, G.D.P., G.N.P., lb, I.O.U., VAT, Nb, PA, p.a., pd., PR, and cc will definitely play an integral part in an adult student’s vocabulary acquisition. Please note that these abbreviations need to be taught in business context where these vocabularies are most commonly read and used.

A word/vocabulary used independently is very difficult to interpret. Why? This is because a word/vocabulary may have a variety of meaning depending on how it is used in relation to other words in the sentence. Let us take the word ‘drive’ as a case in point. The most common meaning associated with this word in familiar context is ‘to operate a car’. Although we know that ‘drive’ may have other definitions attached to it, this meaning is what intuitively gets inside the student’s head especially if the student has or drives a car. This is the stage where the student learns to attach the most familiar meaning to a word and how this word is used in everyday situation. This is quite an achievement for a student who began in low basic where he/she identifies sight words and moved a notch higher to high basic where he/she begins to interpret or define words. The drawback of this stage is when the familiar word ‘drive’ is used in a meaning other than the meaning commonly attached to it. Say for example, the expression ‘It drives me crazy’. When a student hears the word ‘drive’, he/she may define it using familiar context (to drive a car) and misunderstands the expression altogether causing a breakdown in communication. To summarize, students at this level defines a word using the word’s connotative or familiar meaning. It is interesting to note that students in high basic and low intermediate share the same level indicator in the area of words and phrases. In case there may be confusion as to which level exactly a student having this indicator will be placed, check out the other indicator below each level. So if the student can answer questions based on a reading passage but cannot locate this information in the text, then place the student in high basic. On the other hand, if the student is able to answer the same questions and is also able, although with some amount of difficulty, to locate the information in the text, then place the student in low intermediate.