The effect of a computerized help resource on the lexical inferencing ability of English as asecond language (ESL) learners during contextualized reading

This thesis is dedicated to my late mother, Marjorie L. Kirchgassner, for her incredible love and support and to my wonderful husband, Colin Abbott, who enabled me to complete this project. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am most grateful to my committee chair, Dr. Clemens Hallman, who provided dependable assistance over the years it took to complete this project. A special note of thanks is owing to Dr. Sebastian Foti, a member of my supervisory committee, for his creative and unique perspective on issues concerning virtually every aspect of my research. I am thankful to Dr. Lee Mullally, another member of my supervisory committee, for his wonderfully detailed editorial advice and encouragement. I also appreciate the help of my other committee members, Dr. Douglas Dankel and Dr. Roger Thompson, who were willing to give of their time and offer sound guidance. My sincere appreciation goes to Dean Linda Crocker for her wise preparatory advice and excellent critique of my proposal. also provided invaluable advice during the formative phase of this project, and I owe them many thanks. I am indebted to Ruth Henderson and the staff of the English House in Gainesville for the use of their facilities and for providing me with an opportunity to interact with the target population of this study. If it were not for Ruth's support of English as a Second Language (ESL) research, this study would not have been possible. Finally, I wish to thank Brad Moulder for his patient and skillful assistance with quantitative data analysis and SPSS.

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