Facilitating positive L1 transfer through explicit spelling instruction for EFL learners with dyslexia: an intervention study

Abstract

There is growing evidence that dyslexia may involve difficulty with implicit learning, which may hinder learners with dyslexia to acquire spelling skills in a foreign language through implicit instruction. Paradoxically, this is exactly how Dutch students with dyslexia learn English spelling at school. This research aims to determine if implementing explicit spelling instruction, based on a direct comparison between L1 Dutch and L2 English spelling, facilitates the development of spelling skills of dyslexic learners in English as a Foreign Language. The participants were 40 Dutch-speaking secondary-school students independently diagnosed with dyslexia (age 12-14). Twenty participants attended their regular English lessons (comparison group), whereas 20 other participants received explicit contrastive spelling instruction once a week for eight weeks (intervention group). The results reveal that during the eight weeks of the intervention spelling skills of the intervention group developed faster than those of the control group, and they remained at the same level five weeks after the intervention. These findings suggest that even a relatively short intervention based on explicit instruction of spelling rules and cross-linguistic comparisons has a facilitative effect on the development of spelling skills of students with dyslexia in a foreign language.

Language Awareness and English Spelling Difficulties of Saudi EFL Students

“…The participants believed that the errors were caused by influences from their mother language, which confirms the findings of Al-Sobhi et al, [8] as well as abnormalities in the English spelling system, which agrees with Al-Khairy's [6] findings. Although the participants in studies by Tribushinina & Karman [17] are not identical to those in this research, they all agreed that their mother language has a role in the spelling mistakes they make. This indicates that mothertongue interference has a significant impact on Arab students' English acquisition.…”

“…The educational benefit associated with learning to spell, which is connected to the freedom to write, is the other reason for learning to spell, according to Tribushinina & Karman [17]. People must improve their spelling abilities so that they may write freely, but without making mistakes in their spelling.…”

“…Tribushinina & Karman [17] specified that when the inflectional or derivational morpheme in English words is left out, such as "bill" as an error attempt of "billed", it is referred to as omission. The omission of one of the double letters from an English word is known as an omission mistake; for example, "happy" (happy).…”

“…Alenezi [4] held the view that different spelling errors in the English language might distort the general meaning of written information, which in the long run may make such a writing incomprehensible. Tribushinina & Karman [17] claimed that grammatical and phonological abilities have a substantial role in spelling performance in this situation. As a result, it can be argued that spellings play a critical function as a basic and necessary ability for pupils.…”

“…Spelling out loud exercise, according to Russak & Kahn-Horwitz [14], accelerates the acquisition of new word pronunciation. As stated by different studies, having a solid command of spellings helps a person to convey his or her views more clearly and honestly in writing [2,9,17]. Poor spelling not only provides a negative first impression, but it also makes communication difficult since the reader must decipher the writer's content.…”