The Causes of English Spelling Errors by Arabic Learners of English

Abstract

This study investigates the possible cause(s) of English spelling errors by Arabic learners of English (ALEs). Studies show that ALEs make significantly more English spelling errors than other English second-language learner groups. Studies also show ALEs make more errors with vowels. The omission of short vowels in Arabic writing has been proposed to cause vowel blindness in English, resulting in the poorer spelling performance. This study evaluates this claim by comparing the distribution of short and long-vowel errors and vowel and consonant error types from handwritten texts by ALEs. While this study found more vowel than consonant errors, only the distribution of vowel graph-choice and insertion errors significantly differed from the number of consonant errors by subcategory. Graph-choice errors, not omission errors, were exceedingly the most common error type. Vowel length was not significantly associated with either vowel omission or graph-choice as expected under the vowel blindness hypothesis. The results, thus, did not indicate a missing vowel orthographic transfer effect as the primary reason for ALE orthographic production difficulty in English. Instead, this paper proposes an underdeveloped lexical-orthographic-representation hypothesis to account for both the degree and range of errors found. This study also found that low and high proficiency groups only significantly differed in consonant graphchoice and silent-graph error categories, with the advanced group performing better. These results suggest that ALE spelling skills are not markedly improving with the advancement of other writing skills and that ALEs may need explicit spelling instruction, especially to connect vowel phonemes with multiple graphemes.

An Insight into Female EFL Learners’ Difficulties and Needs in Writing: The Case of Secondary High Schools in Saudi Arabia

“…Moreover, Saudi female EFL learners have spelling difficulties when writing English texts. Spelling difficulties in English are prevalent among all native Arabic speakers and not only Saudi learners (Deacon, 2017). This could be due to the spelling differences between the two languages (Arabic and English), in that Arabic spelling represents the exact sounds of the words, which makes spelling Arabic more intuitive, while English spelling does not always directly represent the sounds of the words.…”

“…This could be due to the spelling differences between the two languages (Arabic and English), in that Arabic spelling represents the exact sounds of the words, which makes spelling Arabic more intuitive, while English spelling does not always directly represent the sounds of the words. Deacon (2017) suggests that Arab learners need explicit instruction in English spelling.…”

“…Some studies have reported that Saudi EFL learners do not develop appropriate writing strategies and practices, which negatively affects their writing skills. According to Deacon (2017), Arabic learners of the English language have spelling problems that need explicit spelling instruction, especially when it comes to connecting vowel phonemes with multiple graphemes. Additionally, Saudi Arabian learners in American and New Zealand universities have difficulties in writing English texts because they get insufficient practice beyond their academic assignments (Alhojailan, 2015;Ankawi, 2015).…”

Vowel Blindness and Gender: The Case of ESL Learners at the University of Jeddah

“…The orthographic system of English, as stated by Deacon (2017), consists of 26 graphs that are derived from the Roman alphabet. When reading English texts, the reader starts reading from left to right and from the top to the bottom of the text.…”

“…⑤ Some graphs or digraphs are assigned no value: live and height In addition, Deacon (2017) stated that when some graphs or digraphs obtain a morphemic value, they may change their phonetic value. For example, the graph (s) for the plural can be realized as [s] in cats, [z] in dogs, and [ɪz] as in boxes.…”