THE INCONGRUITY OF THE ENGLISH ORTHOGRAPHY

The Incongruity of the English Orthography

The Incongruity of the English Orthography

Introduction

Over the past some years, English as a second dialect (ESL) practitioners in English for learned reasons (EAP) programs along with ESL investigators have documented a discrepancy in the emergence of oral and aural English dialect abilities and the emergence of English literacy abilities amidst Arab ESL scholars (Fender, 2003; Milton & Hopkins, 2006; Ryan, 1997; Ryan & Meara, 1991).

The anecdotal clues from general facts appears to show that Arab ESL learners display more adversities in evolving ESL reading and literacy abilities relation to other ESL learner populations; in compare, Arab ESL learners appear to present somewhat well in the development of hearing and talking skills. This discrepancy proposes that Arab ESL learners may know-how adversities obtaining facets of English literacy, namely, orthographic or spelling representations of English words. Difficulties obtaining English spelling information not only sway phrase acknowledgement abilities but furthermore constrain ESL reading skills. The present study examines the spelling, reading understanding, and hearing understanding abilities of a assembly of intermediate-level ESL Arab learners and a evaluation assembly of non-Arab ESL learners to analyze if Arab ESL learners display more important adversities in spelling and reading abilities than other ESL learners. The study is directed not only at analyzing the specific desires and trials that Arab ESL scholars appear to face in obtaining English literacy abilities but furthermore to better realise the environment of spelling development and how it interacts to reading fluency. The study will furthermore discover and talk about causes for the spelling adversities that Arab ESL learners display, as well as the significances for pedagogical interventions.

 

 

Method

There were a total of 37 ESL participants. All the participants were registered in the identical high-intermediate grade ESL categories at the identical time (i.e., identical semester) in the identical EAP program. The EAP program is established in a large university in North America. Of the 20 Arab scholars registered in the high intermediate categories at the time of the study, 16 took the paper and pencil TOEFL reading check, TOEFL hearing check, and a spelling check, and therefore were encompassed in the study. The evaluation assembly comprised of ESL participants (L1 Chinese, L1 Korean, and L1 Japanese) whose native dialect literacy abilities did not encompass the Latin alphabet; therefore, the Arab and evaluation ESL assemblies had negligible grapheme-phoneme correspondence abilities and spelling information that could move from their L1 (cf. Figueredo, 2006; Muljani et al., 1998). Overall, 21 out of 26 (= 81%) of the scholars who were native speakers of Chinese (n = 9), Korean (n = 5), and Japanese (n = 7) took all three checks and were encompassed in the study. All the participants described that their first prescribed study of English started upon application into lesser school in their dwelling countries. All of the Arab ESL participants were registered in English categories in alignment to go in an learned program in the United Sates in either the ...