Pronunciation Problems Encountered by EFL Learners: An Empirical Study

Arabs often mispronounce many sounds of English due to a lack of exposure to English as a foreign language. This research article focuses on pronunciation problems encountered by Arab undergraduate EFL learners. It uses questionnaires, recorded speech samples, and pronunciation tests as part of its methodology to analyze learners’ performance orally through repetition drills to help participants articulate the sounds of English through Blackboard Collaborate Ultra Learning Management System. This research emphasizes the main question on the common problems encountered by EFL undergraduates with pronunciation skills. The study aims to train the students with pronunciation tests and phonemic inventory by repetition and imitation to overcome pronunciation miscues and fossilized miscues to enhance their pronunciation. This study is significant because it proposes feasible pedagogical techniques for imparting English sounds and initiating the learners to produce and acquire sounds more accurately, which will help Arab undergraduate EFL learners with their pronunciation problems. To achieve this goal, it proposes feasible pedagogical techniques to impart sounds of English and initiate the learners to produce and acquire sounds more accurately. One of the main findings of this research revealed that our EFL undergraduates have improved in their pronunciation through constant motivation and willingness to participate in the designed tests through Blackboard. Recommendations for further research would be on phonological awareness as an aid in learning EFL

Preschool predictors of learning to read and spell in an additional language: a two-wave longitudinal study in a multilingual context

The study explores whether foundational skills of reading and spelling in preschool (age 5–6) predict literacy skills cross-linguistically in an additional language in Grade 1 (age 6–7). A sample of linguistically diverse preschool children completed tasks of phonological awareness, letter-sound knowledge, verbal-short term memory, rapid automatized naming, and lexical knowledge in the language of preschool instruction Luxembourgish. The children were followed-up in Grade 1 where literacy skills were assessed in the language of schooling, i.e., German, after five months of literacy instruction. German was a non-native language for all children. Longitudinal correlations confirm that individual differences in single word/pseudoword reading and spelling in German in Grade 1 can be predicted by all the foundational literacy skills that were assessed in Luxembourgish. Path analyses showed that phonological awareness in Luxembourgish emerged as the strongest unique predictor of Grade 1 literacy skills in German. The second unique preschool predictor of Grade 1 literacy skills was letter-sound knowledge. Results are consistent with the view that literacy development in an additional language builds upon similar building blocks as literacy acquisition in a first language, at least for languages that are typologically close. However, current findings suggest that respective contributions between predictors and literacy skills in children learning to read in an additional language may vary from patterns observed in studies with children acquiring literacy in their first language.

Evidence from ERP and Eye Movements as Markers of Language Dysfunction in Dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia is a complex reading disorder involving genetic and environmental factors. After more than a century of research, its etiology remains debated. Two hypotheses are often put forward by scholars to account for the causes of dyslexia. The most common one, the linguistic hypothesis, postulates that dyslexia is due to poor phonological awareness. The alternative hypothesis considers that dyslexia is caused by visual-attentional deficits and abnormal eye movement patterns. This article reviews a series of selected event-related brain potential (ERP) and eye movement studies on the reading ability of dyslexic individuals to provide an informed state of knowledge on the etiology of dyslexia. Our purpose is to show that the two abovementioned hypotheses are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and that dyslexia should rather be considered as a multifactorial deficit.

Exploring the Korean Hangul Word Decoding Properties of Children with Reading Disabilities: Implication for Reading Intervention and Reading Related Language Factors

Objectives: This study analyzed the Korean Hangul word decoding properties of children with reading disabilities by considering reading intervention and reading related language factors.Methods: A corresponding sample t-test, correlation analysis, and repeated measurement were examined for the relevance of Hangul and reading difficulties, predictors of Hangul reading difficulties, and the effects of Korean word meaningfulness (word/non-word) and spelling regularity (regular/irregular) variables.Results: 1) After reading intervention, children with reading disabilities improved in their Hangul decoding, listening comprehension, phonological awareness, and word writing scores. 2) Before and after reading interventions, variables related to decoding were receptive vocabulary, phonological awareness, word writing, and rapid naming. 3) The variables of children’s ability that predicted decoding were word writing, listening comprehension, receptive vocabulary, and rapid naming; and the variable that predicted non-word decoding was word writing. Phonological awareness, which showed significant correlation with decoding scores, did not act as a significant predictor of decoding scores. 4) Reading interventions and decoding-level variables (word meaning and spelling regularity) both showed significant effects in the decoding of Korean Hangul, especially after reading interventions.Conclusion: The reading disability of Hangul is acting on both the characteristics of the ideogram and phonogram system, and the characteristics of Hangul’s unique spelling system.

Problems of Teaching Phonological Awareness to Learning Disabilities Students

This study aimed at identifying the effectiveness of using a phonological awareness-based instructional program in developing the phonetic sequential-memorization skill among students with learning disabilities in the Aseer region. The study sample consisted of forty students from the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grades, selected from schools in the Directorate of Education in the Aseer region. The sample was diagnosed by the special education teacher as having learning disabilities. The study used the quasi-experimental methodology and divided the sample into an experimental group and a control group. After applying the instructional program, the results showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in acquiring the phonetic sequential-memorization skill. The results showed no statistically significant differences in the phonetic sequential-memorization skill due to the difference of grade. It is concluded that the instructional program has a continuing effect in developing the phonetic sequential-memorization skill among students with learning disabilities in the Aseer region.

Pronunciation Problems Encountered by EFL Learners: An Empirical Study

Arabs often mispronounce many sounds of English due to a lack of exposure to English as a foreign language. This research article focuses on pronunciation problems encountered by Arab undergraduate EFL learners. It uses questionnaires, recorded speech samples, and pronunciation tests as part of its methodology to analyze learners’ performance orally through repetition drills to help participants articulate the sounds of English through Blackboard Collaborate Ultra Learning Management System. This research emphasizes the main question on the common problems encountered by EFL undergraduates with pronunciation skills. The study aims to train the students with pronunciation tests and phonemic inventory by repetition and imitation to overcome pronunciation miscues and fossilized miscues to enhance their pronunciation. This study is significant because it proposes feasible pedagogical techniques for imparting English sounds and initiating the learners to produce and acquire sounds more accurately, which will help Arab undergraduate EFL learners with their pronunciation problems. To achieve this goal, it proposes feasible pedagogical techniques to impart sounds of English and initiate the learners to produce and acquire sounds more accurately. One of the main findings of this research revealed that our EFL undergraduates have improved in their pronunciation through constant motivation and willingness to participate in the designed tests through Blackboard. Recommendations for further research would be on phonological awareness as an aid in learning EFL.