The Case of Arabic ESL Learners, Essay Example

English has always been a great difficulty for EFL learners (English as a foreign language) despite of the mother tongue. It has been found among the Arab EFL learners that the english prepositions is a difficult to understand because of the cross linguistics between English and Arab prepositional system (Showalter, Catherine & R. A. C. H. E. L, 2015) .In some places english language allows a logical degree of freedom with respect to certain prepositional phrases (Chen, 2015). This sometimes confuse the Arab speakers and lsiteners in such a way that the person my choose the incorrect items which will negatively effect the quality of translation or even can change the meaning of the word (Saigh, Kholood, & Norbert ,2012).

English which has almost three times more vowel sounds then Arabic suchas sheep/ ship or bed/ bad and Arab listeners may find difficulty in listening such words  (Chen, 2015). The swallowing or elision of sounds which is so common while speaking English can be problematic for Arab speakers, considering the example, “ do you know her?” or what did you do? are mostly said while conversation in English: (Jew know her? / Whatcha do?) This will reduce the interest of Arab listeners (Chen, 2015). There are few Arabic and English cognates which will definitely increase the problems they have in understanding what they read, listen and hear (Saigh, Kholood, & Norbert ,2012). The Arabs who are speaking, writing and listening english from theere childhood may find themselve comfortable with english. They find it easy to understand but still the pronounciation may vary from the actual.

Work cited

Chen, Keith. ‘Could Your Language Affect Your Ability To Save Money?’ Ted.com. N.p., 2015. Web. 12 May 2015.

Saigh, Kholood, and Norbert Schmitt. “Difficulties with vocabulary word form: The case of Arabic ESL learners.” System 40.1 (2012): 24-36.

Showalter, Catherine E., and R. A. C. H. E. L. Hayes-Harb. “Native English speakers learning Arabic: The influence of novel orthographic information on second language phonological acquisition.” Applied Psycholinguistics 36.01 (2015): 23-42.