Arab EFL Learners’ Identification of English Sentence Patterns

Aisha M Alhussain

doi:10.5539/ijel.v8n3p158

Abstract

The article investigated if a significant relationship existed between Arab EFL learners’ and the English sentence pattern identified. The participants were 64 third-year college students studying in the Department of Linguistics at Princess Nourah University, Saudi Arabia. They were assigned 28 literary texts and asked to derive examples for each of the nine sentence patterns listed in Stageberg (1981). An ANOVA test at alpha level P 0.05 and a post hoc test were used to analyze data. The findings of the study showed a highly significant result at p between participants’ performance and the pattern identified. Seven levels of difficulty were identified, where Pattern 1 was the easiest and Pattern 8 was the most difficult. The main components of each English sentence pattern were also investigated to find possible sources of difficulty, such as the use of the copula; transitive, intransitive, and ditransitive verbs; dative case; and double object structure. The denoting of referents, dative case, and double object structures were found to be the main sources of difficulty.

Highlights

1.1 Arab EFL Learners’ Identification of English Sentence PatternsIt is widely believed that most languages have similar sentence structures, but differ in their morphological structures (Haspelmath, 1993)
The article investigated if a significant relationship existed between Arab EFL learners’ and the English sentence pattern identified
This study found other sources of difficulty facing Arab learners in identifying some English sentence patterns, such as denoting referents and datives and double object structure that exist in L1 rather than the excessive reference to the mother tongue’s negative influence

Summary

Introduction

1.1 Arab EFL Learners’ Identification of English Sentence PatternsIt is widely believed that most languages have similar sentence structures, but differ in their morphological structures (Haspelmath, 1993). 1.1 Arab EFL Learners’ Identification of English Sentence Patterns. English is considered an analytic language while Arabic is synthetic (Al-Shujairi, 2015). An important aspect of such differences can be found in the two languages’ sentence patterns. English sentence patterns are taught to EFL/ESL learners to improve their writing and speaking skills, and they are considered an important tool that students need to master for their reading and writing skills (Hostmeyer, 2016; Su, 2001). This knowledge is crucial for precise translation production as well. Not surprisingly, many books offer explanations and examples of how to form sentences in English following the main English sentence patterns to help develop flexibility and ease in written and reading work (Landon, 2013)

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Conclusion