Abstract
This study is entitled exploring Spelling Errors among college students. This research aims at analyzing kinds of errors, shown gender differences in doing spelling errors, find potential reasons behind the spelling errors among the university students and recommend some ways in which spelling can be improved for Central Kurdish EFL learners in addition to being taught more effectively by their teachers. The quantitative method of investigating the spelling errors of fifty central Kurdish learners from the final year of English department at college of basic education – Salahaddin University are being studied by utilizing two tests multiple choice and dictation both genders were participated. Findings represent that Phonological knowledge of first language of students, differences in writing system between first language and foreign language, Recklessness and lack of knowledge by the students, carelessness and insufficient knowledge about the words they write, lack of knowledge in English writing system, interference of the mother tongue and its spelling rules have been the issues for their errors. Many English words have silent alphabets in their spellings and a lack of knowledge of correct pronunciation of English words are the reasons behind committing spelling errors. Basis on findings it is recommended that the instructors are advised to relate problematic of spelling errors to students’ mother language to draw their attention to the fact that there are many differences between both of them in writing system, direction, sound system, number of letters, orthography...etc.
Highlights
Dealing with the nature of language may have a role to define spelling because of the features of various writing systems
The total number of errors marked in Test 1 was observed to be 1850 while, there were 2457 errors marked in Test 2
The researcher find that mixed-category errors were observed to be the highest in both tests. 20% errors are marked as unanswered category in Test 1 that decreased to 13% in Test 2. 3% errors were marked as invalid in Test1 that increased to 5% in Test 2
Summary
Dealing with the nature of language may have a role to define spelling because of the features of various writing systems. Spelling refers to “the process of converting oral language to visual form by placing graphic symbols on some writing surface”. “spelling is the association of alphabetic symbols called grapheme, with speech sounds called phonemes (the smallest sounds in speech).”Montgomery (1997, p.1). In English language there are various graphemes to identify a single phoneme. In Kurdish language each grapheme characterizes only one phoneme. The current study will investigate the spelling errors of 50 central Kurdish learners at college of basic education, fourth grade of English department – Salahaddin University for the academic year 2018-2019
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call