Arab EFL Research Articles

The Implementation of Computer-Assisted Language Learning in EFL Classroom: Arab EFL Learner’s Attitudes and Perceptions

The Implementation of Computer-Assisted Language Learning in EFL Classroom: Arab EFL Learner’s Attitudes and Perceptions

Long Term Effect of Phonetic Instruction on the Production of /p/ by EFL Arab Learners: an Exploratory Study

Most previous studies, that have examined the effect of explicit pronunciation instruction on foreign language speech, have focused on the short term effect of explicit pronunciation instruction, usually measured immediately after instruction. For this reason, it is not yet clear whether the attested benefit from pronunciation instruction can be sustained for a long time after instruction. The current study attempted to explore the long term effect of phonetic instruction on the production of the English bilabial voiceless stop /p/ by Arab learners of English as foreign language (EFL, henceforth). Nine Arab EFL learners were assigned to two groups, control and experimental. The experimental group received phonetic instruction on how to produce the English sound /p/, whereas the control group did not. The production of the English sound /p/ was elicited from all the learners in both groups, once before the instruction and once after 11 weeks of the instruction. Two experienced native English instructors were asked to judge whether the students produced /p/ or /b/. The results generally showed no benefit from the phonetic instruction on the delayed production of /p/ by the EFL Arab learners. Although the results do not seem encouraging for pronunciation instruction, it is difficult to reach a conclusion with regard to pronunciation instruction due to the small sample size used in the current exploratory study, and to the difficulty to generalize the results on /p/ to all other sounds. Future studies may use larger sample sizes and include more sounds in their instruction methods.

Long Term Effect of Phonetic Instruction on the Production of /p/ by EFL Arab Learners: an Exploratory

Long Term Effect of Phonetic Instruction on the Production of /p/ by EFL Arab Learners: an Exploratory

Long Term Effect of Phonetic Instruction on the Production of /p/ by EFL Arab Learners: an Exploratory Study

Long Term Effect of Phonetic Instruction on the Production of /p/ by EFL Arab Learners: an Exploratory Study

Long Term Effect of Phonetic Instruction on the Production of /p/ by EFL Arab Learners: an Exploratory Study

Long Term Effect of Phonetic Instruction on the Production of /p/ by EFL Arab Learners: an Exploratory Study

Long Term Effect of Phonetic Instruction on the Production of /p/ by EFL Arab Learners: An Exploratory Study

Most previous studies, that have examined the effect of explicit pronunciation instruction on foreign language speech, have focused on the short term effect of explicit pronunciation instruction, usually measured immediately after instruction. For this reason, it is not yet clear whether the attested benefit from pronunciation instruction can be sustained for a long time after instruction. The current study attempted to explore the long term effect of phonetic instruction on the production of the English bilabial voiceless stop /p/ by Arab learners of English as foreign language (EFL, henceforth). Nine Arab EFL learners were assigned to two groups, control and experimental. The experimental group received phonetic instruction on how to produce the English sound /p/, whereas the control group did not. The production of the English sound /p/ was elicited from all the learners in both groups, once before the instruction and once after 11 weeks of the instruction. Two experienced native English instructors were asked to judge whether the students produced /p/ or /b/. The results generally showed no benefit from the phonetic instruction on the delayed production of /p/ by the EFL Arab learners. Although the results do not seem encouraging for pronunciation instruction, it is difficult to reach a conclusion with regard to pronunciation instruction due to the small sample size used in the current exploratory study, and to the difficulty to generalize the results on /p/ to all other sounds. Future studies may use larger sample sizes and include more sounds in their instruction methods.

A Process Genre Approach to Teaching Report Writing to Arab EFL Computer Science Students

<p>In the teaching and learning of EFL writing, the Process Genre Approach (PGA), an integration of the process approach and the genre approach, has recently received much attention worldwide. This approach, however, has not been given enough focus in the Arab EFL context. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to report an implementation of a process genre approach in teaching a report writing course; and to explore views of the Arab EFL students attending that course. The study employs two instruments for data collection: observation, for describing the implementation of the PGA; and a questionnaire specifically designed for eliciting students’ views. Participants are 17 students who attended a report writing course in a computer science department at a university in Yemen. A description of the implementation of the approach is presented in five main areas: preparation of form; preparation of genre; planning, drafting and revising; feedback; and teacher roles and scaffolding. The findings revealed positive views of computer science EFL students on using the process genre approach in teaching report writing. The study concluded with relevant implications and recommendations for Arab EFL writing teaching and research.</p>

Arab EFL Students' Application and Awareness of Critical Thinking in College Writing: A Case Study

This paper sheds light on the necessity of engaging critical thinking skills in teaching college writing to EFL students at university. The study investigates students’ attitudes towards writing, the challenges they face when writing paragraph assignments in terms of generating and organizing ideas. It has been noticed that students’ performance in English college writing is not satisfactory not just for linguistic reasons but for lacking critical thinking skills. Many studies focused on the grammatical and vocabulary problems that face Arab EFL learner’s when writing in English. Albeit, this research takes us a step further and even more pedagogical than just linguistic. It addresses the difficulties that students face when writing assignments that require them to argue, analyze, infer and judge. Results show that students’ inefficient writing is due to their lack of critical thinking skills which are neglected throughout their writing experience at high school.

Role of Faulty Instructional Methods in Libyan EFL Learners⿿ Speaking Difficulties

Abstract A body of research indicates that Arab EFL learners are incompetent in oral communication. This has been the case of the Libyan EFL learners who encounter great difficulties in speaking skills. Despite spending years in learning English, and building good linguistic knowledge, they fail to employ that knowledge in real communicative situations. This might be the outcome of inadequate teaching approaches that are employed by Libyan EFL teachers. Their overreliance on traditional methods that emphasize extensive linguistic input rather than communicative output result in what Wolff (2010) calls ⿿mute English learners⿿, who can only read and write but are unable to speak. This paper aimed to investigate the Libyan EFL learners⿿ speaking difficulties and the factors underlying this problem. Total 125 students, from Sebha University, Libya participated in the study. Questionnaires and interviews were deployed for gathering data. The questionnaires and interviews were designed to elicit information about the participants⿿ learning experience, the way they were taught English and speaking difficulties. Data were analysed using SPSS and content analysis. The study revealed that Libyan learners face difficulties in oral communication due to linguistic and psychological barriers. The results also showed that insufficient exposure to the target language and frequent use of Arabic, inside and outside the classroom, were the main factors contributing to the Libyan EFL learners⿿ speaking difficulties. Lack of speaking activities and overemphasis on accuracy at the expense of fluency by the teachers were other contributing factors.

Figurative Idiomatic Language: Strategies and Difficulties of Understanding English Idioms

Learning idioms which is considered a very essential part of learning and using language (Sridhar and Karunakaran, 2013) has recently attracted a great attention of English learning researchers particularly the assessment of how well Asian language learners acquire and use idioms in communication (Tran, 2013). Understanding and using them fluently could be viewed as a sign towards language proficiency as they could be an effective way to give students better conditions to enhance their communication skills in the daily context (Beloussova, 2015). Investigating how idiomatic expressions are dealt with and processed in a second language or foreign language is an issue worth examining further since it may give language teachers a better idea of some of the strategies language learners use in order to interpret figurative language. Despite their importance, learning and using English idioms by Arab EFL learners have not been investigated extensively, and no research has been conducted on Jordanian students’ idiomatic competency. Thus, the researcher decided to work on these un-tackled issues in the Jordanian context. Most idioms-based investigations are the difficulties Jordanians learners of English face when translating them into Arabic (Hussein, Khanji, and Makhzoumi, 2000; Bataineh and Bataineh, 2002; Alrishan and Smadi, 2015). The analysis of the test showed students’ very poor idiomatic competence; particularly a very limited awareness of the most frequently used idioms despite their overwhelming desire to learn them. Data analysis of the questionnaire revealed the strategies students use and the problems they face in understanding and learning idioms.

Cohesion in Written Discourse: A Case Study of Arab EFL Students

This study analyses cohesion and coherence in selected discourses written by advanced learners in the Department of English at Najran University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A case study of Master Degree (MA) students in the female section of Najran University English Department discovers a number of results that show that writing is still a great difficulty for them even at a relatively higher level of education. They show weakness in logical thought and organizational pattern. They lack the fundamental knowledge of the rules of syntax, inter-sentence relations, cohesive devices and other advanced methods of composition. The study is expected to help L2 Saudi teachers to address the problems of cohesion and coherence at discourse level and take pedagogical precautions to prevent them. The study follows content analysis method.

Barriers to Call Practices in an EFL Context : A Case Study of Preparatory Year English Courses

The present study attempts to find out the practical barriers to technology integration in an Arab EFL scenario, particularly in the context of Preparatory Year English courses. The practical barriers to CALL practices are multifaceted and vary according to contexts. In this mixed method study, 50 ESL teachers were surveyed using a 5-point Likert-scale questionnaire. The questionnaire focused on the pedagogical, technological, personal and administrative barriers to CALL integration in an EFL context. In addition, 21 teachers participated in the focus group discussion. Overall, the survey results found that the barriers influencing CALL integration in the study context were moderate. However, lack of administrative support, inadequate training, and absence of suitable materials were found as significant barriers to CALL integration. The focus group discussion reiterated the issues and suggested practical solutions for maximization of CALL practices. The study suggests a holistic administrative approach to solve the barriers to CALL integration.

L2 Motivational Self System Among Arab EFL Learners: Saudi Prespective

The current paper investigates the validity of the motivational L2 self system tripartite model as to explaining the L2 motivational behaviours of a sample of Arab university level EFL students in southern Saudi Arabia. Dornyei’s L2 Motivational Self System (2009) is used as the theoretical framework. A survey was designed and administered to about 400 Saudi male undergraduate students majoring in English. The obtained data were coded and analysed. The results upheld the validity of the of the L2 Self System model’s core components of Ideal L2, Ought-to L2 and learning experiences of English, as well as their relevance in the Saudi context. The findings indicated high significance levels and strong contributions from the Ideal L2 and Language Learning Experiences to the learners’ reported efforts in learning English as the criterion measure. Both components make stronger contributions to explaining the variance than Ought-to L2 component.

Gender Differences and Foreign Language Reading Anxiety of High School Learners in an Iraqi EFL Context

Over the past two decades Investigation of foreign language anxiety generally has progressively caught the attention of numerous investigators in the area of foreign language. Yet, anxiety variable that affects the students’ acquisition of particular language skills for instance, reading specifically have actually seldom been investigated in the context of EFL Arab learners in particular with Iraqi students. So, the study aimed to investigate the influence of anxiety variable towards reading comprehension of Iraqi high school learners. This study also sought to examine the gender differences towards reading language anxiety. Quantitative approach was applied in this research, which involved 20 Iraqi students of a high school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The respondents comprised 10 males and 10 females with ages between 16 years and 18 years. This study made use of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS). The results of the study showed that both male and female participants had a high level of anxiety towards the reading comprehension. Furthermore, the analysis revealed that gender played a slight role in the results of the study. Female students showed a slightly higher level of anxiety towards the reading comprehension than their male counterparts. Iraqi learners need to be exposed to the four skills of English language generally and the reading skill in particular. This exposure makes the learners aware of the four skills (Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking) that need to be acquired and also to decrease the rate of anxiety variable in addition to its influence on their performance.

The Acquisition of the English Relative Pronoun 'Who' by EFL Arab Learners: A Translation Perspective

This paper aims to study Arab students’ use of English relative pronoun ‘who’ via translating statements from their mother tongue (Arabic) into the target language (English). Thirty Saudi adult students, aged 18-20 years old, were asked to translate 20 relative clauses from Arabic into English. The results revealed that the students encountered various problematic areas in the use of relative pronoun 'who', viz. use of personal and possessive relative pronoun, position of relative pronoun, presence of resumptive pronouns in Arabic, absence of duality and plurality of relative pronoun “who”, and use of relative pronouns with prepositional verbs. Such problematic areas were manifested in various errors of omission, addition, selection, word order, and avoidance. The results also showed that the average of the students’ errors in “avoidance, omission, and selection” were significantly higher than (30 %. 25%. and 24% respectively) the average for ‘addition’ and ‘word order’. These errors could be attributed to language transfer, overgeneralization, and ignorance of rules restriction, which were possibly grounded in the lack of exposure to the TL rules and insufficient practice of grammatical activities. Pedagogical implications of this study suggest that instructors should make a good use of the recommendations of contrastive analysis hypothesis (CAH) and Error Analysis (EA). Namely, the students should be made aware of the areas of similarities and differences between English and Arabic practically rather than theoretically. The study stresses the limitations of the findings and directs outlines for future research.

Cohesion in Written Discourse: A Case Study of Arab EFL Students

Cohesion in Written Discourse: A Case Study of Arab EFL Students

Difficulties of Learning EFL in KSA: Writing Skills in Context

<p>This study is an in-depth effort to investigate issues usually faced by EFL learners in writing skills. Fifty students of Preparatory Year Program (from different sections) Najran University were randomly selected to illicit their opinion on writing skill using Likert’s 5 scale (always, usually, sometimes, rarely never) questionnaire. In addition, fifty writing samples from first and second midterms of PYP were also selected. The study analyses the writing samples mainly focusing on with special reference to capitalization, punctuation, language use (grammar) and spelling and their impact on other items of language like articles, preposition, coherence, cohesion etc. Contrastive analysis of students’ writing samples and questionnaire prove that students commit mistakes, though unconsciously, in writing. While conducting data analysis using students’ writing samples, it was observed that students used ways to pass an exam i.e. memorize the writing answer(s)/paragraph(s) rather than the proper approaches to developing/learning most common writing strategies when writing an answer. In the end, this study offers some remedial measures for writing problems of Arab EFL learners.</p>

English Past Tense Morphology in Adult Arab EFL learners: Mental Representation Mechanism and Types of Errors

English past tense morphology is one of the most difficult but yet one of the most important areas in the acquisition of English language by L2 Learners. The objectives of this study were to: (a) determine the acquisition sequence of English regular and irregular past tense forms in adult Arab EFL learners; (b) identify whether English past tense forms are represented by a single mechanism or a dual mechanism, and (c) investigate types of errors that L2 learners produce in their acquisition of English past tense morphology. In total, 77 adult Arab EFL learners participated in an oral production task. The use of the verbal inflectional morphemes in obligatory contexts in each learners production is examined. The results show that L2 learners acquire the past tense morphology of the regular verbs before they acquire the past tense morphology of the irregular verbs and that there is frequency effect for the irregular verbs, but not for the regular verbs. This indicates that the dual system theory accounts for the mental representations of English past tense forms for the L2 learners in this study. The most frequent error types produced by the Learners are omission, overregularization and overgeneration of be forms.

AN EXPLORATION OF THE DEMOTIVATIONAL FACTORS AFFECTING TEACHING AND LEARNING OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE OF EFL LEARNERS IN GULF COUNTRIES

Motivation is instrumental in successfully carrying out any activity while demotivation is a detrimental force that impedes the progress of any action or activity which has widely unveiled its diverse manifestations to EFL learners across the globe. Based on the reviewing of previous works and contexts, the present study aims at investigating the demotivational factors that significantly hamper learning of Arab EFL learners in classrooms in gulf countries. The work utilized triangulation in the use of research methods, i.e. both qualitative and quantitative methods overlap each other: (i) structured interview of experienced EFL (3 male and 4 female) teachers, with maximum open ended questions exhibit qualitative dimension of the study; (ii) opinionnaire developed with closed ended questions by employing Likert’s five point scale, represents quantitative perspectives of the work. The data was collected to investigate teacher’s teaching style and practices in EFL classrooms; teacher’s behavior and method of teaching; mismatches between the curriculum and the level and needs of the learners; crowded classes, use of unauthentic material; students’ inadequate elementary knowledge of four language skills and their lack of determination of goals and objectives to learn English language. All thesefactors call attention of the policy makers to revise and redesign the educational policies up to secondary level education. Keywords: Motivation, Demonization, EFL, Teaching and Learning of English as a Foreign Language

EFL Arab students’ apology strategies in relation to formality and informality of the context

• Arab EFL students’ awareness and performance of apologies in formal and informal social contexts were explored.