English Spelling Reform for the Foreign Arabic Students
Introduction
The aspect of acquiring English or any other language as a second language has always been a challenge to foreign students. Many of them have trouble acquiring these languages such that some states and nations worldwide prefer bilingual education systems even though the practice faces challenges from policymakers. While this is the case, foreign students acquiring English as their second language always have challenges in spelling and pronouncing some English words, especially the ones with silent letters (Guffey, & Seefer, 2010). This is a major problem for these students as they learn English because understanding both written and spoken language depends on the students’ abilities to spell and pronounce English words correctly. In fact, the ability to read comprehensions effectively among foreign students depends on the students’ abilities to recognize English words used in the comprehension and pronounce them correctly. This in return has something to do with the spelling of those words (Calderon, & Minaya-Rowe, 2011). This means that the connection between the sounds and spelling patterns of English words is an important aspect of acquiring English as a second language.
In acknowledgment of the challenges foreign students face when acquiring English as their second language, this research proposal proposes research that will establish the way reforms in spelling certain English words would help foreign Arabic readers improve their proficiency in English. The research seeks to establish the spelling reforms that will meet the needs and abilities of these students in acquiring English as their second language. Such reforms will be in line with the needs and abilities of the Arabic students, thereby help them in acquiring the English language with ease.
Objective/Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to reform the trend of spelling English words to help foreign Arabic students communicate in English effectively as well as help them read and understand English texts easily. The study assumes that proficiency in spelling English words would help foreign Arabic students understand English and communicate in it effectively thereby reducing misunderstandings that result from pronunciation and spelling of certain English words (Fischer, 1985).
Problem Statement
With increased advancement in technology, the nature of spelling English words continues to change. Every time you watch television, use social media platforms, or mobile devices, the spelling of some English words keeps on changing. With such a challenge, it would be important to reform the spelling of English words to enhance the way people, especially Arabic foreign students communicate in English. The purpose of learning to spell English words proficiently is to enable Arabic students and other people to communicate effectively in English as well as help them read and understand written English texts easily (Shankweiler et al., 1996). With respect to the above argument, the research proposal seeks to test the following null hypotheses.
Null hypothesis: there is no correlation between the pronunciation and the spelling of English words with silent letters among the foreign Arabic students
Testing the above null hypothesis will help in establishing whether there exists any correlation between the way Arabic students pronounce and spell English words with silent letters.
Literature Review
Acquisition of the second language is quite different from the acquisition of the first language, but to some extent, it might be similar to the acquisition of the first language even though it proves challenging sometimes. In acquiring the first language, children usually acquire it through the sounds, syntax, words, and grammar they learn from their parents and other people in their surroundings. They approximate the sounds that come from the environment they live in and develop different hypotheses about the way language works (Burkhardt, 2010). Usually, children do not use the same words they hear their parents and other people use, but they may simply produce sounds that they copy from those people. As their parents and other people in their surroundings correct them, then they learn to communicate in those languages effectively. The same process may apply to some people as they acquire their second language. In this case, the English language is not the first language for foreign students. The words they write and the sounds they hear may not reflect the usual patterns of the English language. They might pronounce or spell words from the English language incorrectly, but as they receive responses from the teachers and other people proficient in the English language, they may learn English with time. In this case, learning how to spell English words correctly requires the same opportunities, feedback, and modeling that apply to children as they acquire their first languages (Calderon, & Minaya-Rowe, 2011).
Reading which includes alphabetic knowledge of the letters used in the second language is fundamental in pronouncing and spelling words in the second language. It helps in understanding the orthography of the second language that might be different from the one of the first language. It also helps in establishing the connection between phonemes and graphemes of the second languages (Ehri, 2005). To some extent, students might have trouble in spelling and pronouncing words in second languages because they do not understand certain aspects in those languages. However, with proper learning, they can improve their competencies in spelling and pronouncing words in second languages (Mersand et al., 2006). In this regard, the capacity to read is an important one in spelling and pronouncing words in second languages.
Campion (n.d) claims that English orthography is quite different from the orthography of other languages, such as Spanish. She further claims that the position of the vowels determines the pronunciation and the spelling of the English words. As such, the position of the vowels, as well as the consonants in English words, might influence the pronunciation and the spelling of the English words by foreign students (Burkhardt, 2010). With regard to orthography, Campion claims that a letter in the English language can represent more sounds as opposed to representing just one sound. At the same time, some sounds in English take different forms of spelling (Campion, n.d). For instance, some words such as two, too, and to sound the same, but they are all different from each other. Their spellings are also different. Given this fact, then it is possible for foreign students to have difficulties in spelling and pronouncing some English words.
A study by Campion suggests that people spell words in the same way they pronounce them. Therefore, because of the complexity of the English orthography, some people might have problems spelling or writing some English words. In this case, the sound might be the same while the spelling might be different. Based on this fact, Campion claims that students from Spain might have problems spelling English words because of the absence of some structures, such as morphemic in the Spanish language (Campion, n.d). On the same note, other students from other cultures that have the same challenge might face the same problem just as the Spanish students. Despite this fact, students’ proficiency in English depends on individual sensitivity to the language. Some students might be sensitive to the way they spell words and pronounce them whereas other students might not be sensitive to these things. With respect to this fact, it is clear that both the pronunciation and spelling of English words go hand in hand. As a result, a student that is proficient in pronouncing English words might be proficient even in spelling them. The opposite is true. On the contrary, Sterling (1983) attributes the poor spelling of English words to the improper articulation of sounds in some English words. This might happen when the structure of the English language differs from the structure of the language for foreign students. In summing up some pronunciation and spelling differences between English and Spanish, Campion claims that the differences in syllables between the two languages contribute to the difficulties Spanish students experience in learning and acquiring the English language (Campion, n.d).
Materials
The research will identify a number of English words with silent letters. From the list, the research will identify five keywords that pose problems to foreign students as they spell and pronounce them. Once the research identifies the five keywords, then it will list them down as well as develop a short paragraph using the five words. The research will use the short paragraph to test the proficiency of the foreign students in pronouncing the five keywords. In order to avoid influencing the pronunciation of these words by the students, the interviewer will start by giving the student a short paragraph to read (Pitts, White, & Krashen, 1989). Once the student finishes reading out the short paragraph, then the interviewer will pick the five words randomly and ask the students to spell those words. In both cases, the interviewers will be noting the way the students spell and pronounce the five keywords.
Data Collection
The research study will collect data from a local high school that comprises both native English speakers and foreign students. The research will categorically specialize on foreign students and in order to succeed in recruiting them in the study, the researcher will start by explaining the purpose of the study to the students. After this, the researcher will request the students to participate in the research voluntarily once sampled to participate in it. The exercise will be a voluntary one and no form of compensation will take place in the research (Lehman et al., 2013).
In order to collect the data from the high school, the researcher will inform the school principal about the exercise, who will in return inform the teachers about it. Once granted permission, the researcher will sample different classes from which the students will come. The number of classes sampled for the research will depend on the number of foreign students in those classes. This will also depend on the number of students the researcher intends to have in the research, which will be between twenty and forty foreign students. For efficiency purposes, the researcher will recruit five people to help in collecting the data because the exercise will take place during break times. As a result, the researcher will approach the teachers and students during class time, inform them about the research and its purpose as well as request the foreign students to participate in it. The researcher will disclose everything to the research participants; thereby avoiding any form of a psychological problem to the research participants (Lehman et al., 2013).
The data collection exercise will take a maximum of five minutes for every student and the exercise will be conducted in a classroom-like environment. This means that those people collecting the data will interview each student at a time while other students wait in a separate room. Once the student is through with the exercise, the student will be free to go. In analyzing the data, the researcher will refer the students by codes as opposed to referring them by their names.
The research will start by requesting the students to read out the short paragraph the interviewers will give to each student during the interview. As the students read out the paragraph, the interviewer will record whether the student is able to pronounce the five keywords correctly or not. Once the student finishes reading out the paragraph, the interviewer will take the paper containing the short paragraph from the student and request the student to spell the five keywords without the help of the written paper. Once again, as the student spells the five key words, the interviewer will record the proficiency of the student on each of the five words (Heredia, & Altarriba, 2007). The assumption will be that if a student pronounces the words correctly, then the student will spell them correctly, and vice versa.
Method
The study will be a bivariate study involving the pronunciation of the five words with silent letters as well as the spelling of the same words. In this case, the research will measure the linear correlation between the two variables using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (Lehman et al., 2013). If a positive correlation exists between the two variables, then the research will conclude that the two variables correlate positively. On the other hand, if the two variables have a negative correlation, then the research will conclude that the two variables correlate negatively. This will help in establishing the type of linear relationship between the two variables. A positive relationship will indicate that improving the proficiency in one variable affects positively the proficiency in the other variable. For perfect research, this is what should happen. However, it would also be possible to have a negative correlation between the two variables (Lehman et al., 2013). This would mean that the two variables do not have a direct positive relationship. Either of the two results will be acceptable because it will direct the spelling reforms accordingly.
The research will also use the SPSS program to analyze and test the null hypothesis. This will involve analyzing the data using the SPSS program to test the statistical significance of the data collected. In this case, the data collected will help in establishing whether there is any significant difference between the way students spell the five words with the pronunciation of the same words or not. If there will be any significant difference between the two variables, then the research will propose a spelling reform that will help the students improve their proficiency in English (Lehman et al., 2013). On the contrary, if there will no significant difference between the two variables, the research will propose a spelling reform that will also suit the outcomes. This means that in both cases, the research will propose the right spelling reform that will be in line with the outcomes of the study.
Work Schedule/Timeline
The provisional timeline for the study will be as follows. First, I will identify the five keywords to use in the study between the first two weeks of the month of June. Once I identify them, I will develop a short paragraph that will incorporate those keywords. Second, I will conduct a pilot study within the last two weeks of June. This will help in establishing the efficiency of the research method. If the method will be effective, I will organize how to collect the data within the first two weeks of the month of July. During this time, I will write a consent letter to the principal of the high school I intend to use for collecting data. Third, once the principal approves my consent letter, I will hire and train a team of five people to help in collecting the data within the last two weeks of the month of July. Fourth, I will analyze the data within the first week of the month of August and for the remaining time before September; I will write my research and complete it by the start of September.
Expected Outcomes
With respect to the literature review, the research expects that there will be a positive correlation between the spelling of the five English words and their pronunciation. In this case, the research expects the students that will have difficulties in reading out the comprehension to have difficulties in spelling the same words. This is in relation to the fact that people tend to write words the same way they pronounce them. Consequently, if a student is unable to pronounce the word correctly, then the student will have problems spelling the same word. The second expectation is that there will be no significant difference between the mean for spelling the five English words with the mean of pronouncing those words (Lehman et al., 2013). This is in relation to the fact that the pattern of spelling those words will be the same as the trend of pronouncing those words. In simple terms, if a student pronounces the words correctly, then the student is likely to spell them correctly. Therefore, there will be no significant difference between the means for the two variables.
References
Burkhardt, S. (2010). Using the brain to spell: Effective strategies for all levels. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Education.
Calderon, M., & Minaya-Rowe, L. (2011). Preventing long-term ELs: Transforming schools to meet core standards. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Corwin.
Campion, C. (n.d). Spelling proficiency of native speakers of Spanish: a look at the influence of morpheme structures in spelling errors. The UCI undergraduate research journal, 19-26.
Ehri, L. (2005). Learning to read words: theory, findings, and issues. Scientific studies of reading, 9(2), 167-188.
Fischer, F. (1985). Spelling proficiency and sensitivity to word structure. Journal of memory and language, 24, 423-441.
Guffey, M. & Seefer, C. (2010). Business English. London: Cengage learning.
Heredia, R., & Altarriba, J. (2007). Bilingual sentence processing. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Lehman, A. et al. (2013). JMP for basic univariate and multivariate statistics: Methods for researchers and social scientists. Cary, N.C: SAS Institute.
Mersand, J. et al. (2006). Spelling the easy way. Hauppauge, N.Y: Barron’s.
Pitts, M., White, H. & Krashen, S. (1989). Acquiring second language vocabulary through reading: a replication of the clockwork orange study using second language acquirers. Reading in a foreign language, 5(2), 271-275.
Shankweiler, D. et al. (1996). Reading and spelling difficulties in high school students: causes and consequences. Reading and writing: an interdisciplinary journal, 8, 267-294.
Sterling, C. (1983). Spelling Errors in Context. British Journal of Psychology 74: 353-364.