Literature Review of Errors in Spelling English Consonants and Vowels by Arabic Speakers and Remedial Interventions
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Abstract
Spelling remains a fundamental skill to acquire because it is foundational for successful literacy attainment, even with the advancement of technological writing tools. Nevertheless, it is an understudied skill in research, especially among language learners. This literature review aims to shed light on the English spelling skills of Arabic L1 speakers. The findings are organized around three domains: (1) common errors in English writing made by Arabic L1 speakers, (2) comparative studies examining the English spelling performance of Arabic L1 learners versus learners from other language backgrounds, and (3) effective English spelling interventions for Arabic L1 learners. Synthesizing findings across these studies reveals spelling errors that can be attributed to crosslinguistic transfer from Arabic to English and errors that pertain to the complexity of the English-language orthography, along with promising interventions that can be utilized to improve spelling performance among Arabic speakers. The review concludes with instructional recommendations aligned with research on Arabic L1 learners, including systematic and explicit spelling instruction with attention to pronunciation. It also identifies directions for future research based on current gaps outlined in the available literature. This paper is the first study that synthesizes English spelling errors of Arabic speakers using a unified error classification system while explaining the errors in relation to the developmental stages of spelling acquisition and the influence of L1.
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