http://blogs.najah.edu/author/fayez-aqel An-Najah Blogs :: Fayez M. Taha Aqel en-us Sat, 27 Jul 2024 14:54:17 IDT Sat, 27 Jul 2024 14:54:17 IDT [email protected] [email protected] http://blogs.najah.edu/staff/fayez-aqel/article/Using-the-mother-Tongue-Arabic-Language-in-EFL-Published ArticlesThis paper explores the instructors and students reactions to using Arabic language in teaching English as a foreign language in the Department of English and Modem European Languages at the University of Qatar Therefore a two-form questionnaire was developed: one for the instructors and One for the students As regards instructors responses it was found that all of the native speakers and 625 of non-native speakers of English felt that it was okay to use Arabic in EFL teaching With regard to sfudents reactions it was found that 4285 of freshmen 5423 of sophomores showing a 13 increase over freshmen; 5764 of juniors showing a 4 over junior students and finally 6153 of senior students favored the use of Arabic showing an increase of 4 over juniors Finally the paper was concluded by recommending a judicious use of Arabic in EFL teaching and when it is the shortest possible route to make learners understand since it is believed that the mother tongue does have a vital facilitating role in teaching the foreign languagehttp://blogs.najah.edu/staff/fayez-aqel/article/Using-Translation-as-a-Means-of-Overcoming--Cross-Cultural-Pragmatic-FailurePublished ArticlesThis paper seeks to shed light on some of the major areas where cross-cultural pragmatic failures occur It fitrther argues that translation may be profitably used in EFL classes as a means of minimizing if not eradicating sllch failureshttp://blogs.najah.edu/staff/fayez-aqel/article/Attitude-and-Achievement-in-learning-English-as-a-foreign-LanguagePublished ArticlesThe factors that make for success in learning a foreign language have been thoroughly investigated in an attempt to account for the variation in the levels of proficiency attained by learners Among these factors are aptitude -attitude teaching techniques motivation age etc So the attitude of the learner towards the language and its speakers is one of the most important factors that influence learners motivation to acquire the language This importance of attitudes in learning English has been recognized by EFL specialists and accordingly a great deal of research on the subject has been conducted to explore the relationship between attitudes and achievement in L2 learning For instance GARDNER 1980 found that there was a strong relationship between attitudes and proficiency in EFL learning Pierson and others 1980 investigated the relationship between -English attainment and Chinese students attitudes towards English in Hong Kong; they found that achievement in English was related to the attitude of the students and that direct measures of attitudes were better predictors of attainment than indirect ones CHIHARA and OLLER 1978 investigated the relationship between the attitudes of Japanese EFL students towards them selves toward other Japanese people toward English speakers toward travel to English speaking countries and toward learning English and their attained proficiency The results showed a weak correlation between students attitudes toward English and their attained proficiencyhttp://blogs.najah.edu/staff/fayez-aqel/article/Grammatical-Production-Versus-Grammatical-RecognitionPublished ArticlesThis paper looks into the errors made by Saudi students in their production and recognition of grammatical structures in English It was found that the number of errors that Saudi students make in production is higher than that in recognition This means that Saudi students are less competertt in grammatical production than in grammatical recognitionhttp://blogs.najah.edu/staff/fayez-aqel/article/Relativization-in-ArabicPublished Articles This article points out the typological characteristics and the types of relative clauses in classical Arabic; it also examines the relativization process in view ofComries 1981 hierarchy to relative clause formation and shows that relative clauses in Arabic follow their head noun in agreement with Greenbergs universals about relative clauses Cross-linguistically Finally it shows that Arabic unlike many other laiigauges relativizes on all grammatical relations http://blogs.najah.edu/staff/fayez-aqel/article/Pronunciation-Errors-made-by-Saudi-University-Students-Learning-English-Analysis-and-RemedyPublished ArticlesA great deal of research analysing the grammatical Lexical and spelling errors committed by Arab students learning English has been conducted1 Emam 1972; Scatt Tucker 1974; EI-Hibir 1976; Ibrahim 1978; Kharma 1981; Kharma and Haiiaj 1989; Mukattash 1981; Shaheen 1984: Abd-EI-Jawad 1986; EI-Hibir Altaha 1992 However the pronunciation errors made by Arab students in an EFL situation have not been dealt with The only study the writer is aware of is Kharma Hajjajs 1989 book in which an analysis of and remedy for the errors- including those of pronunci~tion among Arabic speakers was attempted http://blogs.najah.edu/staff/fayez-aqel/article/Grammatical-Errors-Made-by-Saudi-University-Students-Majoring-in-EnglishPublished ArticlesMany researchers looked into the errors made by Arab students Learning English as a foreign language Nasr 1963 who made a comparative study of English and classical Arabic covering the levels of phonology vocabulary and grammar predicted the problems he thinks are likely to face Arab students learning English He asserted that there were no linguistic problems for Arab students to learn English Samhoury 1966 who made a contrastive study of the grammars of Arabic and English compared written English and spoken Damascene Arabic His analysis of Arabic is based on recorded conversation two hundred scripts written by university students He confined the reasons for his students errors totally to interference from Arabic without taking into account the possibility of tracing the errors or rather some of them to other sources such as teaching material the teacher andor the methods used in teaching English in Syria Emam 1972 who examined some written composition of secondary school pupils and then classified the errors that had recurred made a contrastive analysis of English and colloquial Egyptian Arabic to be able to predict the problematic areas His study covering the aspects of spelling punctuation nouns verbs prepositions pronouns adjectives articlesetc showed that the mother tongue was not found to be a source of errors where there is a dissimilarity and vice versa EI-Hibir 1976 who tried to identify and diagnose the common grammatical and lexical errors in the written English of a group of Sudanese secondary school students learning English in the Northern Sudan recommended appropriate methods and techniques for teaching English so as to avoid the worst type of errors and to make a positive improvement in pupils writing The errors committed by other Arab learners have been also examined in a number of studies Meziani 1973; Scott Tucker 1974; Ibrahim 1978; Mattar 1978; Kharma 1981; Mukkattash 1978 1981; Shaheen 1984; Abd-EI - Jawad; 1986; Kharma Hajjaj 1989; EI-hibir A1taha 1992 and Altaha to appear http://blogs.najah.edu/staff/fayez-aqel/article/Teaching-Composition-to-ESL-StudentsPublished ArticlesThis article calls to attention an experience of the author in which he examines a number of components that play a significant role in the teaching English composition to EFL students; it then recommends a number of approaches that were used by the author and which proved to be instrumental in helping Saudi students to learn the craft of writing Finally it points out that EFL students can present themselves to the best advantage in writing through instruction tailored to their needshttp://blogs.najah.edu/staff/fayez-aqel/article/Tips-for-Dealing-with-Spelling-ErrorsPublished ArticlesEFL teachers have witnessed a proliferation of research covering almost every aspect of the English language except spelling This seems to underestimate the seriousness of spelling errors in the EFL situation The discrepancy between the writing system and the pronunciation of English makes its orthography far from phonemic A single phoneme may be represented by a number of spellings For example f may be represented by ill ph philosophy or gh enough; may be represented by sh wash ti nation or si tension Vowels can present even more of a problem We have found that spelling errors result not only from the inconsistencies in English spelling and pronunciation indicated above but also from the influence of the students mother tongue A study we did El-Hibir and Altaha forthcoming shows that our students employ their own strategies in spelling; ie they spell as they pronounce overlooking the difference between English spelling and pronunciation This leads to a lack of recognition of standard English orthography which slows down the students reading speed and hinders their comprehension of English text http://blogs.najah.edu/staff/fayez-aqel/article/Orthographic-Errors-Made-by-Saudi-University-Students-Learning-EnglishPublished ArticlesRelatively few error studies deal in depth with orthography Emam 1972 undertook a contrastive analysis of English and colloquial Egyptian Arabic which covered spelling as well as pronouns punctuation nouns prepositions adjectives articles etc Ibrahim 1978 attempted to account for the spelling errors that occur in the writing of a group of English major students at the University of Jordan Lack of attention to spelling errors by ELT specialists is not just restricted to Arab learners but also applies to all learners of English as a second language Ibrahim 1978 Our experience in teaching English at King Faisal University in Saudi Arabia has highlighted certain errors in orthography that frequently occur in the students writing The significance of such errors has been seriously underestimated in the academic literature The objective of this study is to examine the common spelling problems that characterise the writing of 150 subjects at King Faisal University We will attempt to show why such errors have occurred Then we will try to determine the magnitude of the problem in this particular situation Finally we will give suggestions and recommendations that might be instrumental in minimising the problems and in opening up new ways of dealing with orthographic errors in EFL situations in general