The effect of incidental learning on the comprehension of english affixes by Arabic-speaking EFL learners: Acquisition and application

Abstract

This study aims to examine the effect of incidental learning on the comprehension of 30 English affixes by 50 Arabic-speaking EFL learners in an attempt to determine which affixes are more easily comprehended. We adopt the experimental design of a pre- and post-test to measure the participants' knowledge of English affixes before and after the treatment, which involved taking part in the prediction of the meaning of English affixed words in context for one academic semester. To this end, we divided the 50 participants into two groups: treatment and control. We administered a 30-item multiple choice test as the pre- and post-test to determine whether the treatment helped the participants expand their knowledge of English affixes. Keywords: Linguistics, affixes, second language acquisition, incidental learning, Arabic-speaking EFL learners, morphological awareness.