Teaching Sound-Spelling Coordination as a Part of Productive Skills: A Case of Arabic-Speaking Undergraduate Students

Abstract

Speaking is the manifestation of a learner’s proficiency in the target language, and it is often assumed that a learner who is a fluent speaker of a language can also write well. However, unlike speaking skills, writing skills involve mastery of a combination of vocabulary, grammar and spelling to attain proficiency in learning English as a Second Language (L2). Development of writing skills was found to be a challenge for the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Arabic-speaking undergraduate and graduate students of Oman’s Dhofar region. The present study investigates the case of a group of Dhofari undergraduate students learning English as an L2 who are disfluent speakers of English both in terms of their linguistic and communicative abilities. Participants are a homogeneous group of EFL students with a common age, cultural background and proficiency level in both spoken English and their mother tongue. The analysis and inferences offered here are based on the researcher’s observation of learners, the assessment of their written performance in class and their academic progress over the course of a semester.