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I. INTRODUCTION
How multiple orthographic systems are negotiated in
multilingual individuals is not well enough understood
(cf. Saiegh-Haddad & Geva, 2010). It is known, however,
that the acquisition of a languages phonemic system,
vocabulary, and phrase structure does not directly
correlate with reading and writing competence in that
same language (Fender, 2008). The cause and effect
relationship between proficient listening and speaking
abilities and reading and writing abilities and how
multiple language systems interact on reading and writing
tasks is still largely unclear, leaving many questions
Received April 11, 2015;
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A. Remaining Questions
The studies performed by Ryan & Meara (1991) and
Hayes-Harb (2006) only tested recognition. On the other
hand, while Fender (2008) and Dunlap (2012) recorded
written errors by AESLs in contrast to non-AESL ESL
groups, their experiments directly controlled which words
the participants had to spell. While the words selected for
the test in Fender (2008) were deemed to be common
words and familiar to the participants, the participants
were not producing words under normal writing
conditions. Participants were instructed to write down
each word after hearing it spoken in isolation and in the
context of a sentence by the experimenter. Dunlaps
(2012) study allowed participants to choose which words
would be spelled, but in that study, the participants were
led to believe that the task was oral, meaning words were
not necessarily chosen with a written form in mind. In
the experiment, AESL participants had to write sentences
they had previously recorded. In this way they were
forced to spell words regardless if they thought they
knew how to spell them.
Additionally Ryan & Meara (1991), Hayes-Harb
(2006), and Fender (2008), compared AESLs to a nonAESL group consisting of ESL learners from a variety of
other languages, many of which use some form of the
Roman alphabet to write their L1, likely giving those
students an advantage.
Dunlap (2012) also compared AESLs with a variety of
other ESL learners, but these groups were kept separate,
avoiding this potential problem. While the findings show
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2.
3.
Number
0
6
2
10
2
0
The use of pinyan could favor the Chinese group over the Arabic one
with regards to Roman script familiarity. However, this detail is not
crucial to the discussion here given that the Korean group also did
better.
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Number
1
8
3
6
2
0
IV. RESULTS
The results of this study show that both low and high
level AESLs in comparison to low and high KESLs make
significantly more orthographic errors in English on a
meaningful, academic writing task.
Individual Arabic scores for segment violations (total
errors), word errors (only first 150 words) and
corresponding proficiency levels are shown in Fig. 1.
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Arabic
2829
171
3000
Korean
2960
40
3000
Total
5789
211
6000
Correct
Incorrect
Total
Low Arabic
1691
109
1800
Low Korean
1187
13
1200
High Arabic
1138
62
1200
High Korean
1773
27
1800
Total
2829
171
3000
Total
2960
40
3000
Low Arabic
1691
109
1800
High Arabic
1138
62
1200
Low Korean
1187
13
1200
High Korean
1773
27
1800
Total
2878
122
3000
Total
2911
89
3000
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A. Limitations
The exact ages of the participants in this study are
unknown as well as their individual educational
background (schools attended), including knowledge of
other languages. Also if sex has an effect, the AESLs
were not balanced. Motivation differences amongst
students could have also existed as paying for repeated
levels would have posed a greater problem for some
individuals. Anecdotally speaking, a vast majority of
students want to be placed in higher levels (including
AESLs), visiting office hours to question why they are
not in a higher level. Controlling these factors, however,
might be considered with future research.
B. Conclusion
This study shows that AESLs from Saudi Arabia make
more written spelling errors than KESLs from South
Korea as a whole group and by proficiency levels and
that a higher writing level did not significantly correlate
with fewer errors. This suggests that spelling abilities are
independent of other writing skills. The cause of this
difference is left for further research, but it is suggested
that cultural/educational aspects may play a large role in
establishing habits with regards to seemingly
inconsequential things like spelling. Curriculum and
activities that encourage spelling awareness and force
AESLs to confront common error patterns seem
4
Another reason for this could be that AESLs overall view spelling as
less important.
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REFERENCES
Dunlap, S. (2012). Orthographic Quality in English as a
Second Language, Ph.D. dissertation, School of Arts and
Sciences, University of Pittsburgh.
Fender, M. (2008). Spelling knowledge and reading
development: Insights from Arab ESL Learners. Reading in a
Foreign Language, 20 (1), 19-42.
Hayes-Harb, R. (2006). Native speakers of Arabic in ESL
texts: Evidence for the transfer of written word identification
processes. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 32- 339.
Nassaji, H. (2003). Higher-level and lower-level text
processing skills in advanced ESL reading comprehension. The
Modern Language Journal, 87, 261 276.
Perfetti, C. (1992). The representation problem in reading
Acquisition. In Gough, P., Ehri, L., & R. Treiman (Eds.)
Reading acquisition (pp. 145174). Erlbaum.
Perfetti, C. (1997). The psycholinguistics of spelling and
Reading. In Perfetti, C., Rieben, L., & F. Michel (Eds.)
Learning to spell: Research, theory, and practice across
languages,(pp. 2138). Erlbaum.
Perfetti, C., & L. A. Hart. (2001). The lexical bases of
comprehension skill. In Gorfien, D. (Ed.). On the consequences
of meaning selection, (pp. 6786). American Psychological
Association.
Saiegh-Haddad, E. & E. Geva. (2010). Acquiring reading
in two languages: An introduction to the special issue. Reading
and Writing, 23 (3), 263-267.
Saigh, K., & N. Schmitt. (2012). Difficulties with
vocabulary word form: The case of Arabic ESL learners.
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Ryan, A. & P. Meara. (1991). The case of the invisible
AUTHOR
Robert J. Deacon was born and raised in Florida. He received a
BA in English with a minor in psychology from the University
of North Florida, Jacksonville Florida in 2005. He received a
MA in linguistics in 2011 and a Ph.D. in linguistics in 2014
from the University of Florida, Gainesville Florida. He teaches
English at the English language Institute at the University of
Florida and has taught Language and Human Perspective (LIN
2000) and Introduction to Linguistics (LIN 3010) for the UF
Linguistics Department. His research interests include MorphoSyntax, Syntax, TESL, orthography and Language Acquisition,
Germanic Linguistics, and East Asian Linguistics. Within
Morpho-syntax, he is particularly interested in specifying the
basic features of spatial concepts and describing how these
features are organized into complex spatial concepts. Dr.
Deacon is a founding member of the Florida Linguistics
Association, 2010-Present, and has been a member of several
other linguistic organizations: American Council on Teaching
Foreign Languages, 2013-2014, Linguistics Society of America,
2012-2013, Teaching English as a Second Official Language
International Association. 2012-2013.
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