EFL Arab Learners’ Orthographic Errors: A Contrastive Analysis

The purpose of this study was to investigate the common spelling errors made by EFL Arab learners and compare these orthographic errors in their L1 (Arabic) and L2 (English). Additionally, the study attempted to explore teachers’ perspectives regarding the main causes of these errors and examine the interference between English and Arabic among EFL Arab learners. The researchers adopted the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis, which is a qualitative corpus-based research to examine the symmetries and asymmetries between L1 and L2 spelling errors. Data were collected from 23 female EFL learners at a public school in the UAE. The corpus included 46 Arabic compositions, 23 written essays in English, and 23 sentence writing exercises. In parallel, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 3 English teachers and 3 Arabic teachers to find out the causes of spelling errors. Descriptive statistics were derived from the corpus analysis and used to interpret the findings. The results unveiled that the issue with spelling errors was not specific to L2, but it also existed in L1. Additionally, the investigation of the causes disclosed that spelling errors in English were of two categories: interlingual and intralingual. As for Arabic, the findings showed that the orthography of this language was not always as shallow as assumed. The implications of the current study emphasised that there is a gap in instruction regarding spelling errors, and assisting learners to acquire this skill is crucial for improving their written performance in any language. Likewise, the role of metalinguistic awareness should be accentuated among EFL learners.