Arabic Transfer PDF

Arabic Transfer CEFR Knowledge  This section assesses the teacher’s  This section assesses the knowledge of how Arabic as a first teacher’s understanding of the language affects students who are...

Arabic Transfer CEFR Knowledge  This section assesses the teacher’s  This section assesses the knowledge of how Arabic as a first teacher’s understanding of the language affects students who are basics of the Common trying to learn English. European Frame of Reference Assessment Literacy for languages.  This section assesses the teacher’s CEFR Writing knowledge of the principles of  This section assesses the teacher’s good assessment, including the ability to apply a rubric based on purposes of testing, test the CEFR levels development and item to assess student writing. construction. Methods Linguistics  This section assesses the  This section assesses the teacher’s teacher’s knowledge and knowledge of general linguistics, understanding of teaching including understanding of the IPA methods specific to the and phonology. EFL/ESL area. Error Identification Second Language Acquisition  This section assesses the teacher’s  This section assesses the teacher’s ability to identify and analyze knowledge and understanding of common student errors. the principles of second language Parts of Speech acquisition.  This section assesses the teacher’s Young Learners ability to identify the different parts  This section assesses the of a sentence. teacher’s knowledge and understanding to issues specific to young language learners. Content Domain Approximate Approximate Percentage of Test Number of Questions Arabic Transfer 8% 10 Assessment Literacy 8% 10 Linguistics 16% 20 Error Identification 8% 10 Parts of Speech 12% 15 CEFR Knowledge 8% 10 CEFR Writing 12% 15 Methods 12% 15 Second Language 8% 10 Acquisition Young Learners 8% 10  1. Specification: Arabic Transfer  This section assesses the teacher’s knowledge of how Arabic as a first language affects students who are trying to learn English. Sample Question What might be the reason for an Arabic-speaking student saying: "She good teacher"? A) There are no perfect tenses in Arabic that are used after a pronoun. B) In Arabic, the verb "to be" is not used with nouns. C) The verb "to be" in the present tense in Arabic is used differently. D) In Arabic, the verb "to be" is not used before an adjective. Answer: C English Pronunciation Problems for Arabic ESL Students The top 4 pronunciation problems are: “b”/ “p” and “f”/ “v” sounds; pronouncing silent letters; adding vowel sounds to words; and proper intonation and word stress. “B”/ “P” and “F”/ “V” Sounds There is no “p” sound in Arabic. Arab ESL students will often substitute a “b” sound. parking becomes barking pepper becomes bebber There is also no “v” sound in Arabic, and Arab ESL students can end up using an “f” sound instead. voice becomes foice very becomes fery Practice voicing the consonant sounds individually, and side by side to tune into the subtle differences. The “p” sound requires you to blow a puff of air out with some force—hold a piece of paper in front of your lips, it will move when you pronounce the letter correctly. The “b” sound doesn’t require the same explosion of air. “F” and “v” sounds are more similar but you can feel the difference in pronunciation mechanics when you place a hand on your throat. Exaggerate the sound of the consonants in the words, “fan “and “van”. The “v”in the word “van” will vibrate your throat, and the “f” in the word “fan” will not. Pronouncing Silent Letters Arabic spelling is pretty much phonetic—letters stand in for their sounds. Arab ESL students will accidentally try to use the same pronunciation rules when speaking English. foreign becomes for-i-gen sign becomes si-gen Adding Vowel Sounds to Words There are far fewer consonant clusters in Arabic, and “sp”, “gr”, “spl”, and “str” all contain sounds that are either not made in Arabic, or are pronounced differently. English words like “stress”, “split” or “gray” result in errors. stress becomes e-set-ress split becomes e-spi-lit gray becomes gi-ray Native Arabic speaking ESL students have a habit of inserting vowel sounds before and between consonant clusters resulting in more syllables, and wild pronunciation errors. Perhaps students are trying to break the sounds up and make the spelling and pronunciation adhere to Arabic language rules. Closer study of consonant clusters and English Syllable patterns will help students let go of this habit. Intonation and Word Stress Before babies ever learn a single word, they react to language. Intonation and word stress tell them what your mood is and what’s the most important part of all those sounds you’re making at them. Proper intonation and word stress communicate as much information as words, sometimes even more. Arab ESL students tend to use a narrower range of intonation and voice stress resulting in a very monotone way of speaking. Questions sound like statements, and completion signals are so lacking as to make everything end inconclusively… Try exaggerating the stresses and intonation. You may feel foolish but I bet people understand you better! Arabic ESL students face many pronunciation problems as they work to improve their English language fluency. There are linguistic differences between Arabic and English that affect how easily a student can learn to form the English letter sounds. Pronunciation problems can be difficult to correct if students rely on their native Arabic language rules for guidance. Proper English pronunciation requires learning new sounds and new rules. Negative Transfer from Arabic to English (Grammar) Unlike the Indo-European language family, Arabic is a Semitic language that has a lot of differences with English. These differences include all aspects of the language, i.e. morphology, phonology, and syntax. However, the main concern here is the syntax since the other language aspects are outside the limit of the current study. Only the grammatical differences that negatively affect Arab students’ acquisition of English will be discussed. While English is an SVO (Subject, Verb, Object) language, Arabic is a VSO (Verb, Subject, Object). Therefore, the sentence ‘Ahmed drank the milk.’ Would be in Arabic: *‘Drank Ahmed the milk.’ Nevertheless, this error is not very common with Arab learners. In the context of word order, it is worth mentioning that in Arabic the adjective does not precede the noun it qualifies as in English but follows it, so the noun phrase: ‘good boy’ would be said or written: *‘boy good’ by an Arab student. Again, this error is not so common and mostly ascribed to beginners. In Arabic, there is no auxiliary verb equal to ‘do’ nor is there a linking verb like ‘be’. As a result, errors may occur like: *‘Where you go on the weekend?’ or *‘He playing football.’ Unlike the previous errors, these two types of errors are very common among Arabic-speaking learners according to the experience of the present study researcher Another problematic area is the relative pronouns. The relative pronouns in Arabic differentiate between genders (masculine or feminine) and numbers (singular or plural), but not between human and non-human beings like English; the matter that causes difficulty for Arab learners when using ‘who’ and ‘which’. Relevant to this is the repetition of the object of the relative clause in Arabic which is not the case in English (e.g. *This is the man whom I met him yesterday.). With respect to the indefinite articles, there are no equivalents to ‘a’ or ‘an’ in Arabic; hence, an error like: *‘This is doctor.’ may occur. For the definite article, it is not governed by rules in Arabic as in English, but it is frequently used with different numbers, genders and types of nouns. For this reason, the Arab learners may commit mistakes like: *‘We will go to the Turkey next summer.’ *‘We take the breakfast at 7 o’clock.’ *‘The policeman should have the courage.’ Another problem with Arabic speakers is the confusion on using ‘much’ and ‘many’, a type of errors which accounted for 4% of noun phrase errors. Because In Arabic there is only one quantifier used with both countable and uncountable nouns, Arabic speakers may say: *‘I saw much people in the college.’ The omission of objects with verbs like want, like, take and understand (13.4% of noun errors). This omission is common in Arabic, but is never accepted in English.  An error that Arab learners make is the use of a singular noun after a cardinal number over ten, which is the rule in Arabic, e.g. *‘There are six pencils and eleven pen’. One more common error, Smith (ibid) argues, is the use of the question tag ‘isn’t it’ with negative statements or with various verbs. This mistake is due to the fact that Arabic has only one question tag (equivalent to ‘isn’t it’) used with all statements. Other examples of errors which emerge as a direct translation of Arabic are: *The math test for me is not a big deal. / *He has skills more than his neighbor. / *The next meeting he should conduct it. / *The child talked to the policeman without fearing. / *This language is difficult in learning. To sum up, the negative transfer from Arabic to English may cause the following errors: wrong word order, absence or misuse of auxiliaries and some linking verbs, misuse of relative pronouns, redundant use of pronouns, lack or misuse of indefinite articles, frequent occurrence of the definite article, erroneous use of question tags and other errors resulting from literal translation of Arabic phrases and sentences. These errors might not take place if the syntax of English and Arabic were similar. In other words, because of the dissimilarity between Arabic and English very little positive transfer, if any, can occur. Differences between L1 and L2 writing processes receive insufficient attention which resulted in the misunderstanding of the L2 writing aspects and hence, downgrading the writing skills of L2 writers. In the domain of L2 writing, one consistent and salient characteristic, which is fundamentally distinct from L1 writing processes, is that L2 writers, either “skilled” or “unskilled”, switch back and forth between their L1 and L2 in order to work through a particular problem that they are struggling with while composing in the L2 The Influence of Mother Tongue on Learning English Language by Arab Learners (i). Misuse of Singularity, Duality and Plurality of nouns Morphological errors in noun system between Arabic and English, their findings reveal that English nouns have two numbers: singular and plural. Whereas, Arabic nouns have three numbers: singular, dual and plural. The plural is also of two kinds: sound plural (masculine and feminine) and broken plural. In contrast to English, Arabic syntax has singular, dual, and plural for feminine and masculine nouns. English has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Gender is only limited to personal pronouns, whereas Arabic has only two genders: masculine and feminine. Furthermore, English nouns are inflected for genitive case. Whereas, in Arabic, nouns are inflected for three events, namely, nominative, accusative, and possessive. These fonts are differentiated by changing the vowel ling of the final consonant. In Arabic, we suppose:  Mu'allim(Singular masculine) / Mu'allma (singular feminine)  Mu'allimuun (plural masculine) / Mu'allimein (dual masculine)  Mu'allimat (plural feminine)  Mu'alimataan; Mu'allimatayin; (dual feminine; acting as: subject and aim. In English, we say: Teacher (feminine and masculine) / teachers (dual/plural for feminine and masculine). Therefore, about Arab students learning English may not use English plural nouns correctly. Rather, they use numbers to indicate a duality or plurality. The following are examples. They may say, "The two child are crying." Others may misuse the noun after numbers because in Arabic a singular noun is used after numbers "three –ten'. Thus, the beginner Arab students learning English may say, "He has eleven cousin." Or "There are 21 student in my class." (ii). Countable and Uncountable Nouns There are certain words in English which are classified as uncountable nouns like (information, money, damage, housework, and equipment) but they can be counted in Arabic. So Arab learners of English tend to pluralize them and use plural verbs after them. The following are examples of students’ versions:  The informations I received were useful.  As housewives do a lot of housework.  I bought many equipments. (iii). Misuse of Prepositions Differences between Arabic and English prepositions:  The number of prepositions in Arabic is limited: min (from), „ila (to), 'an (about), ' alla (on,over), ba/bi (by, with), la/li (of , for), and fi (in, into).  In Arabic, some adverbs can be used as prepositions, such as: khalfa (behind), amam (in front), bayna (between), and many others.  In English, there are approximately 150 prepositions. The problems in using English prepositions for Arab students learning English result from two factors. First, not every Arabic preposition has a definite equivalent in English and vice versa. Secondly, not every English or Arabic preposition has definite usage and meaning. Arab students learning English sometimes make the following errors in using English prepositions 1. Unnecessary insertion: They use prepositions with words which do not need prepositions.  Incorrect: I will practice on making the exercises.  Correct: I will practice doing the exercises. 2. Omission of necessary prepositions: They omit these prepositions from words which need them.  Incorrect: I waited the bus two hours.  Correct: I waited for the bus two hours. 3. Wrong substitution: They do not use correct prepositions: The preposition “on” is used in places of “over”, “above”, “at”, and “onto”. Arab learners of English tend to say “ashamed from, composed from, object on, blame on, where (of, of, to and for) should be used respectively.  We were interested with the film. “nahnu istamta'na bilfilm.” The misuse of the preposition “with” instead of “in” in the above example occurs because it is equivalent to the Arabic preposition "bi" – which indicates the meaning of “with”. Table 1 below displays some errors in the use of prepositions that are made by Arab learners who are learning English, with their equivalents in Arabic. Errors in the use of prepositions made by Arab ESL learners Errors in English Arabic equivalents He jumped on the wall. (over) qafaza 'alla aljedar. We sat on the table. (at) nahnu jalasna 'alla atawela. I will come in 7 o‟clock. (at) anna sawfa atti fi alsa'ati alsabe'a. I like to pick roses with many colors. (of) 'ohibbu „ann altaqeta wardan bi'edati alwan. He died from hunger. (of) huwa Matta minaljuu'. We have lived in Doha from 1975. ( since) nahnu na'eesh fi aldoha min sanat 1975. One from my brothers is a doctor. (of wahed min ikhwati tabeeb. (iv). Misuse of Definite Article Arabic has one definite article "the". It consists of two letters: "al". It is sequestered to the beginning of nouns and their adjectives. Nevertheless, Arabic has no indefinite articles. The definite article is redundantly used by Arab learners of English with nouns that need the definite article in Arabic but not in English. There are three types of errors in the use of articles by the Arabic-speaking scholars of English (Diab, 1996). 1. Deletion of the definite article  Incorrect: Arms of soldiers are guns and daggers.  Correct: The arms of soldiers are guns and daggers. In the above sentence, the definite article "the" should be used before "arms", but has been dropped because it is not used in Arabic, as it is in the genitive case. 2. Deletion of the indefinite article “a”.  Incorrect: My father works in bank.  Correct: My father works in a bank In this sentence, the indefinite article "a" should be used before the noun "bank" in English; but it is dropped, possibly because in Arabic such article is non-actual. 3. Wrong Insertion: Arab students tend to use “the” before nouns which are not normally preceded by this definite article, such as the names of most diseases, names of days, names of some situations, and in many idiomatic expressions. The cause for this is that in Arabic such nouns are usually introduced by the definite article. In English, abstract words referring to ideas, properties, or qualities are employed without the article 'the'. In Arabic, however, such abstract words are preceded by the definite article equivalent to 'the' in English. (Diab, 1996). The following are examples of INCORRECT sentences which have been formed by Arabic-speaking scholars of English.  The happiness doesn’t come from the money.  People can work in the agriculture or in the industry.  He went to the Doha.  He is still in the bed.  My father suffers from the cancer.  He was filled with the sadness.  He studies the music.  He works in the agriculture.  When the evil comes, people will die. The Correct forms of all the above sentences should be without the use of the definite article “The” (v). Adjectives and Adverbs Arab learners of English encounter many difficulties while distinguishing between adjectives and adverbs in Arabic and English. Arabic adjectives agree in gender and number with nouns, which might be the reason for these learners to make mistakes. (Marpaung, 2014; Al-Aqad, 2013).  He is a man tall. (Arabic: hua rajulun taweelun)  They are soldiers brave. (Arabic:hum junuudun shuja'aan).  These are girls beautifuls ( Arabic: hunna fataiaatun jamilaatun) Some Arab learners of English might use adjectives plus nouns to express adverbs. This is attributed to the Arabic use of adverbs as they can be formed in two ways. For instance, the word “quickly” can be translated into Arabic in two ways: "Bisur'a" or ' bishaklen. The following are some examples of such errors.  Incorrect: The temperature rose a sharp rise.  Correct: The temperature rose sharply.  Incorrect: He drove with so fast speed.  Correct: He drove so fast.  Incorrect: The singer performed a wonderful performance.  Correct: The singer performed wonderfully.  Incorrect: Prices have increased a gradual increase.  Correct: Prices have increased gradually. In the above examples, the Arab students‟ versions represented in the „incorrect‟ versions are related to the Arabic grammatical rule about unrestricted or absolute object. (vi). Errors in Using Some English Modal Verbs 1. Deletion of the Copula (verb to be) or substituting it with “verb to do”: As there is no “verb to be” in Arabic, Arab learners of English tend to delete them when forming their English sentences. Hence, we can find such sentences in their writings:  Incorrect: Huda happy.  Correct: Huda is happy.  Incorrect: While my mother cooking, I preparing the table.  Correct: While my mother was cooking, I was preparing the table.  Incorrect: Does he your teacher?  Correct: Is he your teacher? All Incorrect versions above are students‟ versions. 2. Omitting the third person singular morpheme -s. Here are few examples of students‟ versions and their CORRECT forms:  Incorrect: My mother work in a school.  Correct: My mother works in a school.  Incorrect: My friend speak English.  Correct: My friend speaks English 3. Omitting the auxiliary “verb to do”. Here is an example.  Incorrect : My father not drive a bus.  Correct : My father does not drive a bus. 4. Replacing only the auxiliary form of “verb to do” with „verb to be”. Incorrect :Is Bob wears a suit today? Correct : Does Bob wear a suit? (vii). Word Order Arab ESL learners make errors in word order when forming English sentences. The following are some examples which are traced in the literature review earlier in this article. Some of the errors the researcher of the current study noticed in her students' writing. 1. Unlike the English sentence word order, the V-S-O in classical Arabic is the basic word order where the subject is preceded by the verb:  Incorrect : Hoped the committee to solve the problem.  Correct : The committee hoped to solve the problem. However, in colloquial Arabic, the word order of the sentence is S-V-O 2. Arabic uses the secondary clause which acts as an object and starts with „that‟ where English uses the infinitive:  Incoorrect : I want that you stay. (Following the Arabic structure).  Correct : I want you to stay. 3. There are no auxiliary verbs in Arabic. So Arabic- speaking learners of English might not use “verb to do” to form a question. Here is a student’s version and its equivalent Correctform:  Incorrect : Where Huda spend her summer vacation?  Correct : Where does Huda spend her summer vacation? 4. In Arabic, personal pronouns are often incorporated in the verbs, i.e. certain morphemes are used to indicate what the pronoun is. This makes Arab students learning English use two subjects. Here is an example.  Incorrect : Her father he lives in California.  Correct : Her father lives in California. 4. In English, adjectives precede nouns, whereas they follow nouns in Arabic, as in the following example.  Inorrect : classroom large. (Following the Arabic structure)  Correct : a large classroom. (Proper English structure) 2(viii) Tenses There are clear differences between Arabic and English, leading to several mistakes which are made by Arab learners of English. In Arabic, there are only two tenses: the perfect (only the past) and the imperfect (the non-past, simple present and simple future), whereas English has many tenses by conjoining these two tenses with aspects (perfective and progressive). (Ali, 2007; Aoun, Benmamoun, and Chueiri, 2010). Arab learners of English cannot produce progressive and perfect tenses so easily. They use simple present instead. So, we might find such errors in their writing:  Incorrect : I eat my sandwich now.  Correct : I am eating my sandwichnow. Another example is this.  Incorrect : I didn’t see you since last Christmas.  Correct : I haven‟t seen you since last Christmas. (ix) Relative Clauses Unlike English relative pronouns, Arabic relative nouns (Asmaa Mawsuula) vary according to the nouns they describe. There are relative nouns for masculine, feminine, singular, dual, and plural. They also vary according to their position in the sentence: subject, object, and predicate. Following is a list of these relative nouns. Allathi (singular masculine), Allathan (masculine dual subject), Alathein (masculine pluralobject), Allati (feminine singular), Allatein (object dual feminine), Allataan (dual feminine subject), Allawati (plural feminine) There are several errors which are made by Arabic- speaking learners of English when forming English relative clauses 1. Insertion (or not omitting) of the connected pronoun because in Arabic this pronoun is not omitted.  Incorrect: That‟s the teacher whom I met him.  Correct : That‟s the teacher whom I met. Arabic: thalika huwa almu‟alimalathi qabaltuhu. The detached pronoun "hu' at the end of the word "qabaltuhu" is the resumptive pronoun that should be deleted when forming an English relative clause. The following are other examples of such errors.  Incorrect: The girl who she came helped me in doing my homework.  Correct: The girl who came helped me in doing my homework.  Incorrect : The driver whom the police gave him a ticket was driving too fast.  Correct : The driver whom the police gave a ticket was driving toofast.  Incorrect : The man that I gave a gift to him is my cousin.  Correct : The man that I gave a gift to is my cousin.  Incorrect : I lost the key which I opened the door with it.  Correct : I lost the key which I opened the door with.  Incorrect : The lady whom her purse was stolen reported to the police.  Correct : The lady whose purse was stolen reported to the police. In all the above sentences, the underlined pronouns should be omitted in the CORRECT English versions. 2. Arabic-speaking learners of English make mistakes in subject-verb agreement in subordinate or secondary clauses:  Incorrect: The teachers who is lecturing this morning is clever.  Correct : The teachers who are lecturing this morning are clever. 3. They omit “who” which means „allathi or allati ‟ because it can be omitted in some Arabic sentences.  Inorrect : Ahmad is a student in our class got the highest average. (English version as some Arabic-speaking learners of English may write it.)  Correct : Ahmad, a student in our class, got the highest average. (The Arabic version of the sentence.)  Correct : Ahmad, who is a student in our class, got the highest average.  Incorrect : Saladin, was the Muslim leader, led the Battle of Hitten.  Correct : Saladin, the Muslim leader, led the Battle of Hitten.  Correct : Saladin was the Muslim leader who led the Battle ofHitten. 4. In Arabic, relative pronouns are used with nonhuman distinction; and the connected pronoun acting as the object is retained in a restrictive adverbial clause. Thus, Arabic-speaking learners of English might make the following error:  Incorrect : Here is the student which you met her last week.  Correct : Here is the student who you met last week. In Arabic, the relative pronouns „allathi or allati‟ are used with human and non-human nouns. (x). Lexical Errors Abi Samara (2003) listed some examples of lexical errors made by Lebanese students in their writing. Due to literal translation from Arabic, students might use “stay on” instead of “continue” or “keep on”; they might use inappropriate equivalent. The following are some examples of lexical errors.  Incorrect :He has a right health. (Arabic: huwa bisehaten jayedaten.)  Correct : He is healthy.  Incorrect :He has a strong disease. Arabic: huwa yamtaleku maradhan shadeedan.  Correct : She has a severe illness.  Incorrect :I am afraid from high sounds. (Arabic: „anna „akhafu minalaswaat al‟aaliya.)  Correct : I am afraid of high sounds.  Incorrect :For me, to be counted as a good mother is important. (Arabic: binnesbati li, minaal muhem „an o‟utabara ummun.  Correct : For me, it is important to be considered as a mother. (xi). Lexico-Semantic Usage In English, some words have distinctive meanings which count for only one equivalent in Arabic, such as (special and private). For that reason, Arabic -speaking learners of English are more likely to say:  My brother went to a special hospital.  This is a very private occasion. Besides, in that location is the sentence „He cut the street‟ which is practiced instead of „He crossed the street‟. PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS “To use two languages familiarly and without contaminating one by the other, is very difficult,” said Samuel Johnson in 1761.” Making mistakes while reading any new accomplishment is something natural as it is part of using the best of talents and potentials to arrive at a proficiency layer of professionalism. This is exactly the case when learning languages. The teachers' wisdom can be practiced in such situations to guide their students in an attempt to make mistakes a source of learning, not a factor of frustration. Following are some recommendations for teachers on how to deal with their students' mistakes. More focus will be given to the situations of ESL in the Arab countries. 1. Returning selective attention: Terrell used the term “Explicit Grammar Instruction” and defined it as “the employment of instructional strategies to draw the students’ attention to or focus on contour and/or structure.”. Form-focused instruction or consciousness raising is a dependable solution for grammatical mistakes. “Focused attention may be a practical (though not theoretical) necessity for successful language learning” 2. As most humans’ brains are pattern-seekers, it is useful to supply students with rulers and patterns when explaining grammar. Use should precede “usage”. 3. Instructors are advised to apply the correct strategies as follows: student’s self-discipline, peer correction and finally teacher’s correction. Teachers should correct mistakes which are immediately connected to the target of the lesson. 4. Teachers need to determine that students are practicing English as a way of communication in their group work. 5. Most significantly, teachers of English to Arabic- speaking learners have to indicate respect and recognition to their students’ native language. For instance, they can ask their pupils how they utilize a rule in Arabic. 6. Style and lexical differences should be conveyed to the students mind in order to avoid getting to such mistakes. 7. The teachers’ attitudes towards errors should change. They need to know when and how to correct the students errors. They ought not to frustrate students by correcting every mistake. Lastly, it is worth quoting a Von Humboldt's speech, “We cannot really teach language, we can only create conditions in which it will grow spontaneously in the psyche in its own way”.