The craziness of English spelling has undeniably perplexed learners, especially in an EFL context as in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In these situations, among other obstacles, learners also have to tackle the perpetual and unavoidable problem of MT interference. Sadly, this perplexity takes the shape of a real problem in the language classroom…

This study reports the types of spelling errors made by the beginner learners of English in the EFL context as well as the major sources underpinning such errors in contextual writing composition tasks. Data were collected from written samples of 122 EFL students (male and female) enrolled in the intensive English language programme during the…

In a recent study we (Greaney & Arrow, 2009) undertook an analysis of the types of spelling errors that students had made during a National Education Monitoring Project writing task (Crooks, Flockton & White, 2007). We discussed several issues related to spelling, including the value of analysing students' error-response patterns as a way…

In this study we focused on the spelling of high-functioning students with dyslexia. We made a detailed classification of the errors in a word and sentence dictation task made by 100 students with dyslexia and 100 matched control students. All participants were in the first year of their bachelor's studies and had Dutch as mother tongue. Three…

36 Saudi EFL freshmen students took a listening-spelling test in which they filled out 100 blanks in a dialogue. Results indicated that 63% of the spelling errors were phonological and 37% were orthographic. It was also found that the subjects had more phonological problems with whole words but more orthographic problems with graphemes. Some of…