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Phonological vocabulary size, orthographic vocabulary size, and EFL reading ability among native Arabic speakers.

Khaled Alhazmi, Jim Milton

Journal of Applied Linguistcs, Volume: 30, Pages: 26 - 43

Swansea University Author: Jim Milton

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Abstract

Low vocabulary size and poor reading skills among nativeArabic speakers learning EFL is a feature of the literature on secondlanguage acquisition (e.g., Alsaif 2011). Milton and Riordan (2006)suggest that the structure of the lexicon itself among these learnersmay be a contributory factor to their p...

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Published in: Journal of Applied Linguistcs
ISSN: 2408-025x
Published: 2015
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa29234
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Abstract: Low vocabulary size and poor reading skills among nativeArabic speakers learning EFL is a feature of the literature on secondlanguage acquisition (e.g., Alsaif 2011). Milton and Riordan (2006)suggest that the structure of the lexicon itself among these learnersmay be a contributory factor to their poor reading skills. They notethat these learners often appear to recognise more English words bysound than by writing and speculate that learners may be tied to aphonological route to comprehension in reading. Phonologicaldecoding of text will slow down reading speed and inhibitcomprehension. This paper investigates this idea and tests 30 Arabicspeaking learners using parallel vocabulary size tests in English whichallow separate estimates of phonological and orthographic vocabularysize to be made. These results are then compared with sub-scores inthe IELTS test. Generally, (e.g., Milton, Wade and Hopkins 2010)orthographic vocabulary size best predicts IELTS sub-scores inreading and writing, and the overall IELTS scores. The results fromthis study, however, show that it is the phonological knowledge whichlinks to performance on IELTS lending support to the idea that theselearners are tied to phonological decoding
Item Description: Annual Publication of the Greek Applied Linguistics Association
Keywords: orthographic vocabulary size, phonological decoding,
College: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Start Page: 26
End Page: 43