MY REFLECTION:

 

     This study addresses the struggles and challenges of the K-12 Arab learner of ESL by observing and analyzing his learning performance and interviewing Ahmed and his teachers. Ahmed's English proficiency level is newcome-beginner. However, I did not examine his proficiency in Arabic, so I did not know about Ahmed's listening, speaking, reading, writing skills in Arabic.

 

      The aim of this study is to gain a better understanding of the K-12 Arab learners of ESL and to uncover the challenges that the learner faced as an Arabic speaker.

 

Findings:

:

1. I found that Ahmed had some struggles in distinguishing between vowel sounds and some consonant sounds, which are “p” and “b”, “v” and “f”, “k” and “q”.

2. Also, I found that Ahmed had some struggles in differentiating between lowercase letters “b” and “d”.

3. Another finding was the challenge in reading and writing.

 

     Additionally, after I analyzed the struggles and what Mr.Tyler did to solve them, I gave my suggestions for different methods, strategies, and activities based on what I learned that can be used for increase Ahmed’s learning.

 

      One thing in particular that drew my attention was that Ahmed had the same challenges that Arab learners of English as the second language have:

 

1. This conclusion came from comparing Ahmed’s challenges with other studies’ findings that examined Arab learners of English as the second language.

2. This is a clear sign that leads to one possible explanation, which might be the impact of the L1 transfer on Arab learners who are learning English.This transfer is seen clearly in pronouncing the English sounds that do not exist in the Arabic Language as familiar sounds that the learner knew in Arabic. Also, in spelling vowel letters, which were hard to be written by Ahmed since in Arabic the vowels are not written letters.

 

      Consequently, Arab learners of ESL need a special approach to help them in learning sounds and spelling. However, in general writing and reading instructions, Arab learners can be taught by using methods that are used with any English learners in the newcomer-beginner level.

 

      My further research into Arab ESL students’ performance in pronunciation and spelling will consider all the above and be narrow band into methods of pedagogies. I would like to investigate in detail the importance of preparing ESL teachers with specific methods to solve Arab ESL learners’ challenges.