Tips for Dealing with Spelling Errors

Tips for Dealing with Spelling Errors



















EFL teachers have witnessed a proliferation of research, covering almost every aspect of the English language except spelling. This seems to underestimate the seriousness of spelling errors in the EFL situation.

The discrepancy between the writing system and the pronunciation of English makes its orthography far from phonemic. A single phoneme may be represented by a number of spellings. For example, /f/ may be represented by f (fill), ph (philosophy), or gh (enough); /S/ may be represented by sh (wash), ti (nation), or si (tension). Vowels can present even more of a problem.

We have found that spelling errors result not only from the inconsistencies in English spelling and pronunciation indicated above, but also from the influence of the students’ mother tongue. A study we did (El-Hibir and Altaha, forthcoming) shows that our students employ their own strategies in spelling; i.e., they spell as they pronounce, overlooking the difference between English spelling and pronunciation. This leads to a lack of recognition of standard English orthography, which slows down the students’ reading speed and hinders their comprehension of English texts.

In order to address this problem, we have come up with tips for dealing with spelling difficulties that nonnative students encounter in learning English. Our approach may be adapted to meet the needs of EFL learners in different situations. It consists of the following suggestions:

1. Make an inventory of the common orthographic errors committed by your students.

2. Give the students dictation exercises with a clear focus on the common errors contained in the inventory.

The available dictation material should be modified to deal with specific orthographic problem areas. For instance, ask the students to study a paragraph carefully, and then dictate the paragraph, substituting the word “blank” for a word that is orthographically problematic. Then ask the students to fill in the blank.

3. Highlight the divergence between the pronunciation and the orthographic representation of a lexical item to focus on the inconsistencies in English spelling. The learner must be made conscious of the orthographic differences between words that are similar in pronunciation. To help the learner achieve a degree of orthographic systematization, classify problematic words according to distinct spelling criteria before presenting them. For instance, on the basis of the proposed inventory, prepare a list of words that contain the sound /f/, classified into the f, gh, and ph categories. Then read out a word and ask the students to indicate in writing the category to which that word belongs.

4. Deal with some other problematic items, too, as classifications. For example, homophones, i.e., words that are pronounced the same but differ in spelling: plane/plain, mane/main, pane/pain, lane/ lain, right/write/rite, rain/rein, dear/deer, sum/some, etc.

Also, homographs, i.e., words that are spelled alike but are different in meaning and/or pronunciation: bear/bear, bow/bow, lead/lead, use/use, conduct/conduct, etc.

Regular practice along these lines can result in dissociating spelling from pronunciation, a particularly desirable objective in a spelling remediation context.

5. Highlight certain regularities and generalizations about English spelling and pronunciation; for example, the generalization that when c comes before i, e, or y it is pronounced /s/, and before a, o, and u, it is pronounced /k/:

cat vs. city
college vs. certain
cut vs. cycle
etc.

Another generalization that can be presented is the fact that a stressed vowel followed by a consonant and “silent e” is pronounced with the “long” or “name” sound of the vowel. For example, take, scene, time, note, cure.1

6. Highlight the instrumental role of dictionaries in EFL learning. A dictionary should be a companion for any writing activity, enabling the student to produce the correct written form at the first try. The audiolingual principle that learners do not learn by making mistakes but by giving the right response seems relevant here. However, a dictionary should not be used to such an extreme that it slows down and disrupts the learning process.

7. Do not introduce new lexical items by pronunciation only. Teachers should develop the habit of presenting the spoken form simultaneously with the visual form, thus enabling the students to establish the relationship between the word and its spelling, which in turn enables them to consciously and subconsciously soak up the English system of writing and spelling.

8. Pinpoint the differences in spelling between the mother tongue and English in order to avoid interference from the spelling system of the native language.

9. Encourage students to read properly, and do not turn a blind eye to any misread item. Thus you will ensure that students visualize the words and relate them to their written forms.

10. Make your students aware of the abstract relationship between derivationally related words, such as quest/question/questioned/questioning/questionable, fact/factual, sage/sagacity, believe/believed/believing/belief/believable/unbelievable.

11. Help your students learn the exceptions to each spelling rule along with the rule itself. For instance, if the student is ignorant of the exceptions to the general rule of plural formation in English which is realized by adding “s” to the singular, he will produce *mans instead of men, *childs instead of children, *criterions for criteria, *fishes for fish, etc.

12. When introducing the alphabet, show the students that the digraphs ch and sh represent one phoneme each, because there is no single orthographic symbol in English to represent either of those phonemes.