Learning idioms is an uphill battle for many language learners. Thus, this quantitative study aims to shed light on English as Foreign Language (EFL) college students’ attitudes towards idiom learning. Specifically, the study is interested in revealing their attitudes towards (1) the importance of idiom learning, (2) the difficulties of idiom learning and (3) the learning strategies of idioms. Additionally, the study attempts to determine if there is an influence of age and/or year of study on the students’ attitudes towards learning English idioms. Participants were 218 female EFL college students at the College of Basic Education (CBE) in Kuwait. A five-point Likert-scale questionnaire was employed to obtain data for the study. Data analysis of the questionnaire uncovered the learners’ preferred strategies and sources of difficulties when learning idioms. Results showed that students had positive attitudes towards English idiom learning. Significant differences in the results were found when age was taken into account.
Idioms play an indispensable role in communication. Knowledge of idioms is considered an indicator of proficiency. This study is aimed at investigating English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ knowledge of frequently used idioms and the effect of learner-related factors. The participants were 218 female EFL college students at the College of Basic Education (CBE) in Kuwait. A test was designed and used as the data collection instrument to assess the students’ knowledge of frequent idioms. The test scores reveal a substantially low overall knowledge in this area. The results show that Kuwaiti EFL learners have difficulty comprehending common idiomatic expressions. Additionally, the study is aimed at determining whether students’ knowledge of idioms is linked to age, year of study, and/or Grade Point Average (GPA). A statistically significant difference in knowledge of frequently used idioms is evident when GPA is taken into account.
In this paper, we test the phonetic and lexical phonological perceptions of students in Kuwait who speak the Kuwaiti Arabic (KA) dialect as their native language and are studying English at the undergraduate level. The main objective was to test students' perception of English labial [v] and post-alveolar [] fricatives because these fricatives do not exist in the consonant phonemic inventory of KA and may pose difficulty for Kuwaiti adults learning English. Identification and discrimination tests on phonological and phonetic levels were conducted with 104 female native speakers of KA who were enrolled in undergraduate English courses in the College of Basic Education in Kuwait. They had KA as their L1. The results show that they could perceive English [v] better on all word positions but their perception of English [] was slightly weaker and not similar on all word positions. The results are analysed using a framework of second language acquisition, and predictions are made about potential difficulties for Kuwaiti students learning English fricatives [v] and [].
An important issue in the recent L2 literature is whether adult learners can perceive a gradient phonetic difference between L1 and the corresponding L2 phonemes. This leads us to further judge whether such learners can acquire allophonic contrast in L2. The same issue has been addressed in the current study with reference to Kuwaiti adult learners of English. The aim of this study is to analyze velar stops /k, g/ as perceived and produced by Kuwaiti Arabic (KA) learners of English. In this study, comprehension is measured by a perception test, and pronunciation is measured by obtaining readings of voice onset time (VOT) in Praat software. The velar stops will also be analyzed using the framework of the classic version of optimality theory (OT). OT became one of the major generative frameworks in the field of generative phonology. OT is a constraint-based theory of phonology advanced by Prince and Smolensky. In the perception test, participants were asked to listen to words containing target sounds, which were "keys," "skis," and "geese," and note on paper which English word they had heard. In the discrimination task, these words were presented in pairs, and the participants were asked to say whether they had heard a single word twice or two words together. In the production test, they read from a list of words, including "keys," "skis," and "geese," and their productions were recorded. A large group of Kuwaiti English learners perceived and produced these velar stops of English. Their discrimination of voiced and voiceless velar stops was excellent, but their identification of [g] was weak. Their identification of the voiceless velar stop /k/ was also native-like. In production, they were native-like in aspirated [k h ]. In the production of the unaspirated voiceless velar stop [k], they were not native-like, but they had developed an understanding of this allophone of English. In [g], some students were native-like, some were still learning, and some had only relied on L1 transfer.
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