Arab Educational Information Network

Languages, which have regular alphabetic systems, are largely easy to learn. But English spelling, although largely phonemic, has more complicated rules than other spelling systems used by languages written in alphabetic scripts. That is because it has many inconsistencies between spelling and pronunciation, which makes learning it very difficult. Such irregularity of English is considered a problem to the students of the college of law who study English for three years in the field of their specialization. This study aims at investigating the difficulties faced by law college students in dealing with spelling-pronunciation correspondence in English. To achieve the aim of the study, two hypotheses have been posed: 1) law college students are able to spell words without making a link with pronunciation. 2) The students are able to pronounce words without making a link with spelling. To verify the hypotheses of the study, a sample of 81 students has been chosen from the third year, College of Law, Diyala University. Thirty one of them are assigned to represent the pilot study, whereas the other 50 represent the final application including the spelling and the pronunciation tests. By using t-test formula for one independent sample, the hypotheses are verified and the following results have been obtained: 1) law college students face difficulty in spelling i.e. they most of the time spell words as they are pronounced. Only 10 of the students out of 30 could pass the score of success. 2) Pronunciation is to some extent difficult because they pronounce words as they are spelled. In addition, they face difficulties in dealing with silent letters. The students who could reach the score of success are 7 out of 20. On the basis of the results, the following conclusions have been posed: 1) law college students are not aware enough that there is no correspondence between spelling and pronunciation. 2) The students who study English are not able to spell new words correctly without making a link with pronunciation. 3) They are not able to pronounce new words without linking them with their spelling. 4) They are not aware enough that some English letters are silent i.e. written but not pronounced. (Published abstract)