SOME ARABIC PHONEMES AS THE PROBLEMATIC ONES FOR ENGLISH - SPEAKING LEARNERS OF ARABIC: THE REASONS AND THE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

Abstract

The current paper touches up the reasons of difficulties that the English-speaking Learners of Arabic face in the pronunciation of some phonemes. The author explains this phenomenon through the description of the mechanism of formation of similar sounds in Arabic and English and the problematic sounds for English-speaking Learners. She also gives a brief comparative analysis of Arabic and English phonemes that are mistakenly perceived by students as identical. This paper also analyzes the challenges of English-speaking Learners related to the pronunciation of Arabic phonemes that are absent in English. In addition to the theoretical part, the article contains practical recommendations aimed at solving the difficulties associated with the setting up the correct pronunciation of this category of students. In addition to the exercises targeted at setting up the correct pronunciation, the author provides the lesson plan, containing various activities for resolving this issueThis work also briefly highlights issues related to the uneasy situation in the field of teaching pronunciation as one of the aspects of learning Arabic in the United States.

Keywords

• teaching pronunciation
• Arabic
• practical solutions
• lesson plan
• foreign language pedagogy
• emphatic sounds
• pharyngeal sounds