English As A Second Language (ESL) - Final Report Assignment Solution

• Introduction

Individuals who learn English as second language (ESL) are likely to face numerous issues during their literacy experience (Bassetti& Atkinson, 2015). The evidences have highlighted multiple factors which contribute to hinder the efficiency of ESL learners (Birch, 2014). The most significant issue is of silent letters which creates complexity in pronunciation of words and make it harder for ESL learners to understand spelling of word based on its sound. Additionally, there are some letters which have multiple sounds, and their sound in one word might be entirely different when these letters are used in other words (Field, 2014). This is referred as inconsistency of sound and spelling relation in English and thus literacy of English is made difficult (Bassetti, Escudero & Hayes-Harb, 2015). Along with this, the addition of suffixes with the root words also make it harder for ESL learners to recognize that how a specific word will be pronounced and how its meanings will change, when any suffix will be added at it end. 

The underlying report is carried out to offer detailed insight of these issues and firstly the background of research participant is provided who has experienced difficulties in learning of language. Along with this, the views of participant are linked with relevant literature in the next section. The description of data and details of analysis methods are then presented in subsequent sections. In addition to this, the findings are presented which are drawn from analysis of data and reflection is presented on the notion of importance of these findings. 

• Research Aim and Objectives

The main aim of this research is to investigate that how silent letters, orthography and suffixes can create difficulty for ESL learners. 

The following research objectives form the basis for this research;

• To identify that how silent letters create difficulty for ESL learners to pronounce any word in correct manner.
• To identify that how orthographic association of spelling and pronunciation in English creates difficulty for ESL learners. 
• To focus on the notion through which suffixes create difficulty of learning for ESL learners.  

• Literature Review 

It has been highlighted in the literature that people who learn English as second language are likely to experience many difficulties in reading and writing of English (Alhaisoni et al., 2015). As addressed in the prior research, one of the key factors that create issue for second language learners is associated with the aspect of silent letters, which leads to difficulty of pronouncing a specific word. Mainly, one relies on sounds of letters to remember spellings and when some letters in word are silent then it is likely to be difficult for ESL learners to learn spellings of a word. Additionally, it has been mentioned by Bassetti & Atkinson (2015) that such issue is also likely to lead towards wrong pronunciation of some words and letters, as the letter might be silent, while for non-native English speaker it becomes difficult to identify that which letter will be silent in one word while it will be pronounced in other. The same has been addressed by Birch (2014) that one main reason behind inaccurate reading and writing of any word in English is based on the notion that sometimes written words do not match with the spoken words and creates issues for ESL learners. Moreover, it is further notable that in English there prevails complex association of phonology and orthography, which leads towards complexity in sound-spelling association (Field, 2014). The inability of participant who was learning English as second language depends on this complex relationship of orthography and phonology, as they are not able to predict the association of spellings with pronunciation of the words (Flaherty, 2001). For example, it is addressable that before ‘n’ in a word ‘k’ is silent, for instance, knee, know, and knight (Foote et al., 2016). It could be difficult for not native speaker to recognise it at first that ‘k’ will not be pronounced in these specific words and thus it much likely results in wrong pronunciation.