English Language is the language oI diplomacy , trade, communication,

technology and business. It has developed to an international language and to a

means oI global communication. Learning such a language opens new horizons to a
better Iuture Ior any learner. Recognizing the importance oI English language, most oI
the Arab countries chose English as their second language. Because oI the diIIerences
between the Arabic and English, Arab learners Iace many diIIiculties in obtaining the
language, as Samuel Johnsonin ,1761, said "To use two languages Iamiliarly and
without contaminating one by the other, is very diIIicult". The interIerence oI the
learners' mother language is an essential cause oI these problems. There are two
causes Ior problems in learning any language, which are interlanguage and
intralanguage problems. Interlanguage problems are problems that occurred within the
language Ior the native speakers themselves. InterIerence (negative transIer) is the
negative inIluence oI the mother language (L1) on the perIormance oI the target
language learner (L2) (Lado, 1964). This term was introduced by Selinker ( 1972 )
and reIers to the systematic knowledge oI L2 which is independent oI both the
learner's L1 and the target language. The second cause is intralanguage problems
which are problems shared with the native speakers and problems created by the
reality oI being Arabs. According to Richards (1970) they are 'items produced by the
learner which reIlect not the structure oI the mother tongue, but generalizations based
on partial exposure to the target language". The learner, in this case, tries to 'derive
the rules behind the data to which he/she has been exposed, and may develop
hypotheses that correspond neither to the mother tongue nor to the target language
(Richards, 1970, p. 6). Arab learners Iace a lot oI diIIiculties in learning the English
language especially in the vocabulary, sound system, grammar , reading , speaking,
writing and listening.
Vocabulary is an essential component oI any language. Without learning
them, we will not be able to express our thoughts or understand what is being said to
us. Vocabulary learning considered the most important by most oI the second or
Ioreign language researches ( Candlin, 1988; Chen, 1999; Huang, 1997 , 2001;
Krashen, 1989; Knight, 1994; LauIer, 1997; Lewis, 1993; Lin, 2000; Nation, 1990;
Yang, 2002). Learning vocabulary is not an easy task. Most learners view vocabulary
as their language learning diIIiculty (Candlin, 1988 ). Arabs learners Iind it too
diIIicult to remember all the meanings they learnt, they misuse or mispronounce
some words. Learning a language makes students come across many words oI the
target language and these words sometimes have diIIerent meanings which make it
more diIIicult to remember them all. Also, some words are related to the English
culture which is diIIerent Irom the culture oI Arabs. Word choice is considered
another diIIiculty such as: using close or shut, go or come.etc. Learners also Iace a
problem in diIIerentiating between verbs or nouns especially iI they have the same
spelling such as: a book and book a ..(room)..a Iish and Iish (Iishing)..etc. I attended
once a Jordanian teacher's class where she said," I learn you English ". In her sentence
she used the verb 'learn' instead oI 'teach' because she misunderstood its meaning
relying on its equivalent in Arabic ' - - - '. Pronunciation is another obstacle Ior
Arabs learners oI EFL because oI the sound system which will be discussed next. To
overcome these diIIiculties, learners need to practice the language more and
curriculum should be updated and contains oI the most common vocabulary. The
amount oI the new vocabulary in each lesson should be suitable Ior the students and,
age and culture.

Sound system is deIined as " The study oI speech sounds in language or a
language with reIerence to their distribution and patterning and to tacit rules
governing pronunciation". It consists oI its individual speech sounds, as well as its
stress, rhythm and intonation parts. Most children are born with the vocal equipments
to produce any language but their Iirst language is imprinted very early in their
development. There are diIIerences between the sound system in all languages.
Actually, it is another challenge Ior Arabs learning EFL. Though English language
has 26 letters, English speakers produce 40 sounds. They are divided mainly into
vowels and consonants. Vowels are problematic Ior Arabs learners. Most oI the
vowels in English has no equivalent in Arabic. Diphthongs ,Ior example, are replaced
by other sounds as a result oI L1 interIerence such as /e//e/ in 'hair' . Also," the
distinction between certain pairs oI vowels as in // and /e/ as in sit and set; // and
// as in luck and lock; // and /:/as in coat and caught" (Kharma & Hajjaj, 1989,
p. 16). Consonant clusters are another challenge. Arabic speakers oIten insert short
vowels in order to "assist" pronunciation such as 'ispring' or 'sipring' Ior spring. They
also have diIIiculties in some consonants such as /p/ which is pronounced as /b/ and
/v/ which is mispronounced as /I/. Stress cause another diIIiculty especially in
homographs, e.g., record ('record as n. and re'cord as v ). As it is mentioned above,
these diIIiculties derived Irom L1 interIerence. To solve these problems, English
should be taught earlier because learning capacities vary with age.

The problematic sound system is related to one oI the language skills
which are Speaking. Speaking is a language skill that means the art oI
communications as a productive skill. Good speaking skills is the act oI generating
words that can be understood by listeners. Arabs learners try to speak Iluently as the
native speakers though this cause some problems. As Cook 1999, stated : 'Trying to
get students to be like a native speaker is ineIIective; their minds and their knowledge
oI language will inevitably be diIIerent. Besides pronunciation and stress mentioned
beIore , we have the intonation. Intonation means a variation oI pitch while speaking
which is used Ior emphasis, to convey surprise or irony, or to pose a question. It is
considered a problem because it diIIers with those in Arabic. Also, when we heard
Arabs learners while speaking, we Iind them hesitate to speak. That is because they
are shy or aIraid oI making mistakes. Solutions Ior problems oI speaking is to involve
students in real conversation with native speakers which will Iorce them to speak
English. I have improved my speaking more since I started using Skype to teach a
Dutch learner. For the problem oI hesitation, we can start with small words and
common expressions and encourage students to use them in their daily conversations.
Also, they can improve listening using conversation websites that oIIer many
conversations oI diIIerent situations.
Participating in any conversation needs two skills which are speaking and
listening . Listening is a language skill in a sense that it is a related but distinct
process than hearing which involves merely perceiving sound in a passive way while
listening occupies an active and immediate analysis oI the streams oI sounds. Its
diIIiculties are also associated to the sound systems problems. Arabs learners, as
recipients, Iind diIIiculties in distinguishing some vowels and consonants. Most oI the
learners in Arabs country, and especially in Saudi Arabia, were taught by non-native
speakers. This aIIects their language badly and cause problems. When they interact
with native speakers, they will not be able to understand. From my experience in
teaching, during listening tasks, when I read the text , students answered the
comprehension questions easily while they did not when I played the tape. Here,
learners need to have intensive listening to native speakers to increase their
understanding oI the language such as listening to the radio and watching movies.

Moving to the next skill which is reading. It is the receptive skill in the
written mode. It developed along with listening and speaking skills. The problems in
this skill emerges Irom the words used in the reading text. Hargis (1999) states that
readability measures are the number oI diIIicult words, Irequency oI these words and
sentence complexity. Another aspects are Ieatured in the spelling/sound inconsistency
as ' learning to read the word will be easier iI the language is written as it sounds
(Rohner, 1989:5). This is related to both sound system and spelling. Sometimes we
have a combination oI letters which are pronounced diIIerently such as 'ch' in 'school',
pronounced as /k/ and 'cheap' pronounced as /t/ . When the words in the text are
Iamiliar to the learners, reading process will be easy and Iast. Choosing a suitable text
will be one solution or the teacher should clariIy the meaning and present the
unIamiliar or new words beIore starting reading. Another solution is to have
extensive reading to provide the learners with more vocabulary.

The last skill we are going to discuss is writing as an example oI
productive skills. It is deIined as "Skills that enable an individual to write lucidly,
coherently, and grammatically, or to handwrite legibly with ease and speed". The
diIIiculties in this skill are due to writing style and rules alphabets, and spellings.
Arabic is written Irom right to leIt while English is written Irom leIt to write. This is
the Iirst challenge Iace Arabs in writing. Alphabets in both languages have diIIerent
shapes. Learners reverse some letters position such as " b, d , n, m...etc.". Each
alphabet in Arabic has one sound while in English, there is silent sounds as the /g/ Ior
example in 'light, bright and night '. Writing rules , such as capitalization and
punctuation, are considered a great obstacle in learning writing. There is no
capitalization in Arabic. Students oIten Iorget to write capital letters at the beginning
oI the sentences, in their names or the countries and cities...etc. ( SoIer & Raimes,
2002) , said about this 'It has no distinction between the upper case and the lower
case. Using commas in writing lists is common in English. 'And' is used only beIore
the last item while its equivalent in Arabic is used aIter all the items . In Arabic each
item in a series is precede by the conjunction wa`( ) which is equivalent to and`.
(Diab, 1996) .Cook (1999) claims that spelling errors are the most common type oI
mistake in the written work oI learners oI English. Kinds oI spelling problems which
Arabic speakers have are discussed in more detail in Swan & Smith (1987) and
Kharma & Hajjaj (1989). Most oI the spelling problems are related to its
pronunciation correspondence. Examples oI errors in spelling are: inserting extra
letter or omitting another. Problems in writing are common in all languages. To Iace
such a challenge, learners need to practice writing more.

In my teaching, I Iound that the most problematic component oI
English language to our students in Saudi Arabia is grammar rules. Arabic is a
Semitic language which is diIIerent Irom the Indo-European languages such as
English. The Iirst problem in grammar is the word order. Learners oIten miss up with
their mother language by starting with the verb as in Arabic. Instead oI saying "
Muhammad goes to school" they say " Goes Muhammad to school". Articles is other
problems, learners are not used to them in Arabic since we have only one article
which is equivalent to 'the' in English. Learners Iorgets to use the articles; a, an and
the , in their writing. Possessives and irregular verbs are other examples oI
diIIiculties because learners oIten compare English to Arabic where they do not exist.
Many grammatical rules cause a great conIusion to Arab learners relying on the
diIIerences between the two languages. Teacher should try to simpliIy the inIormation
given and never compare to Arabic rules so learner will recognize that the two
languages are extremely diIIerent.

There are many Iactors which help the mentioned problems to emerge when
Arabs learning EFL. Examples oI these Iactors are age, mother-tongue interIerence,
and the learner's personality. Age has an important role in the capacity oI learning a
language. The role oI age is Iound to be more prominent in pronunciation than in
other areas. It was Lenneberg (1967) who proposed the Critical Period Hypothesis
(CPH), suggesting that there is a period oI time when language learning is more
successIul than any other time in one's liIe. AIter this point, it becomes diIIicult to
attain the complete mastery oI a second language, especially pronunciation. The
second Iactor is the inIluence oI the mother language .No doubt that native language
phonetics and phonology have powerIul inIluences on second language learning.
Learning becomes easier when L2 elements are similar to L1 but diIIicult when those
diIIerent elements will be diIIicult. This is called the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis
(CAH) . Having such knowledge can help the language teacher identiIies the areas oI
inIluence oI L1 on L2 and to develop some methods to rectiIy the interIerence. The
third Iactor is a non-linguistic Iactor which is related to the learner's personality. His
/Her learning goals, attitude towards the target language, native speakers and their
culture, and type oI motivation, all have their role in the development oI language
learning. From my experience in teaching, I Iound that students in primary and
intermediate levels are more eager and motivated to learn English. Also, students who
lives in Riyadh are better than students who lives in Al-Ghail, a village belongs to Al-
AIlaj town.

To sum up all the above, it should be remembered that all the
mentioned Iactors that aIIect the language learning diverse Irom one individual to
another. Beside that they are strongly connected and aIIected each other. E.g. , the
pronunciation oI words is related to understanding their meanings, that means when a
reader mispronounces a word , this might aIIect their understanding as readers and
conIuse the listener. To suggest solutions Ior these challenges, we should encourage
the use oI authentic language in meaningIul context, provide intrinsically motivating
techniques, provide appropriate Ieedback and corrections, create situations similar to
real liIe and teach the Iour skills integratively.