A Syllabic Error Analysis of Young EFL Learners' Spelling Tasks

International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics
2015; 1(2): 1-6

Published online June 15, 2015 (http://www.ijlal.ir)
ISSN: 2383-0514 (Online)
2015 Khate Sefid Press
A Syllabic Error Analysis of Young EFL

Learners Spelling Tasks
Jafar Dorri Kafrani
University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Email: jafar_dorri@yahoo.com
Hadi Tat Hesari

Zabansara Language School, Tehran, Iran
Email: hadi.tathesari20@gmail.com
Hossein Azizvakili
Raja Language School, Tehran, Iran
Email: soldier558@yahoo.com
Azam Aghamohammadi
Zabansara Language School, Tehran, Iran
Email: azam_aghamohammadi@yahoo.com
Abstract The research reported in this paper concentrates
on the recurrence of misspelled syllables of students'
dictation in EFL classes. To reach this aim, 340 dictations of
elementary students were analyzed and the misspelled
syllables were recorded. Out of 18 types of English syllables
(Keshavarz, 1990), 9 syllable types (CV, CCVC, VC, CVC,
CVCC, CCV, V, VCC, CCVCC) were indicated as the most
prevalent ones in students dictations. The researchers
categorized all errors into two major groups: inter-syllable
and intra-syllable errors. While the former focuses on the
errors existing between two syllables within a word, the
latter deals with the errors dwelling inside a syllable.
Moreover, the intra-syllable errors were sub-divided into
vocalic, consonantal, silent letter, and homophonic errors.
Further analysis of the data revealed that most of the
mistakes had occurred in CVC, CV, and CCVC syllables
(intra-syllable errors). Amongst all various error types
which are elaborated in the article, vowel mis-use, vowel
deletion, consonant mis-use, and final "e" deletion/insertion
were the most rampant errors. The smallest word in this
study had one syllable (e.g. die, tie, truck, etc) and the
longest word had 6 syllables (i.e. responsibility). This paper
argues the importance of dictation (spelling) in general and
some probable reasons of misspelled syllables in particular.
The findings of this study call for attention to CVC, CV, and
CCVC syllables especially in the first syllable.
I. INTRODUCTION
There is a relatively simple connection between letters
and sounds in Spanish and Italian. In contrast, there is a
more complex or opaque relationship between letters and
sounds in English orthography (Wang & Geva, 2003).
Therefore, writing (spelling) the words for very beginners
or elementary ESL learners (and EFL in particular) seem
to be problematic.
Some people may remember dictation from school
days with pleasure; some may have felt it boring, while
some may have found it an encouraging exercise. In
many cases the teacher probably read you the text,
dictated it, and then read it a third time so you could
check through. To many people this, and nothing else, is
dictation. But why do you think dictation is important?
Why Dictation?
Davis and Rinvolucri (1988) bring 10 reasons to
support the practice of dictation in a classroom context.
They believe that dictation can keep students active
during and after the exercise. Moreover, they state that
dictation leads to oral communication activities and
fosters unconscious thinking. In addition, as they believe,
dictation copes with mixed-ability groups as well as large
group classes. Also, what is interesting about dictation is
that it will often calm groups. On the side of the teachers,
dictation is safe for non-native teachers and is a
technically useful exercise and provides students this
chance to have access to interesting texts. Moreover,
there are some other questions which seem to be
important in dictation tasks.
Index Terms Syllable, Dictation, Mis-spelling
Received January 19, 2015; Accepted April 21, 2015.


2015; 1(2): 1-6
Who dictates?
In an Iranian context the classroom teacher is the main
source of input for students to write. It is widely
prevalent in schools in Iran that teachers read a text to
students and they write. An alternative to teachers voice
can be a taped voice which will be played by the teacher.
Moreover, peers can also dictate some words, sentences,
or a text to each other.
dictation is just a test of spelling. Stanfiled (1985) does

not support dictation since it is connected to Grammar
Translation Method.
In the same line of beliefs, Cartledge (1968) rejects
dictation as a teaching tool. What Valette (1964) states
has one more layer in this respect. She believes that
dictation is a method for both testing and teaching, but
those who are good at dictation are not necessarily good
at other aspects of language learning.
On the other side of the spectrum, however, Oller and
Steriff (1975) believe that dictation is connected with
students grammar and that it triggers the internalized
expectancy grammar of learners. They also state that
dictation can give teachers and educators some data about
students overall language proficiency.
For Sawyer and Silver (1961), the prominent feature of
dictation is being a tool to learn the language rather than
being a testing device. Whitaker (1975), on the other
hand, has opposite ideas and sees dictation as classroom
device for teaching the language. Morris (1983) holds
both views and considers dictation as both testing and
learning tool from which students can benefit to expand
their accuracy in listening and writing and strengthen
their knowledge of structure and vocabulary.
Dictation can be useful as long as listening
comprehension, literacy, and EFL reading matter
(Pappas, 1977). Pappas holds that dictation is a good tool
for improving students listening comprehension.
Moreover, Jafarpur and Yamini (1993) believe that
dictation can be a means to improve students EFL
comprehension as well as production. This is called
"dual-access processing" in which students should
comprehend the dictated text and simultaneously produce
their comprehension in a written form.
Who chooses the words, sentences, or texts?

Based on the purpose of the activity, different people
may select the content of the dictation task. The course
book writers can suggest some sample words, sentences,
texts, or even some spelling tasks for teachers. Classroom
teacher peers, or another colleague can select the content
of the dictation task.
How long should the text be?
The dictation task can vary from a single word, phrase,
clause, to a long passage based on language proficiency
of the students, time, level of difficulty, and the purpose
of the classroom teacher.
Who corrects the dictation?
It might be a good idea to ask peers to check each
others dictation for the sake of peer feedback. However,
group leaders, other students from a neighboring class, or
the classroom teacher can mark the papers.
There are diverse ideas about dictation. While some
researchers do not approve of dictation (Cartledge, 1968;
Harris, 1965; Lado, 1961; Somarante, 1975; Valette,
1964), still there are some others who find dictation
beneficial for various purposes for ESL or EFL learners
(Davis and Rinvolucri, 1988; Jafarpur and Yamini, 1993;
Morris, 1983; Oller and Steriff, 1975; Pappas, 1977;
Rahimi, 2008; Sawyer and Silver 196; Whitaker, 1976).
B. Spelling and Syllable

There have been ample studies on dictation some
which are done by Tangel and Blachman (1992) who
worked on the effects of phonemic analysis instruction on
spelling achievement. Also, Treiman and Bourassa
(2000) studied about children's written and oral spelling.
Their findings revealed that first and second graders
written spellings were by far much better than their oral
spellings. Moreover, in the same line of investigation,
Stadtlander (1996) studied college students spelling and
found that they had fewer mistakes in spelling words on
paper rather than spelling them orally.
A. Purpose of the Study

Spelling is an important issue in both public and
private sector. Students will be marked and judged based
on how accurate they spell and write the new words in
each unit. The researchers are looking for recurrence of
misspelled syllables of students' dictation in EFL classes
in order to find remedial practice activities.
II. LITERATURE REVIEWE
A. Arguments For and Against Dictation
Literature reports some strong beliefs against dictation.
For one, Lado (1961), holds this belief that dictation has
little value in language testing simply because everything
is dictated to the learners. Moreover, Harris (1965) is an
advocate of the idea that dictation is an uneconomical and
imprecise technique of language testing. A very strong
idea is stated by Somarante (1975) who says that
1. What is a Syllable?
The syllable is a very important unit in phonology.
People can simply tap their fingers on a desk or table
when they hear a word and say how many syllables the
word is consist of. This reveals the role of a syllable in
the rhythm of speech (Roach, 1983).
2

2015; 1(2): 1-6
Words are composed of one or more syllables.

Syllables seem to be necessary units in the mental
organization and production of utterances (Ladefoged,
1975) consisting of a center with not much or no
obstruction to airflow. This centre sounds relatively
louder than the neighboring sounds before and after
which there will be greater obstruction (Roach, 1983). A
syllable must contain a vowel or a vowel like sound
(Yule, 1985). One or more phonemes are building
structures of a syllable (Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams,
2007). Every syllable is made of a nucleus (usually a
vowel) preceded by one or more phonemes (onset) and
followed by one or more segments called coda. Rime is a
fundamental division within the syllable concerns the unit
the rime (Carr, 1993). It is also called a phonological unit
consisting of a vowel or other unit that can be produced
in isolation (Matthews, 2007). Graph 1 depicts the
components of a syllable.
III. METHOD
A. Participants
94 elementary students aged between11 to 13 which
were distributed in 10 classes were the main participants
of this study. Participants were both male and female
junior high school students whose first language was
Persian and were studying English as a foreign language
in a language school located in southern part of Tehran,
Iran. They studied English three days a week. The classes
were held in the afternoons and three times a week. The
course was aimed at improving students basic
communication skills primarily based on Total Physical
Response (TPR).
B. Instruments and Procedure
The main instrument of this study was students
dictation. During the course, each student wrote 4
teacher-told dictations. Totally 376 dictations were
collected and analyzed. Students errors were categorized
and counted based on the list of English syllables
introduced by Keshavarz (1990) depicted in Table 1.
Before the study starts, the researchers consulted some
experts to whether select some specific words and study
the students' behavior (in our case: spelling) only on the
selected words or just ask teachers to dictate students and
study all the dictated words. After exhausting the topic,
the researchers came to the conclusion of selecting some
specific words to be dictated to students. 10 words were
selected meticulously from each unit (8 units, 80 words).
The words were selected based on the importance of
them in the unit. The mean letter for each set of words
was 5 letters. The teachers were given the set of words
and asked to dictate the words at the end of each unit.
Classroom teachers were expected to contextualize the
words and use them in complete sentences. The sentences
were read all once and students listened. Then the
sentences were read loud and slow enough for students to
write. And finally read for the third time to check
whether they had missed a word. At the end of the data
collection, the dictated words were analyzed and it was
declared that only eight types of syllables introduced in
table 1 were present in the words dictated to students.
The common syllables are CV, CCVC, VC, CVC,
CVCC, CCV, V, VCC, and CCVCC. The main focus of
the study was on what type of errors students made more
frequently (Table 5). The mis-spelled syllables were
documented for each word based on the typology
presented by Keshavarz (1990).
Figure 1. Components of a syllable.
Syllable consists of onset and rime which the former

refers to the initial consonant or group of consonants in a
syllable and latter refers to the remainder of the syllable
(Gleason & Ratner, 2009). They study of the possible
phoneme combinations of a language is called
phonotactics. Table 1 depicts all possible English
syllables with an example.
TABLE 1. AN ENGLISH SYLLABLE
IV. RESULTS
The teachers were asked to dictate the unit after they
finished teaching it. At the end of the data collection, the
dictated words were analyzed and it was declared that
3

2015; 1(2): 1-6
TABLE 4. ERROR CATEGORIZATION
only eight types of syllables introduced in table 1 were

presented in the words dictated to students. The misspelled syllables were documented for each word based
on the typology presented by Keshavarz (1990).
TABLE 2. FREQUENCY OF SYLLABLES AND ERRORS IN EACH
SYLLABLE
As the table illustrates, vocalic errors are the main

body of errors (74.08 %). Here are some examples for
each subcategory:
a)
Vowel insertion: clinic, *cilinic.
b)
Vowel deletion: fourth, *forth.
c)
Vowel duplication: sick, *siick.
d)
Mis-ordered vowels: year, *yaer.
e)
Short Vowel-long vowel misuse: sea, *si.
f)
Final e: bike, *bik.
As Table 2 illustrates, CVC was the most ubiquitous

syllable amongst the 9 present syllables. What's more
important is that CVC is the most problematic syllable
for students. Most of the errors were in CVC syllable
(39.72 %). After CVC, the most frequent syllables are
CV (18.69 %) and CCVC (13 %). As it is tabulated,
15.01 % errors were in CV and CCVC syllables. We
would like to focus on syllables VC and CVCC syllables.
Although VC (11.38 %) is repeated more than CVCC
(7.31 %) with the distance of 4.07 % but the error
frequency is really close. While 8.49 % of errors were in
VC, 8.30 % of errors occurred at CVCC syllables with
only 0.19 %. Considering the number of frequency, VC
and CVCC were really close to each other. CCVCC was
the least frequent syllable (0.81 %), therefore only 0.001
% of errors (only one case) was observed in the present
study.
Consonantal errors ranked second in the table (15.78

%). Below are some examples of this error type:
a)
Consonant insertion: July, *Junly.
b)
Consonant deletion: September, *setember.
c)
Consonant mis-use: hamburger, *hanburger.
Silent letter errors come after consonantal errors in the
table with just %3.75. Examples include both vowels and
consonants:
a)
Vowels: cough, *cogh, or *cugh.
b)
Consonants: through, *throuh.
TABLE 3. MALE AND FEMALE COMPARISON OF SYLLABIC

ERRORS
Homophonic errors with % 2.17 (Photograph,

*fotoghraph) and Inter-syllabic errors with just % 1.18
(Pick.up, *picke.up) are placed at the end of the table.
Table 5 illustrates all Syllabic error types in the study
from the most prevalent to the least one.
TABLE 5. SYLLABIC ERROR TYPES
In this study the number of male and female students

were equal (47). Female students have more errors in
syllables CVC, CV, CCVC, VC, V, VCC, and CCVCC.
In contrast, males' syllabic errors outweigh those of
females' in CVCC and CCV. The researchers categorized
observed errors existing in students' dictations into 5
main categories, two of which are sub-divided into
further branches. The main categories are tabulated below
(Table 4).

2015; 1(2): 1-6
V. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
Researchers of this study tried to find problematic

syllables in English Language. The result of this study
declared that most of the students mis-spell words in
CVC, CV, and CCVC. Moreover, researchers divided the
errors into five main categories and sub-divisions among
which vowel mis-use, vowel deletion, consonant mis-use,
and final e were the most prevalent error types.
The present study has raised syllabic awareness of the
teachers teaching YLE in the context. The result of this
study was presented to teachers of the students studying
in the same level. Teachers, with the help of researchers,
designed some game like tasks in order to focus the most
prevalent erroneous syllables. Teachers reported a
significant improvement in students spelling which needs
to be investigated and reported scientifically.
Carr, P. (1993). Phonology. London: Macmillan Press.

Cartledge, H. A. (1968). A defence of dictation. ELT
Journal, 22, 226-231
Davis, P., & Rinvolucri, M. (1988). Dictation: New
methods, new possibilities. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hyams, N. (2007). An
introduction to language (8th ed.). New York: Thomas
Wadsworth.
Gleason, J. B., & Ratner, N. B. (2009). The
development of language (7th ed.). Boston: Pearson
International Edition.
Harris, D. P. (1965). Testing English as a second
language. New York: McGraw Hill.
Jafarpur, A., & Yamini, M. (1993). Does practice with
dictation improve language skills? System, 21, 359-369.
Keshavars, M. H. (1990). Contrastive analysis and
error analysis. Tehran: Rahnama Publication.
Ladefoged, P. (1975). A course in phonetics. (2nd ed.).
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Lado, E. M. (1963). Elementary models for measuring
change. In C. W. Harris (Ed.), Problems in measuring
change (pp. XX-XX). Madison: University of Wisconsin.
Matthews, P. H. (2007). Oxford concise dictionary of
linguistics (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Morris, S. (1983). Dictation a technique in need of
reappraisal. ELT Journal, 37, 121-126.
Oller, J. W., & Streiff, V. (1975). Dictation: A test of
grammar-based expectancies. ELT Journal, 30, 25-36.
Pappas, G. S. (1977). You mean you still give
dictations? Language Arts, 54, 936-939.
Rahimi, M. (2008). Using dictation to improve
language proficiency. The Asian EFL Journal, 10(1), 3347.
Roach, P. (1983). English phonetics and phonology: A
practical course (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Sawyer, J., & Silver, S. (1961). Dictation in language
learning. Language Learning, 11, 33-42.
Somaratne, W. (1957). Aids and tests in the teaching
of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stadtlander, L. (1996). Why is it so difficult to spell a
word aloud? Paper presented at the Psychonomic
Society, Chicago, IL.
Standfield, C. W. (1985). A history of dictation in
foreign language teaching and testing. Modern Language
Journal, 69, 121-128.
Tangel, D. M., & Blachman, B. A. (1992). Effect of
phoneme awareness instruction on kindergarten
childrens invented spelling. Journal of Reading
Behavior, 24, 233-261.
Treiman, R., & Bourassa, D. (2000). Childrens
written and oral spelling. Applied psycholinguistics, 21,
183-204.
A. Implications of the Study

Although the purpose of language learning is
communication, still some schools in public and private
sector highlight spelling and Based on the outcomes of
the study, we suggest teachers focus on the CVC, CV,
and CCVC syllables, if they wish to work on students
spelling ability. This requires offering more game-like
activities via which spelling is focused. Plus, it is
recommended that teachers pay more attention to vowel
sounds in their games. It is recommended that teachers
select words with CVC, CV, and CCVC in their
classroom games and activities.
B. Suggestions for Further Research
A similar study may be planned and conducted in
order to find out mis-pronounced syllables or the wrong
variations of sentence stress. English learners may shift
the stress from one syllable to another in a word or may
put incorrect intonation on sentences. This research will
raise students awareness regarding word and sentence
stress.
In addition, in the same line of study, as Treiman and
Bourassa (2000) investigated, there is room to investigate
students oral spelling. This will be a base for comparison
between oral and written spelling, in terms of accuracy
and recurrence of syllabic errors.

2015; 1(2): 1-6
Valette, R. M. (1964). The use of the dictee in the

French language classroom. Modern Language Journal,
48, 431-434.
Wang, M., & Geva, E. (2003). Spelling performance
of Chinese children using English as a second language:
Lexical and visual-orthographic processes. Applied
Psycholinguistics, 24, 1-25.
Whitaker, S. F. (1976). What is the status of dictation?
Audio-Visual Language Journal, 14, 87-93.
Yule, G. (1985). The study of language (2nd
ed.).Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
AUTHORS
Jafar Dorri Kafrani has been teaching
English for nearly 16 years and been
involved in teacher training for the last 8
years for both private and public sector. His
research interests include teacher education,
corrective feedback, and alternative assessment.
Hossein Azizi Vakili has been teaching
English for 11 years. He has supervised
some language schools in Tehran the capital
city of Iran. The area of interest is
researching are teaching young learners and
error correction.
Hadi Tat Hesari joined the Department
of English Language Teaching at
Zabansara Language School in 2005 as a
Teacher, and in 2010 became a
supervisor. Since 2014, he has been with
the Department of English Language
Teaching, Rafi University, Rey, where he
was a director and teacher. Since 2012, he
has been with the Department of Computer Engineering,
Sama University, Varamin, where he was a teacher. His
current research interests include optoelectronics,
electrical machines and drives, automation.
Azam Agha Mohammadi has been
teaching English for nearly 8 years in
different language schools in Tehran. She
particularly focuses her teaching on YLE.
Her areas of interests include teaching
young learners, error correction, and
students motivation.

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International Journal of Language and Applied Linguistics

2015; 1(2): 1-6