Weak Forms: How Do Arabic-speaking Learners of English Use Them?

This paper attempts to investigate the way Arab learners of English deal with weak form items and the difficulty they encounter in using such grammatical items in context. This problem was approached from two different avenues. I therefore carried out two separate tests. The first test, the pronunciation test, showed that Arab learners have a serious problem with pronouncing weak form items. The second test, the identification test, also demonstrated that Arab learners had a problem with identifying weak form words in context. Nothing may have inhibited them from correctly pronouncing and identifying weak form items but the absence of these items from Arabic and the lack of some basic lengthy training (formal or informal) in the use of weak form words. Some of the present findings contradict Mitleb (1987) and other researches' findings that experience in the second language rules plays an important role in the evolvement of the perceptivity of the sound pattern, particularly the suprasegmental features. I suggest that more attention is to be devoted to the teaching of the suprasegmental aspects which occur in English connected speech so that learners are enabled to employ these items correctly to maintain the rhythmic quality of the English language. However, the nature of experience required to help EFL learners master the use of suprasegmental aspects is an area which is still very much neglected by teachers, linguists and syllabus designers alike.