Dictation

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.

K. Abdul Gafoor & Remia, K.R. : This study examined the collective influence of phonological awareness, morphological awareness and non-verbal ability on dictated spelling in Malayalam using multiple regression analysis. Data was obtained via representative sample survey on lower primary students in grade 2 and 3 of 11 Lower Primary Schools in Kerala. One year after measuring predictor variables in grade 2, dictated spelling was appraised in Grade 3. All the three first order r’s of dictated spelling with the predictors were significant and positive. However, non-verbal ability has no significant influence on dictated spelling, independent of the Morphological Awareness and Phonological Awareness.  Morphological Awareness (18.22%) contributed more than Phonological Awareness (14.71%) to the dictated spelling in Malayalam. Together, the two variables account for nearly 1/3 of variance in students’ dictated spelling. The result suggests adoption of a linguistic-component-based-approach that enhances phonological awareness and morphological awareness, to strengthen spelling ability in early grades.