Abstract:

Research emphasising the importance of being able to spell correctly, is very limited – in contrast to the large body of research into reading that is currently available. More recent viewpoints underscore the notion that many L2 learners who struggle to spell, are unable to use spelling strategies that apply spelling rules. Specifically with regard to the spelling of English words, L2 learners cannot always rely on their knowledge of sound-letter correspondence when writing new words. The current study underscores this fact, namely L2 learners in the current study used the phonological route for the spelling of words before the intervention (pre-test analyses). This was evident in the spelling errors of these learners. For example: they made phonological coding errors: flavoo/flafor for flavour; blaza for blazer and uge for huge. Consequently, the researcher in the present study has implemented an alternative approach to spelling improvement that employed orthographic strategies, such as visual imagery. A post-test result has confirmed the possible benefits of orthographic strategies, demonstrating not only a significant improvement in the spelling scores of L2 learners, but also in the quality of their spelling attempts.

Keywords:

L2 spellers, orthographic processing, qualitative analyses.