Phonological transfer and targeted instruction in Arab EFL learners’ lexical stress acquisition

What is it about?

Mastering lexical stress is a persistent challenge for second-language (L2) learners, particularly when first-language (L1) prosodic systems differ markedly from the target language. This study investigates how Arabic phonological patterns influence English stress assignment and evaluates the effectiveness of two explicit instructional approaches, ”contrastive phonological analysis” (CPA) and “auditory discrimination training” (ADT), for Arab English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. A total of 180 Jordanian 11th-grade learners completed perception and production tasks involving 50 disyllabic and polysyllabic English words representing five stress types. Acoustic features (pitch, duration, and intensity) were measured using Praat and judged for accuracy by native speakers. Results showed persistent L1 transfer, particularly default penultimate stress and reduced accuracy in morphologically complex forms. Both interventions led to significant improvement in perception and production, with CPA yielding greater gains on stress-ambiguous forms. A strong perception–production correlation (r = .72, p < .001) confirmed a transfer effect and delayed post-tests showed moderate retention. Findings highlight the role of prosodic transfer and support contrastive, perception-based instruction to improve stress competence among Arab learners.

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Why is it important?

This study is important because it clarifies how Arabic prosodic patterns systematically influence English lexical stress assignment and demonstrates that such L1 transfer persists even at advanced stages. By empirically comparing contrastive phonological analysis and auditory discrimination training, it provides robust evidence that explicit, perception-based instruction, particularly contrastive approaches, can significantly improve both perception and production of lexical stress. The findings therefore contribute to models of prosodic transfer and offer clear pedagogical guidance for effective stress instruction in Arab EFL contexts.

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