Difficulties in Learning English As a Second Or Foreign Language

Uniquely Chinese Challenge 
In a study worth detailing here, Holm and Dodd (1996) determined that first 
language literacy skills are transferable to learning ESL, especially with regard to the 
learning of new or unfamiliar words. Also, they established that students whose first 
language was nonalphabetic were likely to have difficulty in learning new or unfamiliar 
English words. Holm and Dodd compared the literacy skills of ESL learners from 
different orthographic backgrounds and assessed their phonological awareness to 
determine how it affected literacy acquisition in ESL. 
In this study, Holm and Dodd (1996) sought to determine how first language 
literacy skills transferred to learning English as a second language, especially with 
regard to the learning of new or unfamiliar words and to establish whether students 
whose first language was nonalphabetic were likely to have difficulty in learning new or 

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unfamiliar words. The authors compared the literacy skills of ESL learners from 
different orthographic backgrounds and assessed their phonological awareness to 
determine how it affected literacy acquisition in English. 
Holm and Dodd (1996) hypothesized that nonalphabetic first language learners 
of ESL would have limited phonological awareness, and this would restrict them to 
visual processing of nonwords that require phonological processing and create 
difficulties for them. At the same time, they hypothesized that alphabetic learners of 
nonalphabetic languages have some phonological awareness, and that they would use 
this in the processing of nonwords. 
Holm and Dodd (1996) selected four groups of 10 ESL learners (N = 40) based 
on their first language literacy acquisition process. Each group consisted of 5 male and 
5 female participants, all of whom were students at the University of Queensland and 
had completed at least 1 year of university study. In addition, the participants had no 
learning difficulties in their first language. The four groups were selected to represent 
four different orthographies. Two groups were native Chinese speakers who learned 
their first languages differently from one another. The students from Hong Kong 
learned logographic Chinese by a look and say process (Huang & Hanley, 1995; Leong, 
1973; both cited in Holm & Dodd) that they could apply to the learning of English 
words, which they began to study in primary school. In contrast, students from the 
People’s Republic of China (PRC) learned Chinese through an alphabetic system known 
as pinyin. 
The third group consisted of Vietnamese students whose first language learning 
included the use of an alphabet, although its sounds and their representations, like 

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pinyin, do not directly correlate to English phonology (Holm & Dodd, 1996). Ten 
Australian students completed the sample, and English was their first language. 
As reported by Holm and Dodd (1996), the highly literate students were tested 
individually in one 90 minute session to assess phonological awareness, reading, and 
the spelling of real and nonwords. In the same order, they were given three 
phonological processing tasks that included: (a) phoneme segmentation, 
Spoonerisms, and rhyme judgment tasks; (b) four reading tasks that included 
auditory/visual word matching, nonword matching, nonword and real word reading; 
and (c) two spelling tasks that involved real words and nonwords. The Hong Kong 
group represented a distinctly separate cluster with all of the other participants in the 
last cluster.
Holm and Dodd’s (1996) results showed that the Chinese students from China 
did much better at learning new alphabetic words than did the Chinese students from 
Hong Kong. That was due, in large part, to the fact that the Hong Kong Chinese 
students did not learn Chinese with the help of an alphabetic spelling or pronunciation 
guide. When they were confronted with a new word in English, these students had a 
much more difficult time than those who learned their first language with the assistance 
of an alphabetic system of pronunciation. 
Holm and Dodd (1996) found that the Hong Kong students, whose first language 
literacy was nonalphabetic, had limited phonological awareness in comparison to the 
students with alphabetic first language literacy. Although there were no differences 
found between the groups on real word processing, the students from Hong Kong had 
more difficulty in processing nonwords because of their poor phonological awareness.

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Their performance was inferior to that of the other three groups, and they had much 
greater difficulty across all tasks and groups of tasks. They had no phonological 
awareness to transfer to the learning of new or unfamiliar words, especially nonwords.
The Chinese students, who had learned Chinese via pinyin, were able to transfer the 
phonological awareness it provided to the learning of English. Holm and Dodd’s 
findings supported those from previous studies (Campbell & Butterworth, 1985; 
Goswami & Bryant, 1990; Marsh, Friedman, Desberg, & Saterdahl, 1981; Read, 1986; 
Treiman, 1983; all cited in Holm & Dodd) that phonological awareness is crucial to the 
ESL learner in the processing and learning of new words.
Holm and Dodd (1996) found that nonalphabetic first language learners of 
ESL had limited phonological awareness, and this restricted them to visual processing 
of nonwords that required phonological processing and created difficulties for them.
At the same time, they found that the alphabetic learners of nonalphabetic languages 
had some phonological awareness, and that they would use this in the processing of 
nonwords. 
The implications from the Holm and Dodd (1996) study suggest the possible 
need for intervention and specific instruction in order to develop phonological awareness 
so that learners could have access to a phonological strategy when they attempt to learn 
new words. The suggestion would seem to imply that poor phonological awareness can 
be mitigated, and that there is a gap between the proven benefit of teaching phonological 
awareness, its absence, and the necessity of effectively introducing it as a standard ESL 
curriculum for ESL students who lack in that area. 

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