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Presenter
Mohammed Albousaif 
The University of Newcastle,
Australia

Title
Factors Determining the Saudi Learners' Difficulties
in Attaining EFL Vocabulary.

Abstract

EFL vocabulary learning is one of the fundamental parts of acquiring any language. Almost all L2 learners start their L2 education by learning primary words without which they can not communicate using that second language. However, vocabulary learning is a major challenge that foreign language learners encounter during the process of learning a language. My PhD research concentrates on the difficulties encountered by EFL learners in their vocabulary learning which weaken their general EFL performance. Practically, it investigates what most effective vocabulary learning strategies are and the reasons for using/disusing those strategies in each stage of vocabulary learning.

The main focus of this research will be on what is the relationship between what is known from previous research about vocabulary acquisition processes, and what is actually being done by EFL learners in each stage of vocabulary learning (Encountering new words - Getting the word form - Getting the word meaning - Consolidating word from and meaning in memory - Using the word). This study also gives special attention to what ways learners can be made more aware of the significance of autonomous vocabulary learning. The research aims to generate findings that could encourage Saudi EFL educators and authorities to support the use of more efficient vocabulary learning strategies. It is hoped that the results of this study can be beneficial to all ESL/EFL learners worldwide and to the field of linguistics in general since that the issues faced by Saudi EFL learners are similar to those facing ESL/EFL learners worldwide.