Abstract

Teaching language, any language, aims at providing students with four basic skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and to develop these skills so that they reach a linguistic level which enables them to use this language properly. It was noticed that dictation errors are still widespread in students’ writings of Arabic texts, and these errors may prevent them from being properly understood when they communicate with others either in speech or in writing, and this weakness may be an obstacle for them to continue studying in the university, and may even affect their future chances to get a job, especially jobs based on Arabic writing skills. So, the lessons of dictation must take its adequate attention within the context of teaching Arabic for non-Arab learners. Teachers must know the effective strategies of teaching diction in order to get the best use of the lesson. This paper aims to find out the reasons that lead to weakness in this important skill, dictation, among non-Arabic speakers at Al-Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University.

Key words: Weakness of Dictation Skills, Non-Arab Learners, Arabic Language.