The Effect of Cultural Interference on the EFL Learners' Speaking Skill

Abstract

The present study aims at investigating the effects of cultural interference on the foreign language learners‟ speaking skill. EFL learners think in Arabic when they use English that is why their English sounds like Arabic. Since speaking a foreign language is the students‟ aim in EFL classrooms, the importance is given to eliminating the problem of Arabic cultural interference in speaking English as a foreign language. Therefore, we hypothesize that if Arab learners are aware of the socio-cultural differences between the mother tongue and the target language, this will reduce the cultural interference that they generally exhibit. Throughout this study, we want to investigate the causes behind cultural interference in EFL classrooms in Algeria and thereby propose solutions to this phenomenon. To accomplish this study, we designed a questionnaire which was administered to second year master students (M2) at the branch of the English language at Biskra University. We also conducted an interview with a number of teachers who teach in the same institution. These teachers are the most knowledgeable about the difficulties that these learners face. After the analysis of the data collected and the results obtained from both the questionnaire and the interview, we arrived to confirm the hypothesis of this research and we tried to put forward some pedagogical recommendations, as how to find appropriate remedies that would eventually help learners to cope with the interference of their native culture while using the target language.