English bilabial plosives and the arab efl learner: Examining baloch’s exposition and arriving at new vistas

English spelling is a major challenge for the Arab EFL learner. The stumbling blocks are two, at the least: One, difference in the writing systems; and Two, difference of the language family. Even so, errors of interference are a foregone conclusion in any foreign language learning context. According to Baloch (2013), the most common error of spelling amongst the undergraduate students at Saudi Arabian universities is the frequent mixing of the bilabial stops, /p/, /b/ where the former is voiceless and latter voiced. Among other factors, L1 interference in the form of the absence of /p/in Arabic is cited as the causative factor. However, our pilot study reveals that such learners have already acquired /p/ but are yet in the process of learning the phonological conditioned variants of /p/, voicing nuances and other phonological phenomena. Thus, we conclude that the Arab EFL learners’ p/b confusion is either phonologically driven, or an outcome of auditory factors. This paper verifies this hypothesis