Recognition of Stressed Syllables by Saudi EFL Learners at Al-Baha University.

This study aims to measure the abilities of Saudi EFL learners torecognize the stressed syllables within several disyllabic English words. Theparticipants were 18 college students at Ai-Baha University in KSA. Theywere majoring in English Language. All of them had completed the study ofsome of the B.A. English program courses, among which were Phonetics andPhonology, before taking part in the current study. A test containing 10disyllabic words was used as a tool to collect the data necessary to achievethe study's objectives. The major findings revealed that these Arab EFLlearners encounter difficulties in recognizing lexical stress, and the level ofdifficulty depends on the part of speech of the word. The study issignificant because it helps both EFL teachers and learners diagnose thedifficulties related to English lexical stress and find solutions to overcomethem.