The Impact of EFL learners’ mother tongue (arabic) interference on the acquisition and use of some english prepositions (on, in, at) in written production
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Date
2018
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University of Oum El Bouaghi
Abstract
Learning the English preposition by EFL students is not without difficulties since the two languages differ in many aspects. This research work aims to investigate the impact of EFL learners' mother tongue interference on the acquisition and use of some English prepositions (on, in, at) in written production. Based on the assumption that 3rd year students master some grammatical rules that govern the use of prepositions, we hypothesize that errors made by EFL students are due to interference of standard Arabic. In order to check this hypothesis, a test and a questionnaire have been administered to a sample of 20 students. The results show that students have failed to put the correct form of English prepositions and committed some errors which are mainly due to their mother tongue (Arabic) interference. In order to confirm the hypothesized reasons behind such a failure, a questionnaire has been administered to the same sample. The findings of the analysis of the questionnaire have indicated that the primary cause of misusing the English prepositions is due to interference of standard Arabic, and this confirms the hypothesis of this research.
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Keywords
Second language acquisition, Interférence, Préposition, Mother tongue