Berkani, AbderrahmaneChaira, Farid2018-03-142018-03-142013http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/2442The focus of this research is on the impact that arabic grammatical system has on the use of english prepositions by algerian students whose mother tongue is arabic, and study english as foreign language (second year university students). The research approach adopted in this dissertation includes a grammar test which consists of about twenty sentences given to thirty five students who were required to put in the right preposition. The findings from this research provide evidence that the arabic grammatical could be relied upon to facilitate to some extent the learning of english prepositions so that they would be used appropriately. What data has revealed, too, is that is it is not a must for every ‘basic and familiar’ preposition to be automatically positively transferred, because some prepositions might be perceived as ‘basic and familiar’ like ‘in, on, at’ though not easy for students to learn. One more important thing to mention is that students, in the test, students do not seem to struggle much to put in the right preposition when choices are provided than when they are not. The main conclusions drawn from this study are that positive transfer takes place as long as arabic provides the exact or the approximate equivalent, and regardless of the prepositions being basic or not. Also, Students pay scan, if not at all, attention to the context of preposition before they insert one, since what actually happens when they come to use prepositions is that they immediately transfer the meaning of a sentence before they figure out which preposition is more appropriate. In addition, the students’ knowledge about prepositions in general is limited. This dissertation recommends that teachers’ role should be to make use of both CA and EA complementally for the practice of teaching to live up to its potential, and subsequently help Arab FLLs to learn english grammar in general and prepositions in particular. In addition, arab FLLs of english should be well introduced to english prepositions and their different uses right from the beginning of their careers, without forgetting to draw comparisons between both language systems every now and then to clear up misunderstanding and to reinforce earning.enLanguage classroom teachingOther