Causes of Students Errors in the Use of English Prepositions : Iraqi EFL Teachers’ Perspective

Abstract

English prepositions are grammatically peculiar and hardly follow anticipated pattern, especially in a foreign context. Obviously, they pose more problems to Iraqi EFL students in translating them into Arabic. Hence, most often the EFL students encounter difficulties in achieving accurate mapping between the two languages due to inadequate knowledge and the inability to realize the various usages of the prepositions. In fact, English prepositions do not incline to specific pattern even in similar situation of use. This study determines the perception of EFL teachers on the causes of students errors in using English prepositions in Iraq. Guided by the theory of language errors, data were purposively gathered through teachers’ interview and analyses with Nvivo software program. The results revealed seven various causes of prepositional errors by EFL students in Iraq, thus: i) language transfer, ii) specific sociolinguistic situation, iii) wrong application of target language, iv) grammatical, stylistic elements, v) intralingual interference, vi) modality of exposure to the Target Language (TL), and vii) Implementation Errors. Therefore, this paper recommends the teachers to understand that mother tongue interference (Arabic language) has significant effect on efficient use of appropriate English prepositions by the EFL students. The teachers should modernise their approaches in the teaching methodologies. To sum up, the use of technology such as modern visual aids will become handy in teaching the EFL students the use of English prepositions in writing of speaking.