A Cross-sectional investigation of interlingual & intralingual errors made by Efl Arab Jordanian University students in the use of prepositions in their writing

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Date
2009-05
Authors
Qasem Tahaineh, Yousef Sharif
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Abstract
The present study was a cross-sectional investigation into Arab Jordanian first-, second- and third-year universtiy EFL students' errors in the use of prepositions in written language production. It aimed at identifying the types of errors students make to determine whether the possible source of the errors can be attributed to inter lingual or intralingual interference. The data for this study was derived from free composition (Comp) and Multiple-choice test (MCT) performed by a stratified random sample of 162 students with similar linguistic, sociocultural, and educational backgrounds. Each error was identified, analyzed and then classified under one of the five types of prepositions. After that, the error was determined whether it was interference from mother tongue (MT) or from target language itself. The findings showed that interlingual errors constituted the majority of the total errors. Arab students use the proper English prepositions providing equivalents are used in their MT; select the improper prepositions if equivalents are not used in their MT; omit English prepositions if equivalents are not required in their MT and add English prepositions if equivalents are required in their MT. MT seems to facilitate the choice of the correct prepositions. Intralingual errors were also detected and found to constitute the other main source of errors. As. proficiency increases, reliance on transfer decreases and reliance on overgeneralization increases. It was found that the sophomores and juniors made a higher proportion of errors attributable to overgeneralization than did the low class level. And conversely, the proportion of errors made by freshmen attributable to transfer from Arabic exceeded the proportion of sophomore and juniors' transfer errors, which means that there is a strong effect of the class level on the subjects' performance quantitatively, and that the trend of errors held for the three class levels in the five types of prepositions was similar. There was no clear support for the claim that the lower class level of EFL students made either transfer or overgeneralization errors characteristically different from those made by higher class levels, but they did appear to use these two learning strategies to different degrees. Concerning the length of the Composition, it was not found to have a consistent relationship with the number of errors, which contradicts the traditional teachers' warnings. The insights derived from the course lecturers' feedback on the problem, lent support to the quantitative results. Lecturers' perceptions and suggestions are presented in the findings, which are illustrated through the use of excerpts from the questionnaire responses. The analysis of results also revealed that the improper use of prepositions is prominent among Arab university EFL students even at advanced stages of their learning. There is evidence in this study supporting the view that emphasizes interference as a cognitive learning strategy in which the learner applies a prior knowledge and experience to the targetJanguage. Finally, the results isolate the errors the subjects make, thereby is important for both instructors and learners to examine those common errors and factors for the causes.
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Keywords
Intralingual errors , Arab Jordanian University , Prepositions in their writing
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