Acquisition of English prepositions among Iraqi secondary school students in Kuala Lumpur-Malaysia

The study focuses on the acquisition of English prepositions among students of Iraqi secondary school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Participants in the study were (20) students all of them at sixth level. The researchers studied the students’ responses to the given test to investigate the problematic p...

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Main Authors: Shakir, Hani, Yaseen, Bilal Huri
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Australian International Academic Centre 2015
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/71015/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/71015/1/Acquisition%20of%20English%20prepositions%20among%20Iraqi%20secondary%20school%20students%20in%20Kuala%20Lumpur-Malaysia.pdf
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author Shakir, Hani
Yaseen, Bilal Huri
author_facet Shakir, Hani
Yaseen, Bilal Huri
author_sort Shakir, Hani
building UPM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description The study focuses on the acquisition of English prepositions among students of Iraqi secondary school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Participants in the study were (20) students all of them at sixth level. The researchers studied the students’ responses to the given test to investigate the problematic prepositions of English language that Iraqi English as foreign language (EFL) learners have in their everyday and academic usage; and investigate the way that EFL Iraqi learners differentiate between using English and Arabic prepositions. The major finding in this study is that the main reason for all the errors is the dominance of the mother tongue (MT) on English language (EL), especially with Arabic language having a syntactic structure when imposed on EL that too with Arabic meaning on EL. The dominance and influence of one’s MT is a major challenge in using the EL in the right way by Iraqi EFL learners. In a subconscious manner, Iraqi EFL learners tend to use or impose their MT’s syntactic, semantic structures and patterns on EL. Arabic and English have different number of prepositions and word-to-word equivalents of prepositions cannot be found between Iraqi Arabic and English Languages. Iraqi EFL learners are influenced by the prepositional system of their MT (Arabic) when they intend to use the prepositions in EL and this leads to errors and lack of idiomaticity. Inaccuracy is a result of this, which is reflected in class hours for EFL learners.
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spelling upm-710152019-09-10T06:15:01Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/71015/ Acquisition of English prepositions among Iraqi secondary school students in Kuala Lumpur-Malaysia Shakir, Hani Yaseen, Bilal Huri The study focuses on the acquisition of English prepositions among students of Iraqi secondary school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Participants in the study were (20) students all of them at sixth level. The researchers studied the students’ responses to the given test to investigate the problematic prepositions of English language that Iraqi English as foreign language (EFL) learners have in their everyday and academic usage; and investigate the way that EFL Iraqi learners differentiate between using English and Arabic prepositions. The major finding in this study is that the main reason for all the errors is the dominance of the mother tongue (MT) on English language (EL), especially with Arabic language having a syntactic structure when imposed on EL that too with Arabic meaning on EL. The dominance and influence of one’s MT is a major challenge in using the EL in the right way by Iraqi EFL learners. In a subconscious manner, Iraqi EFL learners tend to use or impose their MT’s syntactic, semantic structures and patterns on EL. Arabic and English have different number of prepositions and word-to-word equivalents of prepositions cannot be found between Iraqi Arabic and English Languages. Iraqi EFL learners are influenced by the prepositional system of their MT (Arabic) when they intend to use the prepositions in EL and this leads to errors and lack of idiomaticity. Inaccuracy is a result of this, which is reflected in class hours for EFL learners. Australian International Academic Centre 2015 Article PeerReviewed text en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/71015/1/Acquisition%20of%20English%20prepositions%20among%20Iraqi%20secondary%20school%20students%20in%20Kuala%20Lumpur-Malaysia.pdf Shakir, Hani and Yaseen, Bilal Huri (2015) Acquisition of English prepositions among Iraqi secondary school students in Kuala Lumpur-Malaysia. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 6 (5). pp. 157-162. ISSN 2203-4714 http://www.journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/alls/article/view/1744 10.7575/aiac.alls.v.6n.5p.157
spellingShingle Shakir, Hani
Yaseen, Bilal Huri
Acquisition of English prepositions among Iraqi secondary school students in Kuala Lumpur-Malaysia
title Acquisition of English prepositions among Iraqi secondary school students in Kuala Lumpur-Malaysia
title_full Acquisition of English prepositions among Iraqi secondary school students in Kuala Lumpur-Malaysia
title_fullStr Acquisition of English prepositions among Iraqi secondary school students in Kuala Lumpur-Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed Acquisition of English prepositions among Iraqi secondary school students in Kuala Lumpur-Malaysia
title_short Acquisition of English prepositions among Iraqi secondary school students in Kuala Lumpur-Malaysia
title_sort acquisition of english prepositions among iraqi secondary school students in kuala lumpur-malaysia
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/71015/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/71015/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/71015/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/71015/1/Acquisition%20of%20English%20prepositions%20among%20Iraqi%20secondary%20school%20students%20in%20Kuala%20Lumpur-Malaysia.pdf