PhD Proposal
Submitted
by
Essam Tahir Mohammed
Title : Mother Tongue Interference in Learning English
Language by Iraqi Students: English Prepositions as a
Case Study.
University of Mosul
College of Arts/ Dept. of Translation
Essam Tahir Mohammed
Email:isamkassab@yahoo.com
Cellular Phone No.(009647714074270)
Contents
Chapter 1
1.1 Introduction
1.2 The Problem
1.3 Aim of the Study
1.4 Hypotheses
1.5 Limitation of the Study
1.6 The Data
Chapter 2
2.1 Review of the Related literature in Arabic
2.2Types of Prepositions in Arabic
Chapter 3
3.1Review of Related Literature in English
3.2 Types of Prepositions in English
Chapter 4
4.1 The Analysis of Data
4.2 locating the areas of errors
4.3 Making Percentage According to Each type of Prepositions
Chapter 5
5.1Sum up of the findings
5.2 Conclusion of the Study
5.3Pedagogical Implication , Suggestions and Further Researches
1.1 Introduction
Interest in the teaching of English as a global language has been growing
throughout the Arab world, and most Arab governments began to
introduce the teaching of English as compulsory subject into the school
curriculum. So, because of the widespread use of English as a second
language, the subject of language teaching in general and teaching
English as a foreign or second language in particular, has become the
focus of attention of most Arab researchers (Al-Khatib, 2000). (Zughoul
:2003)states that English is still badly needed in the Arab world for the
purposes of communicating with the world, education, acquisition of
technology and development at large. Teaching still needs more efforts to
be exerted to raise the quality and standard of English of the Arab
learners at all levels, (ibid 2003). Several Arab researchers reported and
confirmed that Arab EFL learners in general face serious problem in
using English prepositions (e.g. Rababah, 2001, 2003; Zughoul, 1991,
2003; Al-Khataybeh, 1992). (e.g. Zahid, 2006; Mohammed, A.M. 2005;
Muortaga, K. 2004) investigated EFL Arab learners’ syntactic errors, the
results of their empirical studies revealed that Arab learners were
incompetent and weak mainly in verbs and prepositions Arabic has a
wealth of fixed prepositions and particles ,used with both verbs and
adjectives .Many of these do not coincide with their direct English
translations(Michael Swan &Bernard Smith p.206).While Arab students
seem to rely on one to one correspondence between Arabic And English
prepositions which consequently leads them to choose improper
prepositions. The study will investigates all these problems in the use of
prepositions and suggest solutions for them. .
1.2 The Problem
Most of Iraqi students who try to learn English cannot master the
preposition system of this language and this comes as a result of many
things like the number of prepositions in English or because they need to
be studied for a long period of time and sometimes the teachers
themselves do not allocate enough time to explain this important part of
English or they just give the students a little number of the prepositions
without explaining in detail all the types of it .In this study the focus will
be on mother tongue interference and it is also one of the problems that
face the students in learning English, while most of the students think that
English uses the same prepositions used in Arabic so they use the Arabic
form of prepositions in their English which consequently seems Arabic
rather than English.
1.3 Aim of the Study
The study aims at discovering the areas of error made by Iraqi students in
the use of English prepositions as a result of first language interference
and to find suitable remedies for these errors to help the students to
prevent them in future.
1.4 Hypotheses
The study hypothesizes the following:
1.The majority of the student tend to use improper prepositions due to
their mother tongue interference.
2.The minority of the students are aware of the difference in preposition
use between Arabic and English.
3.The students will use unacceptable prepositions instead of acceptable
prepositions.
1.5 Limitation of the Study
The topic of mother tongue interference in learning in English language
covers many areas of English .The study will be limited to the use of
prepositions only and the errors done by the Iraqi students in Learning
this language . The study will be conducted only on university students
who study English(English Dept.). The university students are thought to
be more aware of the use of the prepositions.
1.6 The Data
Ten students will be chosen to undergo the test. The students will be
given two types of tests: the first one will be a translation of number of
sentences into English .The second will be multiple choice question and
the students will only select the right preposition to fill in the blank.
References
Al-Khatib M.A (2000). The Arab World: Language and Cultural Issues.
Language, Culture and Curriculum Vol.13. no.2:121-125.
AL-Khataybeh,M(1992).An analysis of syntactic errors in the tenth
grade students. Unpublished M.A. thesis. composition of Jordanian
Yarmouk University-Jordan
Michael Swan&Bernard Smith(2001).A teacher's guide to interference
and other problems. Cambridge University Press,UK
Mohammed, A.M. (2005).Collocation errors made by Arab learners of
English. Asian EFL Journal. Teachers Articles. Vol.5 .2 :117-126
Mourtaga, K.(2004).Investigating writing problems among Palestinians
students Studying English as a foreign language. PhD dissertation
Indiana University, USA
Rababah, G. (2001). An investigation into the strategic Competence of
Arab Learners of English at Jordanian Universities. PhD Dissertation
University of Newcastle uponTyne.UK.
Zahid Chebchoub (2006). Righting writing errors. The Seventh Annual
UAE .University Research Conference UAE. University, Al-Ain.
Zughoul, M.R. (2003).Globalization and EFL/ESL pedagogy in the Arab
World. Language and Learning.Vol.1, no.2.
Zughoul, M.R.(1991). Error in lexical choice: towards writing
problematic World Lists. IRAL Vol.29, no.1: 45-60
