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