Problems Arab EFL Students Encounter in Learning Prepositions

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of a study that aimed at identifying the difficulties that Arab EFL learners encounter in using prepositions at the levels of both recognition and production. Data were collected through a specially designed questionnaire that was given to 50 university students. It was found that the overall performance of the subjects was low as they encounter a number of tangible difficulties in acquiring English prepositions. A hierarchy of difficulty was established and the major causes of these difficulties were identified. The semantic complexity of prepositions, the multi-uses each preposition has and negative transfer from Arabic were found to be among the major causes of difficulty..