Essay About English Prepositions

I. Introduction

Prepositions in English are the joints of speech that make it comprehensible. They are important because they act as vital markers to the structure of a sentence; they mark special relationships between persons, objects, and locations. However, English prepositions have always been a source of great difficulty for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners regardless of his or her mother tongue (Celce-Murcia, 1983:250). McCarthy (1972) (cited in Hamdallah and Tushyeh, 1993:181) maintains that “As any English teacher well knows, our prepositions are particularly troublesome lot to the non-native speaker of English '. Pittman (1966) (cited in Hamdallah and Tushyeh, 1993: 181) as well states that “Among those who teach or learn the English language, prepositions have earned a reputation

It also has been noticed that the extent of the difficulty is not always the same, and that students face much more difficulties in using some English prepositions than others. Moreover, the majority of students usually commit the same errors .

C. Statement of purpose:

The purpose of the study is to identify the difficulties and problematic areas in English prepositions that Saudi EFL learners encounter at King Khalid University as a result of language transfer which is a real and an inevitable phenomenon that should be considered in any study of the second / foreign language learning process, and determine whether Saudi college students of English rely on their Standard Arabic prepositional knowledge and accordingly, areas of transfer occur.

D. Significance of the topic;

With acknowledging the value of previous studies in this issue, this proposed study will contribute in the area of English language teaching and learning in Saudi Arabia in particular where there are limited studies conducted regarding the effect of transfer of L1 on Saudi EFL learners.

E. Research Structure:

The proposed study will be consisted of two