Identifying Preposition Errors of Turkish EFL Students

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to find out to what extent Turkish EFL students are successful in the use of prepositions, and how much impact their mother tongue has on their errors. In order to achieve this aim, 30 students in the upper-intermediate level of a university prep school were given a 60-sentence gap-filling test. Each sentence in the test included a collocation of preposition in which students are likely to misuse prepositions due to the effect of their native language. They were asked to fill in the gaps with a suitable preposition or put a (-) if no preposition is necessary. The result of the test showed that even at this level, students have great difficulty in finding the correct preposition, with a significant number of errors resulting from mother tongue interference. Separate categories as to different error forms and word forms were also included along with the overall results. Such analysis may encourage EFL instructors to prepare remedial teaching activities which will specifically focus on teaching prepositions, considering students L1 as well.