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.
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