Open Conference Systems, Language and Language Teaching Conference 2022

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INVESTIGATING MOTHER TONGUE EFFECT IN THE ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH PREPOSITIONS BY INDONESIA-SPEAKING LEARNERS
Agus Budiharto, Liza Tri Mudita Azizah, Zhabila Winora Yazunka

Building: Day 2 Parallel 4
Room: Room 7
Date: 2022-11-05 01:00 PM – 02:00 PM
Last modified: 2022-11-03

Abstract


The usage of English prepositions by non-native speakers is notoriously problematic. The debate regarding whether prepositions should be memorized as divergent cases or introduced in the teaching process by revealing their manifold senses as a network of related meanings is more likely to be resolved by adhering to the latter.  The present study is aimed primarily at investigating the cause of the problems that Indonesia-speaking learners go through when concerning with English prepositions. Forty-one subjects participated in this study. The participants were from third-year English – majored students' writing for professional context class of Madura University (UNIRA) in the academic year 2020 – 2021. The participants were supposed to answer a multiple choice test designed for this purpose. The test was made up of 20 items. Findings indicated that UNIRA learners of English meet considerable problems in employing English prepositions. The study suggested that Indonesia language as a mother tongue interferes with using English prepositions by Indonesia-speaking learners and brings about numerous difficulties in English preposition

Keywords


English prepositions, language transfer, second language learning