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DIFFICULTIES THATEFL TEACHERS FACE WHILE THEY TEACH PREPOSITIONS
Ogerta Koruti Stroka
This research deals with English prepositions and the difficulties that English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students face while they master prepositions. The authors identify the needs of English teachers who wish to improve their teaching skills through enhanced explanation of prepositions by providing some practical suggestions. The participants in this research were 50 EFL teachers from Albania, Greece and Kosovo. The questionnaire study aimed to discover whether the teachers taught prepositions in the class or not. The research findings revealed that most of the surveyed EFL teachers either teach according to the textbook or they do not explain prepositions at all. Most of the teachers felt that English prepositions are difficult to teach to nonnative speakers, for some key reasons: polysemy of prepositions, where different meanings change according to the context in which prepositions are used; lack of a spoken and written guide on how to use prepositions; native language interference. After summing up teachers’ practice in this area, the authors provide a range of useful activities which may support preposition teaching and learning.
Keywords: prepositions, EFL students, native language interference, acquisition.
Introduction
Prepositions in English are a well-known challenge for learners of English as a second language (ESL), as they are one of the most problematic areas (Lindstromberg, 1991 and Capel, 1993).Boers and Dem-echeleer (1998) argue that prepositions are difficult for ESL/EFL learners because they have literal as well as figurative meanings.
The English preposition is usually defined as a word that connects a noun to other words and shows the relationship between them (Collins Cobuild English guides, 1998). Prepositions are very confusing and sometimes hardly understandable even for native speakers, and when it comes to EFL students the problem is much bigger, because they have to understand all the nuances of the English prepositions, to memorize them and properly use them.
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Despite these challenges, prepositions are hardly addressed in current ESL teaching methods. Teachers often find prepositions hard to teach. Sometimes when they want to explain a preposition they use one or two other prepositions in order to provide a definition, which then leads to further definitions. The situation described is not only confusing for teachers but also for the students, who find themselves in a “pool” of prepositions with still vague meanings. Many English course books provide only a general overview of prepositions and do not supply specific rules on their usage. In most cases therefore, important aspects of the acquisition of prepositions are not mentioned at all, such as when a certain preposition has more than one meaning depending on its context, as well as a lack of information about verbs or nouns which may require certain prepositions.
Generally, prepositions are studied in isolation, by some general rules and followed by examples. In this case an important aspect of teaching prepositions is ignored. But it is well known that in English, prepositions appear as adjuncts, they mark the arguments of predicates, and they combine with other parts of speech to express new meanings (Schrapfer Azar, 1989). This paper presents ongoing work on the difficulties EFL students face while they master English prepositions.
Focus of research
The aim of the present study is to identify the needs of English teachers and the difficulties they face while they teach or explain English prepositions. This paper is intended to help teachers understand the benefits of teaching prepositions by providing multiple examples of prepositions’ usage within a given context. It stresses the importance of ensuring that EFL learners are exposed to prepositions because the more EFL learners are exposed to prepositions, the better they will acquire their common and finer shades of meanings.
Research methodology
Based on review of the literature and previous studies conducted in this area, our study aims at shedding some light on the following research questions:
1. How do EFL teachers teach prepositions?
2. To what extent is the usage of prepositions affected by EFL learners’ mother tongue (L1)?
3. How can teachers improve their teaching skills when they teach prepositions?
This study, without pretending to be exhaustive, also aims to analyze the difficulties that students encounter while they master English prepositions.
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Defining and teaching prepositions
According to Quirk et al. (1993), prepositions express a relationship between entities: they indicate a relationship in space (between one object and another), and/or a relationship in time (between events), in addition to other relationships such as instrument and cause.
Prepositions can be classified according to their form, function and meaning (Celce-Murcia,& Larsen-Freeman,1999). As far as the form is concerned, prepositions can be simple (one-word preposition), or complex (also called two- word, three-word, or compound prepositions) (Celce-Murcia, & Larsen-Freeman, 1999). Simple prepositions are a closed class, meaning that we can not invent new single word prepositions. However, complex prepositions are a open class because new combinations could be invented (Yates. 1991). In English, there are approximately seventy simple prepositions. The most frequently used are: at, by, for, from, in, of, on, to and with (Grubic, 2004).
There are many reasons why learning English prepositions is notoriously difficult and a slow process for EFL students. English prepositions typically are short, single-syllable or two-syllable words that are seldom stressed when pronounced. They are often not articulated clearly or heard distinctly. Another problem is that prepositions are often conceptually different from one language to the other, so when it comes to translating them EFL students face many difficulties. For example, in English we say “go to work by car,” whereas in Albanian we say “shkoj ш pu^ me maki^ (go to work with a car). Both sentences express the same meaning by making use of different prepositions. According to different authors, the reasons for the most common errors are attributed to:
A. Interlingual transfer refers to the interference of mother tongue to the target language Brown (Brown, 1987).
B. Intralingual transfer where errors occur due to partial learning of the target language. So we can mention the overgeneralization error, which according to Brown (Brown, 1987) involves the incorrect application of the previously learned second language material to a present second language context. Also we can attribute intralingual transfer to the ignorance of rule restriction which according to Richards and Sampson means “applying rules to contexts to which they do not apply” (Richards and Sampson, 1974).
C. Context of Learning: These sorts of errors are attributed to poor presentation of prepositions in texts, which in most cases do not mention prepositions at all. Brown states that “some textbook writers focus on some aspects of the language and neglect others according to their belief 111
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or experiences” (Brown, 1987). Simple prepositions are more easily mastered by students compared to the complex prepositions so they receive little attention in grammar textbooks and other school text books. The exercises or examples for this particular category of prepositions are rare and that’s why teachers do not focus on these prepositions and do not use them extensively with their students.
D. Avoidance: Sometimes students of EFL avoid the words or chunks of words, which they find difficult to acquire (Lightbown and Spada, 2003)
E. Guessing: when students do not know or are in doubt about a specific preposition they try to guess the right one (Herskovits, Annette, 1998)
Research context
The English Language Teachers Association Albania (ELTA) organized a training seminar for 300 English teachers from Albania, Kosovo and Greece in Corfu, Greece. Questionnaires (see Appendix 1) were distributed at break time to a random sample of 50 teachers. It consisted of teachers from the three countries. Ten of the participants teachers teach EFL to primary schools students, ten teachers teach EFL to secondary school students, 15 teachers teach EFL to mixed ability adults, and 15 teachers teach English to university students.
Instrument and procedures
A questionnaire designed for quantitative analysis was designed for the purposes of this study (Siniscalco, 2005). Three demographic data questions were asked about teachers’ academic backgrounds, their experience in teaching and the age level of their students. Two closed ended questions focused mainly on the information if prepositions are included in grammar spots of the English textbooks used by the sample teachers in their schools and if their students faced difficulties while they master English prepositions. The sample had to answer yes or no to the above mentioned questions. Four open questions were designed to gauge the teaching interests and attitudes of our teacher sample, in order to examine any difficulties encountered when explaining prepositions, the sources of errors and the causes of these errors. Also, the sample had to write the methods they use in the classroom when they explain prepositions, and the workshops they have recently attended or would like to attend in the future.
The questionnaires were distributed by the authors at break time during the ELTA training seminar, so teachers had available all the time needed to complete the instrument
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Data analysis
In this section, the findings of our study are presented and discussed in light of the questions provided in the questionnaires.
Most of the sample (60%) studied were university graduates. 30 % held a Master’s degree and 10 % of them had a Ph.D. (Figure 1)
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Bachelor Master Phd
Degree
Figure 1. Academic background
The majority of the sample (40 %) were teachers with an experience of teaching of five to ten years; 24 % of the teachers had a teaching experience of one to five years; 20 % of the teachers had a teaching experience of over 20 years; 16 % of the teachers had a teaching experience of 10-20 years. (Figure 2.)
Figure 2. Teaching experience
The age of the students taught by the participants of the present study ranges from primary school students to university level students with different levels of linguistic backgrounds. Most of the sample teachers (40%) taught EFL to primary school students; 20% of the teachers taught
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EFL to secondary school students; 10 % of the sample teachers taught EFL to university students and 30 % of the sample teachers taught EFL to adults (Figure 3).
40% -Г 35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
primary secondary university adults
school schools students
students students
Figure 3. Age level of students taught
The closed ended questions four and five of the Questionnaire were answered by the majority of the teachers (60%) “yes” and when they were asked if prepositions were included in the grammar sections of the English textbooks that they used in their schools, only 40 % of them answered “no” (Table 1).
50 teachers
Yes No
60 % 40%
Table 1. Prepositions’ usage in textbooks
Similarly, when they were asked if students faced difficulties while they mastered prepositions, a large majority of teachers (90%) answered positively and 10 % of them answered negatively (Table 2).
50 teachers
Yes No
90 % 10%
Table 2. Difficulties in mastering prepositions
With regard to the answers provided for the types of errors made by students when they use a specific preposition, the results are quite diverse.
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Thus, 100 % of the sample teachers listed the substitution error as the most frequent one, i.e. when students transfer a specific preposition from their native language into English. Another source of error listed by the sample (70%) is the addition error, i.e. when students use a preposition, which should not be used. The error of omission, i.e. when an obligatory preposition is omitted in some cases, is listed by 60 % of the sample. Some of the sample (10%) listed other errors such as lack of knowledge on certain prepositions, spelling mistakes etc (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Types of errors.
As far as the sources of errors are concerned the participants (100%) defined as the most common source of error the interference of mother tongue ; 70 % of the sample believe that the English prepositions have different meanings in different contexts, which causes confusion for the EFL student; 35 % of the sample listed the lack of adequate explanation by the textbooks as a source of error and 6 % of sample listed the lack of sufficient explanation by the teacher as a minor source of errors while students use prepositions.
■ 29 teachers
■ llTeachers
■ 7 teachers
■ 3 teachers
Figure 5. Sources of Errors
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One of the open ended questions of the questionnaire was: how do you teach prepositions. Teachers taught prepositions by:
A. providing examples
B. translating into mother tongue;
C. making an analogy with the mother tongue
D. using objects, pictures, cards, charts etc.
E. asking students to make sentences
The sample provided detailed explanations for the above mentioned results. Most of them (90%) responded that they used four or five different ways of teaching prepositions; 30 % of the sample were making use of two or three different ways of teaching prepositions and 10% of the sample stated that they used only one way of teaching prepositions.
The last question of the questionnaire had to do with further trainings, if they needed them or not. Specifically teachers were asked if they needed further trainings on grammar and particularly on prepositions’ usage and most of the answers (78 % of the sample were pro to the idea of having further trainings, 22 % of the sample wrote that trainings should be on broader topics rather than just on grammar.
Discussion
On the process of learning or teaching English, sometimes some seemingly simple but genuine problems come up which are a bit tricky or vague to explain. Prepositions are very tricky for student and even for EFL teachers. The goal of the teachers is to make students aware of these “little tiny” words and then to help them use the correct preposition in different contexts. It is very important that the teacher sees prepositions as logical and not an isolated part of speech. Prepositions make logical sense; if not the teacher should find a mental image to make them logical. They are mastered through memorization and practice.
Each language has its own set of grammar rules, so there are points of conflict when someone wants to learn a second language (James, 2007; Jie, 2008). Prepositions are frequently the most important aspect of these clash points. Usually prepositions come before the noun in English, but in some languages they come after, making them postpositions (Samara, 1999). In some languages, including Albanian, the role of prepositions is often played through the use of inflections (Demiraj, 1964). As a consequence, prepositions do not behave grammatically in the same way in each language.
There is a mismatch problem between English and other languages (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999). Usually when someone is
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learning a foreign language, he/she will try to define an English word by its native equivalent. When it comes to the usage of prepositions students try to translate the English preposition with the equivalent in his/ her mother tongue. So beginners in English are likely to use a preposition translated from their mother tongue to the target language (English) and this is rarely the right one. It’s easy to understand and use English content words like table or chair connected with object of daily use but if Albanian students try to find the right equivalent of function words, like prepositions, they face difficulties. If one tries to translate the preposition on, he/she will soon find out that this preposition has several meanings depending on the context used. Most of the times when students use prepositions when not needed, they are due to mother tongue interference. For instance an Albanian student will say let’s go at home rather than let’s go home, due to mother tongue interference since in the Albanian language the preposition at is used to indicate location or movement i.e. they we are going at home.
The challenging task related to teaching English prepositions is how they are, or rather how they are not taught in school books. Most of the English textbooks used by EFL students give little space to the explanation of prepositions, and if the topic is addressed, it is often just a simple explanation of the preposition followed by one or two examples. For instance, the following textbooks do not mention prepositions at all, leading to difficulties for teachers when they explain them: World Link (Stemplis-ki, Douglas & Morgan, 2004) and, Grammar Sense (Bland, 2004) Click On 1, Click On 2, Click On 3 (Evans & O’Sullivan 2001), and Grammar Dimensions 3 (Thewlis, 2007). Other textbooks such as Inside Out (Kay Jones &Kerr), Grammar Links (Butler, & Podnecky 2004), Straightforward Intermediate and Upper Intermediate (Kerr & Jones, 2007) only teach prepositions at certain proficiency levels and generally only deal with just two of their most common usages: spatial and temporal use.
Recommendations
When it comes to teaching, different kinds of prepositions require different teaching approaches. A first step in teaching prepositions is to raise students’ interest on the usage of prepositions by making use of different activities. It is teachers’ job to help students use the correct preposition whenever one is needed or when one should be omitted .In order to facilitate the teachers’ job we will provide some tips on how to teach prepositions by giving some practical activities that may be used in EFL classes.
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As we stated above, one of the types of errors made by EFL students is the error of omission. , this problem can be solved by showing the students what to listen for - in this case, prepositions, when they have listening spots, when they are performing dialogues, or when they are giving/ receiving directions. Once the students learn to listen for and recognize these linking words
the only problem is to train them to properly select prepositions, depending on the context used, their idiomatic and metaphorical uses.
Teachers may set tasks such as “Listen and draw”; “Listen and do”; “Listen and write” depending on the age level and linguistic competence of their students. These kinds of tasks enable students to recognize prepositions, to memorize their meanings and correctly use them.
Teachers may read books, or play CD-s with short text or songs which make use of different types of prepositions. Teachers can assign class/ home work with different exercises such as: filling in the missing preposition or circling the right preposition. They may also ask their students to write a description of their favorite place, to describe a birthday party, or to write a letter to a pen friend using at least 10 prepositions.
While students perform the “Listen and do” task they are expected to do act like raise a hand, clap their hands, move around or repeat the preposition in chorus etc whenever they hear a preposition.
The “Listen and draw” task may be used with young students or adults when it comes to teaching prepositions with less abstract reference. So, teachers may say short, simple sentences such as:
The pen is on the table.
The ruler is in the bag.
The cat is under the table.
And the students are expected to draw a pen on a table, a ruler in a bag, a cat under a table etc.
This leads us to another methodological suggestion concerning the use of visual aids. A picture is worth a thousand words. Teachers can bring different pictures to illustrate the usage of specific prepositions. For example:
• Flashcards or posters - the teacher can find or download photos where specific prepositions like on, in and at are illustrated, for instance: The pencil is on the table; I’ll meet him at 10 o’clock at the bus station.
Moreover, teachers can present a schematic picture, a map, where prepositions of place and movement are used. Students may work in pairs or groups. The teachers should give instructions for such kind of activi-
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ties, i.e. they have to remind them to use prepositions while students give directions. When the activity starts, one student asks the other how he can go from point A to point B. The other student consults the map and gives directions like: Go straight on until you find the supermarket, pass along the bridge and then turn on the left by the seaside.
Also, teachers may provide students with a diagram and an explanation regarding the meaning of these prepositions when teaching prepositions of place and direction e.g.
On
I’ll meet AT the bus stop ON High Street. О
He stopped AT the traffic light.
At
О
О
]
''
The money will be IN and envelope ON the floor.
Teachers can bring real objects in the class like apples, books, rulers, pens dusters etc. and can ask questions to the class: Where is the ruler?; where is the book?; where is the pen? So, students are expected to give answers like: the ruler is on the table; the book is in the bag; the pen is on the floor etc.
Teachers should teach and test the really common prepositions like at, in, on, and with for beginners of English. They can do it in relation
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to a meaningful context like time or place; AT eleven o’clock, ON Saturday, IN August. For intermediate or advanced students, teachers can teach them as part of a chunk of language as for example consists OF, interested IN, good AT, in accordance with etc. Teachers may try to the use visual/active approach depending on the age and level of their students. They can get students to describe or act out an emergency event or they can describe their classes or their bedrooms. Students have to describe the position of furniture and equipment in their classrooms or their bedrooms.
Teachers can assign class/home work with different exercises such as: filling in the missing preposition or circling the right preposition. They may also ask their students to write a description of their favorite place, to describe a birthday party, or to write a letter to a pen friend using at least 10 prepositions.
There are a lot of other activities to teach prepositions such as: different games, writing compositions with given prepositions, the “odd one out” exercise, mind maps and the old, traditional translation exercise etc.
Conclusions
Teaching prepositions is a complex and a difficult process due to many factors including: the students’ perceptual mechanism and extralinguistic knowledge, their linguistic competence of English, motivation, all these affecting the methods or activities teachers use to explain them. The results of this study have revealed three main findings:
1. Types of errors made by students while they master English prepositions
2. Sources of errors
3. Ways of teaching prepositions
From the results gathered through the questionnaires distributed to 50 teachers, we can conclude that the students face challenging difficulties if they really want to master the correct usage of prepositions in different contexts.
Non-native speakers of English tend to have three types of problems with prepositions: choosing the wrong prepositions, omitting a needed preposition and using an extra preposition where one is not needed.
More importantly, this study opens doors to an understanding of the degree of difficulty that the EFL teachers face when they deal with or try to teach English prepositions. It is important to focus more on practical activities rather than on providing our students pages of theoretical explanation regarding English prepositions. One of the main goals for EFL
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teachers is to help students develop their communicative skills and this was one of the purposes of this paper: to present a variety of activities about teaching prepositions communicatively, and interactively.
It seems like the prepositions in English can be very difficult especially because they all seem to have many uses. Remembering all of them in both languages is not only a hard task but one that can be accomplished only with time and practice.
References
1. Bland K., S. Grammar Sense, Oxford University Press, USA (January 29,2004)
2. Brown, D. (1987). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, Inc.
3. Butler L., Podnecky J., 2004, Grammar Links 1: A Theme-Based Course for Reference and Practice, 2nd Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company.
4. Celce-Murcia, M. & Larsen-Freeman, D. (1999) The Grammar Book: An ESL/EFL Teacher’s Course (2nd edition).USA: Heinle & Heinle Publishers,
5. Collins Cobuild English guides (1998) Prepositions, UK
6. Demiraj. Sh. 1964. Gramatikёs historike e gjuhёs shqipe, Paraf-jalst. Tirana, Albania
7. Evans V., O’Sullivan N., Click on 1.2.3., Express Publishing, 2001
8. Faucette, Priscilla. 2001. A Pedagogical Perspective on Communication Strategies: Benefits of Training and an Analysis of English Language Teaching Materials.www.hawaii.edu/sls/uhwpesl/ 19(2)/Faucette.pdf.
9. Grubic, B. 2004. “Those problematic English prepositions!”. CFI-Baci Conference
10. Long Beach, California (PP. 1-34)
11. Herskovits, Annette, 1986. Language and spatial cognition: An interdisciplinary study of the prepositions in English. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,.
12. James, M. 2007. Interlanguage variation and transfer of learning [Electronic version].
13. International review of applied linguistics in language teaching, 45.
14. Jie, X. 2008. Error theories and second language acquisition [Electronic version]. USChina foreign language, 6(1).
15. Kay S., Kerr P., 2003, Inside Out Macmillan ELT
16. Kerr P., Jones C., 2007, Straightforward Upper Intermediate, Macmillan Education
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17. Lightbown, Patsy M. & Spada, Nina. 2003. How Languages are Learned. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
18. Lindstromberg, Seth, 1998. English prepositions explained, UK,
19. Quirk, R. et al. 1993. A University Grammar of English. England: Longman.
20. Quirk, R. & Greenbaum, S. 1989, A University Grammar of Contemporary English. London: Longman Group Ltd,
21. Richards, J.C. and Sampson, G.P. 1974. “The Study of Learner English”. London: Longman
22. Samara, M. 1999 “Parafjalst ^ shqipen e sotme”, Tira^
23. Schrapfer Azar, Beety. 1989, Understanding and using English Grammar, Prentice Hall Regents,
24. Siniscalco M.T., Auriat N, 2005, Module 8, Questionnaire design, UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning.
25. Stempleski, S, Douglas, N., Morgan ,R. J. 2004, World Link, Heinle ELT; 1 edition.
26. Thewlis H., S., 2007, Grammar Dimensions 3, Thomson Heinle; 4th edition
27. Yates. Jean, 1991, The ins and outs of prepositions, Barron’s, USA, Appendix 1.
Please circle one of the alternatives provided or fill in the answers.
1. How many years of academic education have you completed?
A. Bachelor degree
B. Master degree
C. PhD Studies
D. Other (please specify.......................................
2. How long have you been teaching English?
A. 1-5 years
B. 5-10 years
C. 10-20 years
D. Over 20 years
3. What age level do you teach:
A. Primary school kids
B. Secondary school students
C. University level students
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D. Adults
4. Are prepositions included in the grammar spots of the English textbooks used in your school?
A. Yes
B. No
5. Do your students face difficulties while they master prepositions?
A. Yes
B. No
6 What types of errors do your students make while they use a specific preposition?
7 What are the causes of these errors?
8 How do you teach prepositions?
9. Do teachers need trainings on English grammar and particularly about the usage of prepositions?
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