Difficulties in Dealing with English Prepositions of Place Encountered by Students with Native Arabic Language Background

This study investigated the errors that Arab EFL learners produce when they use the English spatial prepositions above, among, at, behind, below, between, in front of, on, and under. Also, the role of the mother tongue in producing such errors in using these ten prepositions was under investigation in this study. The participants of this study were 72 Arab students 48 males and 24 females, who study at the Foreign Languages and English Preparatory School, Eastern Mediterranean University. All the participants were Arabic native speakers, and they were from different Arabic countries which are: Libya, Yemen, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and Morocco. A test consisted of two parts was used to collect data. The first part was fill-in-the-blank question which contained 30 questions about the ten prepositions of place (three questions for each preposition). And the second part was a picture incomplete sentence which had 20 incomplete sentences (two questions for each preposition). The data obtained from the participants was analyzed qualitatively by checking the answers and scoring the wrong answers for each preposition. Results showed that Arab EFL learners have the problem of substitution in using English prepositions of place. In addition, leaving the question with no answer was employed by the participants. The results about the role of the mother tongue found that negative transfer played a role in the production of these errors. Finally, the study provides implications for Arab EFL learners regarding the use of English spatial prepositions, and some suggestions for further research in this area. Keywords: Negative transfer, Substitution, Spatial prepositions, Language interference.