A Study Of English Preposition Errors By Junior High School Students And Corresponding Countermeasures

The use of prepositions in English language learning is frequent and complex.Prepositions are a key and difficult point in English learning.The misuse of prepositions is very common.The usage of prepositions can not be underestimated,because prepositions are often used in conjunction with other parts of speech in the sentence.Students’ mastery of prepositions can reflect their level of English.In China,students begin to learn English formally from primary school.Chinese and English prepositions have some similarities in position,semantics and grammatical function,which provides convenience for Chinese students to learn English prepositions.However,there are some differences in the number and usage of prepositions between English and Chinese,which brings some difficulties to learners.And Chinese students often misuse them.Junior high school students have different degrees of difficulty in learning English prepositions.English teachers also have difficulties in explaining and teaching English prepositions.Students in junior high school are still at the initial stage of English learning,so it is particularly important for them to learn to use prepositions idiomatically.Based on the second language acquisition theories such as contrastive analysis,error analysis and transfer analysis,this study takes the students of grade nine and English teachers in Yantai No.10 Middle School as the research subjects to study the types of errors and the causes in English preposition acquisition.The main research tools include test papers,writing test,questionnaires and face-to-face interview.There are 3 main research questions:(1)Junior high students’ errors frequency in the use of common English prepositions;(2)The major categories of errors that students of junior high have in learning English prepositions;(3)The factors that lead to the misuse of prepositions and the corresponding coping strategies.According to the results of the study,the author draws the following conclusions:(1)The errors frequency of the 11 common prepositions used by the junior high school students are: over > on > of > at > to > from > in > by > with > as > for.(2)There are four main categories of prepositional errors.They are prepositional pattern,prepositional fixed phrase,absence and redundancy of propositions.(3)There are four possible influencing factors: a.Mother tongue interference;b.Intralingual interference;c.Individual aspects;d.Induction factors.