an analysis of errors related to spatial and temporal preposittions made by efl learners at a language center in ho chi minh city

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITYUNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIESFACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE AN ANALYSIS OF ERRORS RELATED TOSPATIAL AND TEMPOR

Introduction

Background to the study

English has unquestionably been paid much attention to by language learners in many parts of the world, including Vietnam Throughout the last decades, much emphasis has been placed on numerous skills and domains of the English language, hoping to bring learners one step closer to the successful practice in this language Among those domains, it is acknowledged that grammar is one of the aspects that is of paramount importance to learners since it allows them to convey the information that is intended to be communicated One significant area in grammar is prepositions However, prepositions still remain a source of obstacles for language learners (Evans & Tyler, 2005; Nguyen, 2021; Nikroo, Behjat & Zareian, 2016), and this was also proven in the existing body of research on prepositions For example, Mojica (2010) and Sabtan and Elsayed (2019) found that prepositional errors were the fourth largest category in the written essays made by basic-level students In the context of Vietnam, Pham (2021) also concluded that prepositional errors ranked fifth among English major students’ writing This concludes that prepositions have posed great challenges for EFL learners in general, and looking for the causes and ways to alleviate this issue has become more urgent than ever before.

Errors, far from worthless by-products, have been proven to be essential in providing insights into most common issues and the causes behind, thereby offering timely support and reinforcement for them The analysis of errors, orError Analysis, is no longer a brand-new field in scientific research Indeed, there have been numerous studies investigating prepositional errors, most of which looked at prepositional errors through only one type of data, usually in participants’ writing or preposition tests in the form of multiple-choice or gap- filling questions For instance, Anjayani and Suprapto (2016) investigated

(2019) carried out a study on prepositional errors with data collected from 32 eighth graders’ writing In Vietnam, Ngo (2010) employed 17 multiple-choice questions to survey the errors related to directional prepositions while Tran, Nguyen, and Tran (2021) investigated factors influencing the use of English prepositions by Vietnamese learners through one paper test including multiple- choice items and a short writing section with given guided words Although investigating prepositional errors only in written form could contribute to the existing literature to a certain extent, a bigger picture of prepositional errors, both in spoken and written form, committed by learners is expected to better highlight specific types of hardships encountered by learners, thereby rationally scrutinizing the causes hindering learners’ use of English prepositions and practically implicating pedagogical measures to help them overcome such difficulties With the hope of looking at English prepositional errors committed by Vietnamese learners more systematically with reinforced data sets, the present research examined prepositional errors in two ways: one through students’ speaking performance from which the data were collected twice, and the other through students’ writing test In addition, while many studies conducted domestically mostly attribute prepositional errors to literal translation from learners’ L1 and that learners are still at the initial stage of acquiring the language, this study would delve deeper into other factors causing such errors with the intervention of cognitive differences between Vietnamese and English prepositions, which will be further explained in the following sections.

Aims of the study

The aims of the present study are (1) to analyze types of errors related to spatial and temporal prepositions made by EFL learners at a language center inHCMC, and (2) to find out some possible causes of these errors and provide suggestions to rectify spatial and temporal prepositional errors from learners’ and their teachers’ perspectives The errors related to spatial and temporal prepositions are identified, classified into categories, and calculated in frequency.More importantly, the causes of these prepositional errors are investigated extensively based on the theoretical framework proposed by Brown (2007, pp.

263-266) and practical remedies to rectify those errors are suggested by learners and teachers.

Significance of the study

By accomplishing the aims mentioned, the current study has its own importance in the field of prepositions, especially those about space and time.

Theoretically, the study presented a systematic review of literature in the field of prepositions Relevant aspects related to error analyses in the previous studies were comprehensively provided Besides, the present study also included various types and causes of prepositional errors based on the theorectical framework by Brown (2007), which could barely be seen in Vietnamese studies. Furthermore, the exploration of learners’ errors and causes of those errors in this research also gave some practical suggestions based on the causes found, thus aiding teachers and students in their teaching and learning of prepositions.

Although there have been several studies on prepositions, many of them, such asAnjayani and Suprapto (2016), and Renisa (2019), focused more on the errors extracted from students’ writing papers which were collected only once The present study looked at errors made by EFL students at a language center through the students’ spoken and written performances which provided the students with more opportunities to show their spatial and temporal preposition knowledge.Moreover, unlike previous studies that mostly looked at Interlingual andIntralingual transfer as sources of prepositional errors, this study also looked at the differences in cognition about space and time between English andVietnamese as a part of Interlingual transfer, Context of learning andCommunication strategies, which highlights the significance of this study.

Scope of the study

First, as stated in the title of the study, the present study only focused on errors related to spatial and temporal prepositions even though there are various types of prepositions in English that serve other purposes As a result, only

Second, although there are several English programs offered at the language center chosen as the research site in this study, only students taking English 2 (IE2) classes were selected to take part in this study owing to two fundamental reasons For one thing, unlike other programs which have relatively short in-class time length (generally 90 minutes per session), each session in this test preparation program lasts four 45-minute periods, thus facilitating the in- class data collection process and not taking up most of the class time In addition, students in these classes generally present no big differences regarding proficiency level as all of them are not accepted to this level unless the previous level is completed It is also worth mentioning that as the scope of the study revolved around EFL learners at a language center and test preparation was not the study focus, class time suitability to collect data and students’ levels resulted in the choice of this program.

In short, given the scope of the study, hopefully, it still contributes to the teaching and learning process, particularly in the field of English spatial and temporal prepositions, at the chosen language center and possibly strengthens the literature background in this field theoretically and practically for future studies.

Organization of thesis chapters

This thesis includes five main chapters: (1) Introduction, (2) LiteratureReview, (3) Methodology, (4) Findings and Discussions, and (5) Conclusion andRecommendations, alongside Acknowledgements, Abstract, References, andAppendices The Introduction starts with background information, study aims,significance, and scope The Literature Review presents key concepts and reviews relevant literature to construct the Conceptual framework The third chapter is where the research design, research site, participants, data gathering and analysis are introduced In Findings and Discussions chapter, the results of collected data analysis and discussions are included Finally, Conclusion andRecommendations chapter presents the summary of the study, pedagogical implications, and suggestions for future research.

Literature review

Prepositions

According to Cambridge Dictionary (n.d.), a preposition is a word before a noun or noun phrase to connect it to another word.

The car hidunder a bench (Cowan, 2008, p.147)

The prepositionunder precedes a noun phrase a bench While the position of the preposition in the sentence is indicated clearly, the relation that the preposition connects the car anda bench remains unknown Therefore, there is a need to define prepositions in another way in which both their location in a sentence and their functional roles are highlighted.

A preposition, according to Seaton and Mew (2007) and Straus, Kaufman and Stern (2014, p.18), is a word that shows location, time, direction and other relationships between a noun or pronoun and other parts of the sentence.

An example extracted from Straus, Kaufman, and Stern (2014, p.18)

This way of defining a preposition includes its position in a sentence and the relation it connects between a noun or pronoun and other parts of the sentence As a result, this definition was employed in the present study.

Prepositions can be classified into different types based on their forms and functions The sections below present the types of prepositions, first of all, based on their distinct forms, followed by those based on their different functions.

2.1.2.1 Based on forms of prepositions

One way to categorize forms of prepositions is introduced by Aarts and Aarts (1992) and Hudcovičová (2023) who divided prepositions into two forms: one-word prepositions and multi-word prepositions However, Dixon (2021) labeled the varieties of prepositions assimple prepositions,complex prepositions, and phrasal prepositions Simple prepositions in this case function as one-word prepositions; however, there is an introduction of the term complex prepositions and phrasal prepositions in the classification by Dixon (2021) While the former indicates prepositions composed of two simple prepositions, the latter describes those made up of adverb, noun, adjective and a simple preposition The largest number of preposition types based on forms was introduced by Cardona (2019) withsimple prepositions,double prepositions,compound prepositions, participle prepositions, and phrase prepositions Although the first three types are relatively similar to those proposed by other researchers, the last two are newly added The table below gives a summary of the types of English prepositions based on forms across some studies.

Table 2.1: Types of English prepositions based on forms across studies

Author(s) Number of types Types Example(s)

Aarts and Aarts (1992) 2 One-word prepositions in atunder

Multi-word prepositions according to in front of next to

Cardona (2019) 5 Simple prepositions at for in

Compound prepositions on behalf of in the middle of

Phrase prepositions on time at home

Dixon (2021) 3 Simple prepositions in under

Complex prepositions out of in between

Phrasal prepositions in spite of by means of

Hudcovičová (2023) 2 One-word prepositions in on

Multi-word prepositions in case of by means of

To sum up, researchers have differing ways to classify prepositions based on their forms Nevertheless, since the scope of the present study does not exclude any forms of prepositions, both one-word prepositions (simple prepositions) and multi-word prepositions (complex prepositions) are taken into consideration.

2.1.2.2 Based on functions of prepositions

The types of prepositions can also be divided based on their various functions The table below categorizes types of prepositions based on functions introduced by different researchers across studies.

Table 2.2: Types of prepositions based on functions across studies

Prepositions of time Prepositions of direction Prepositions with special uses

Prepositions of direction Prepositions of time Prepositions of manner Prepositions of relation Prepositions of purpose Prepositions of cause Al-Bayati (2013) 4 Prepositions of time

Prepositions expressing the material/psychological cause of a happening

Prepositions expressing instruments or agents

Sargeant (2007, pp 102-104) classified prepositions into four types: prepositions of place, time, direction, and prepositions with special uses Ngo

(2010), however, presents prepositions under seven groups with the first three similar to those by Ngo (2010) and the last four include prepositions of manner, relation, purpose, and cause.

However, apart from prepositions of time - or temporal prepositions, the primary focus of the present study is also about spatial prepositions, which are explicitly classified as one type of prepositions in the English language by neither of the previously mentioned researchers Therefore, the need to seek a different way to categorize English prepositions is still taken into consideration.

In a study conducted by Al-Bayati (2013), the researcher put prepositions of place and prepositions of direction under the same category and named them

“prepositions of space” to show both locational and directional functions. Similarly, Jackson (1982, p.80) also considered spatial prepositions as an umbrella term for both locational and directional prepositions, together with temporal prepositions and logical prepositions.

Among different types of prepositions in the English language, the most common form is spatial prepositions (Bruckfield, 2012; Pullum & Huddleston, 2002) There are various ways to define what spatial prepositions are For instance, according to Au (2010) and Wairimu and Ngugi (2021), spatial prepositions are prepositions that are used to describe the position of an object relative to another object.

For example: He can standbesidethe desk.

However, this definition may cause certain confusion as there is no clear indication showing whether spatial prepositions only deal with the position between two objects or entities, or they also deal with direction of one object to another Jackson (1982, p.80) wrote that spatial prepositions can be divided into prepositions that indicate location (e.g in the kitchen) and direction (e.g towards the town), meaning that spatial prepositions not only show the position/location of one object to another, but they also indicate the direction/ movement This is

(2002), Pramono (2006), and Zwarts (2017), in which spatial prepositions express locational and directional relationships The table below displays some typical spatial prepositions presented by Dinh and Nguyen (2002, p.102).

Table 2.3: Some typical spatial prepositions (Dinh & Nguyen, 2002, p.102) above across after ahead of among around at at the back of before behind below beneath beside between beyond by close to down from in in front of

Temporal prepositions are words indicating point of time (e.g before the wedding) or extent of time (for several days) (Au, 2010; Bruckfield, 2012, p.213; Jackson, 1982, p.80) For example: They thought they could do this during the summer The table below shows some typical temporal prepositions by Cowan (2008).

Table 2.4: Some typical temporal prepositions (Cowan, 2008)

About Approximately It was about 3:00 when we stopped. Around Approximately We stopped around 3:30.

At Fixed point We are meeting at 8:00 p.m.

Before Prior to/ earlier than I can see you before 3:00.

Between In this interval She’s coming between 2:00 and

By Not later than I’ll be there by 4:00.

During Fixed duration He works during the day.

2.1.3 The importance of prepositions in English language

There is a general consensus among different researchers that although prepositions are the shortest words in English, the role they play in the language is indispensable (Çabuk, 2009; Dixon, 2021; Ta, 2019) According to Fazriny (2018), prepositions are little yet biggest words in English This indicates that prepositions are quite short and may look insignificant, but their functions are vitally important (Fazriny, 2018) They are used to link a noun or pronoun to another word in the sentence For example, in the sentence ‘The book is on the table.’, the preposition on connects the word the book with the noun the table, and it helps indicate the location of the book regarding the table Without prepositions, the complete meaning of the sentence cannot be formed, and the relation between two entities cannot be linked In addition to location, prepositions also serve the purpose of indicating how, when, why, and many other relations The significance of prepositions in English is also reinforced by their frequent presence Scovel (1988) even claimed that English has so far become the most prepositional language as prepositions take all over the language These are to prove that although prepositions may be short in length and look unimportant, they are ubiquitous and crucial in the production of the English language.

2.1.4 Cognition about space and time in Vietnamese and English language

According to Dinh and Nguyen (2002), the way the two languages locate objects is different, and that the differences in cognition about space and time of a language and another can reflect the culture of the people speaking that language In the Vietnamese language, to express where things are, one important aspect that needs to be taken into consideration is the Views of the as this will determine the preposition choice (Dinh & Nguyen, 2002; Nguyen, 2007) For example, in the sentence Con chim bay trên trời, the preposition trên

(English equivalent is on) is used to indicate where the bird is This is because

Vietnamese language users determine the bird’s location based on their views, and that the bird is at a higher position than the speakers Therefore, the prepositionon is used, irrespective of the sky.

Error Analysis

The concepts of Errors and Mistakes are treated differently from each other and should not be understood and used interchangeably According to Corder (1967), while mistakes do not play a significant role in language learning, errors provide evidence of the language system a learner is using repeatedly In other words, errors are found to be systematic and help reflect one’s language learning system.

2.2.2 The significance of acknowledging students’ errors

Students’ errors, as presented in Corder (1967), are of paramount importance in three ways: to the teachers, to the researchers, and to the learners themselves Firstly, by knowing the errors made by the students, teachers can realize how much their students have progressed and what remains for them to learn or to reconstruct This is in line with Yousefi, Soori, and Janfaza (2014) who found that teachers can be made aware of the areas that cause difficulties to their learners and come up with strategies to address the issues With regards to researchers, these errors show how language is learned or acquired and what strategies students use to learn a language Most importantly, learners, when making systematic errors, realize that this language learning system does not work properly, thus leading to the reconstruction of the system.

According to Dulay, Burt, and Krashen (1982), errors could be grouped into: omission, addition, misformation, and misordering Omission is described as the absence of an essential element required in a well-formed sentence On the contrary, addition means there is the presence of an element that should be absent in a well-formed sentence The description ofmisformation is that the use of morpheme or structure in a sentence is wrong while misordering means the incorrect placement of a morpheme or group of morphemes A similar classification was seen in Brown (2007, p.262) except for substitution in place of Misformation Table 2.5 presents error types and examples across studies.

Table 2.5: Types of errors and examples across studies

Author(s) Types of errors Examples

Dulay et al (1982) Omission She sleeping.

Addition He doesn’t knows me.

Misformation The dog ated the chicken. Misordering I know where is he.

Brown (2007, p.262) Omission I went to movie.

Addition Does he can sing?

Ordering I to the store went.

The procedure to analyze errors was developed and introduced in the past few decades For instance, according to Allen and Corder (1974), there are five stages in the process of analyzing data, including collection of data containing errors, identification of errors, classification of errors, disclosure of errors, and evaluation of errors However, after evaluating errors, some suggestions and recommendations for both teachers and learners should be taken into consideration so that such errors can be eliminated in the future In another study, Gass and Selinker (2008) proposed another scheme to analyze data with six steps: collecting data, identifying errors, classifying errors, quantifying errors, analyzing sources, and remediating.

There are noticeable similarities between the scheme proposed by Allen and Corder (1974) and Gass and Selinker (2008), particularly in the first four steps The next step, although different in the terms coined (evaluation of errors and analyzing sources) refers to the act of investigating causes leading to errors.

However, at the end of the procedure, Gass and Selinker (2008) also aim to remediate the committed errors, which in the researcher’s beliefs, highlights the significance and the practically useful nature of error analysis To put it simply,the error analysis procedure developed by Gass and Selinker (2008) is more recent in time with remediating accompanied, and it therefore was employed as the scheme to analyze errors collected from students’ speaking performance and the writing test.

Figure 2.1: Error Analysis Procedure (Gass & Selinker, 2008)

Prepositions and Error Analysis

Suzanne (2017) and Setyaningrum and Fatmawaty (2020), based on the theory proposed by Dulay et al (1982), found all four types of prepositional errors In more detail, they found omission errors as in “I must be waiting three hours.”, addition errors as in “In there, my friends and I were happy.”, misformation errors as in “I put my cell phone in the table.”, and misordering errors as in “We leave the house about at 7 o’clock.”

However, according to the explanation by Dulay et al (1982), the term

“misformation” refers to mis-forming a word or phrase, making it incorrect rather than the wrong selection of a word for another word Besides, Collins Dictionary (n.d.) defines the word Misformation as “a faulty or abnormal formation”, meaning that the formation of something is inaccurate and unusual.

Similar in definition, Fitria (2021) explained that misformation occurs when the form of a phrase or a sentence does not behave according to the usual standards of the language rules Therefore, in “I put my cell phone in the table.”, the misselection of in instead of on leads to error The wrong choice of one preposition for another should be labeled as misselection or substitution instead of misformation, and this was seen in various studies For example, Gvarishvili

Collecting data Identifying errors Classifying errors

Quantifying errors Analyzing sourcesRemediating

Tahaineh (2010), Utari (2017), and Wairimu and Ngugi (2021), in their research on prepositional errors, also employed the term misselection or substitution rather than misformation to categorize errors of selecting an incorrect preposition.

The term misformation, although not technically used when referring to the misselection of one word to another, is used when the formation of a word or phrase is incorrect For example, in the sentence “The book is next the computer.”, Simanjuntak (2019) categorized the error as misformation because the multi-word preposition next to is misformed, making the sentence grammatically incorrect.

Apart from Dulay et al (1982), Jha (1991) proposed another taxonomy with omission of preposition, insertion of preposition, and selection of incorrect preposition Although slightly different in the terms utilized, the first two correspond to omission and addition in the taxonomy by Dulay et al (1982). However, as discussed previously, selection of incorrect prepositions resembles misselection or substitution rather than misformation What also differs between the two taxonomies is the disappearance of misordering in Jha’s (1991).

Another taxonomy proposed by Osorio (2013), as cited in Parada et al. (2017), which was adapted from Dulay et al.’s (1982) Taxonomy looked at prepositional errors While omission, addition, and misordering were kept, substitution was newly added as there must be times when learners substitute one preposition with the incorrect one Meanwhile, misformation was removed from the classification in the absence of compelling reasons Therefore, in the present study, to better categorize prepositional errors committed by learners, five categories including omission, addition, misformation, substitution, and misordering were investigated.

Table 2.6: Summary of types of prepositional errors investigated in the present study

Omission The absence of a preposition Dulay et al (1982) when it is required Jha (1991)

Addition The insertion of a preposition when it is not required

Misformation The wrong formation of a preposition

Substitution The employment of an incorrect preposition instead of a correct one

Misordering The wrong position of a preposition

Dulay et al (1982) Brown (2007, p.262) Osorio (2013)

2.3.2 Common causes of prepositional errors

One of the most significant purposes of error analysis is to figure out the ways to address the problem and to reduce, more or ideally, eliminate the same errors to be repeated in the future To this end, identifying the sources of errors plays a vital role Up to now, there have been some researchers in the field of error analysis identifying causes of errors For example, Richards (1974) andTouchie (1986) stated that Interlingual transfer and Intralingual transfer are two sources of errors While the former refers to errors caused because of the negative interference of L1, the latter implies that the nature of the target language presents difficulties and causes errors Besides, Norrish (1983, pp 21-26), as in Hasyim (2002), classified causes into three types: Carelessness, L1 factors within the target language itself and external factors such as the learning context Besides, Carelessness occurs if language learners, when producing language, are careless rather than incompetent in the target language Besides, Hasyim (2002) claimed that Translation errors occur when learners employ word-by-word translation from their L1 to the target language; therefore, this should be labeled within L1 interference rather than as a separate category To this point, Interlingual transfer and Intralingual transfer proved themselves to be the sources of errors However, solely looking at Interlingual transfer and Intralingual transfer neglects the problematic Context of learning and Communication strategies To explore the causes of errors in more detail, Brown (2007, pp 263-266) proposed another framework with four different sources of errors including Interlingual transfer, Intralingual transfer, Context of learning, and Communication strategies The table below gives a summary of causes of errors introduced by different researchers presented above.

Table 2.7: Causes of errors across studies

Researcher(s) Year Causes of errors

Touchie 1986 Interference from the native language

Intralingual transfer Context of learning Communication strategies

The framework by Brown (2007, pp 263-266) provides more profound insights into the sources which errors are derived from as together withInterlingual and Intralingual interference, Context of learning and

Communication strategies are also taken into consideration, and therefore was employed in this study.

Interlingual transfer is the major source of errors which causes great difficulties for all learners (Brown, 2007, p.263) Prior to the familiarity with the second language system, the learners can only draw upon their L1, employ an equivalent pattern in their native language or literally translate an item from the native language to the target one (Ferdian, 2022; Lorincz & Gordon, 2012; Tulabut, Guzman, Abaring, Armada, Ilustre & Torda, 2018) As cited in Ferdian (2022), Brown (2000) classified Interlingual transfer into Transfer Error and Literal Translation The former is about the application of the rules of the native language to the target language while the latter refers to word-for-word translation by the learners Interlingual transfer happens when there is a degree of difference or similarity between an item or structure in the target language and the native language (Jackson, 1987, p.101, as cited in James, 2013) In the field of prepositions, although some linguists argue that prepositions do not exist in Vietnamese, it is confirmed by Tuc (2014) that this category does exist and is used widely in books teaching Vietnamese to foreigners Despite sharing this as a similarity, the system of prepositions in two languages differs considerably, especially in terms of spatial and temporal cognition, which causes negative interference to Vietnamese learners of English An example of this is presented in the table below.

Table 2.8: Example of differences in spatial cognition between English and Vietnamese

The plane is in the sky Máy bay đang ở trên trời.

The child is playing in the kitchen Đứa trẻ đang chơi trong nhà bếp.The cars run in the street Xe chạy ngoài đường.

According to the table above, the preposition “In” is used in all three English cases, indicating that it is the TR and LM that play a decisive role in determining the correct preposition no matter where the speaker of utterences is However, in Vietnamese, the choice of preposition varies based on the Views of the speaker, irrespective of TR and LM Therefore, with low awareness of the differences in cognition in space and time between two languages, Vietnamese learners may commit errors related to English spatial and temporal prepositions.

Apart from the differences in cognition between two languages, Interlingual transfer errors also occur when learners litterally translate prepositions from Vietnamese to English inaccurately without being aware of the precise and objective nature of English preposition system In fact, although different English prepositions are equivelent to one Vietnamese preposition only, these English prepositions still refer to different cases and need to be correctly used in different situations However, if learners fail to realize this distinction, they are more likely to translate litterally from Vietnamese to English incorrectly, thereby committing prepositional errors The table below shows the comparison between English prepositions and their Vietnamese equivalents.

Table 2.9: A comparison between English prepositions and their Vietnamese equivalents (Tran, 2010)

English prepositions Vietnamese prepositions in, inside trong out, outside ngoài on, above, over trên under, below, underneath dưới among, between, in the middle of giữa

Another major contributor to errors that learners commit is Intralingual transfer, which refers to the target language itself (Brown, 2007, p.264) As learners begin to acquire parts of the target language, there is an increase in intralingual transfer or generalization within the target language The reason behind Intralingual transfer lies in the difficult and complex nature of the target language itself (Al-Bayati, 2013; Mukundan & Roslim, 2009; Richards, 1974; Tetreault & Chodorow, 2008) It is the sheer number and the polysemous nature of English prepositions that cause great difficulties for English language learners (Cowan, 2008; Lorincz & Gordon, 2012; Nentis & Syafei, 2020; Tran, 2016; Wairimu & Ngugi, 2021) In comparison, Vietnamese prepositions are inferior in terms of quantity and not as specifically divided in different contexts as those in English (Dinh & Nguyen, 2002, p.101), highlighting the challenging nature of English prepositions.

Also, the choice of an English preposition depends on the noun that follows, resulting in the detailed and precise nature of English prepositions (Bruckfield, 2012; Dinh & Nguyen, 2002, p.103) For example, while the Vietnamese language only uses “trên” to refer to a higher position without much consideration about the level of height or superiority in specific contexts,

“above”, “over”, and “on'' in English are used differently In short, English prepositions concern a more detailed, precise, and objective nature in comparison with Vietnamese ones.

The third major source of errors is Context of learning which refers to errors caused by misleading and insufficient explanations from the teacher or presentation of an item or pattern in the textbook or even by the rote memorization of a pattern in its decontextualization (Brown, 2007, p.266) As cited in Brown (2007, p.266), Richards (1971) and Stenson (1974) labeled theContext of learning under the terms “false concepts” and “induced errors”,respectively Although being different in the ways coined, all these terms refer to textbooks and teachers providing incomplete or confusing explanations.

Errors may also stem from Communication strategies in which, according to Brown (2007, p.266), learners use various strategies to get their intended messages understood; however, these strategies might not successfully work as expected Chelli (2014) claimed that avoidance, language switch, and prefabricated patterns are among the most used communication strategies While Avoidance demonstrates the state in which students actively avoid using prepositions when in doubt, Language switch describes the situation when learners switch back to their L1 even when the hearer might not understand, and Prefabricated patterns refer to certain phrases or sentences used without much understanding of their components.

For clearer understanding, the following table illustrates the causes by Brown (2007, pp 263-266) in detail.

Table 2.10: Description of causes of prepositional errors (Brown, 2007, pp 263- 266)

Vietnamese prepositions into English ones incorrectly.

Con chim bay trên trời -> The bird is flying *on the sky.

Nhà cô ấy đối diện với nhà tôi -

> Her house is opposite *with my house.

Intralingual transfer Errors are derived from the target language itself.

The sheer number of English prepositions

The nature of English preposition

On, above, and over mean differently system

Context of learning Errors are caused by inadequate, faulty and misleading learning materials and teachers.

Limited number of preposition practice or misleading information in the books

Unclear or misleading explanations of the teachers

Communication strategies Learners employ different ineffective strategies to convey their intended messages.

The passengers are on the plane -

> The pilot is *on the plane.

Over the years, various research examining reasons behind preposition errors was conducted Table 2.11 presents common causes of prepositional errors found in previous research studies.

Table 2.11: Common causes of prepositional errors across studies

Researcher(s) Participants Causes of prepositional errors

Ngo (2010) Second year university non- majors

Varied usage of prepositions in English Vietnamese prepositions are less complicated than English prepositions Yousefi et al.

Mother tongue interference The influence of the target language Anjayani and

Suzanne (2017) First year university students

Kieu (2017) Non-majored university students

Poor language knowledge Native language interference Differences in positioning between two languages

9 th grade students Mother tongue interference

Confusion with multiple functions of prepositions

Unfamiliarity with different rules in using prepositions

Intralingual transfer Lack of preposition knowledge

The Conceptual Framework

From the theories regarding prepositional errors classification and the sources of errors mentioned earlier, the types errors were adapted from Brown(2007, p.262) and the causes of those errors were adapted from (Brown, 2007, pp.263-266) Originally, Brown (2007, p.262) only presented four error types excluding misformation However, as the formation of a word or phrase could be incorrect (Dulay et al., 1982), misformation was added into the classification as a fifth type The Conceptual Framework is illustrated as follows.

Figure 2.2: The Conceptual framework of the study

Types of errors Causes of errors

Interlingual Transfer Intralingual Transfer Context of Learning Communication Strategies Adapted from Brown (2007, pp.263- 266)

Methodology

Research questions

1 What are types of errors related to spatial and temporal prepositions made by EFL learners at a language center in HCMC?

2 What are possible causes of these errors? What are teachers’ and learners’ suggestions to rectify these errors?

Research designs

The study employed a mixed methods research design This is an advanced method design as it provides better insights into the research problem and question than either method by itself (Creswell, 2012, p.535) Although both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed in this study, the focus was on the qualitative approach While the qualitative approach is used to analyze prepositional errors made by the students in the study and to analyze data collected from the interviews, the quantitative approach is used to analyze data from the questionnaire completed by the students.

To answer the first research question, an analysis of prepositional errors was conducted with the data collected from students’ speaking performance and the writing test Regarding the second research question, a questionnaire for students and interviews with both teachers and students were carried out While the data from the questionnaire were analyzed to investigate the causes of errors,the data from the interviews were to elaborate the questionnaire results and explore suggestions to rectify errors proposed by teachers and learners.

Research site

This study was conducted at a small-sized language center named TiengAnh Thay Giang Co Mai Located in Thu Duc District - the outskirts of HCMC,this language center has grown gradually, catering for the increasing needs inEnglish language learning of learners in the area After receiving permission from the Academic Management Board (see Appendix I), the research was carried out with the participation of learners who were undertaking English 2 classes here At this center, learners are entitled to a range of program options with varied time lengths per session to choose from However, only those learning in English 2 classes were selected to join the current study for several reasons First, it lasts for nine weeks in total; each week comprises three four- period sessions, and the duration of each session is 45 minutes The aims of the course include introducing a range of topic-related vocabulary (i.e shopping.culture, rural and urban life, traveling, and places) and instructing learners on different grammatical structures to apply learnt lexises into their language producing process.

Participants

The present study was carried out with 83 EFL learners in six English 2 classes who previously had completed English 1 course, ensuring a similar proficiency level Besides, students’ ages vary, ranging from approximately 17 to

35 In English 1 classes, students were introduced to spatial and temporal prepositions to practice speaking and writing Also, in English 2 classes, students were well-informed on how to discuss several topics and describe people, places, and objects To put it differently, they are expected to meet the requirements to participate in the study as student participants Besides, as mentioned earlier, since each class session in this program lasts four periods, nearly two times higher than that in other programs, it is suitable for collecting individual speaking data and does not take up most of class time.

In fact, the initial number of participants was slightly higher than 83;however, some students did not attend sessions in which data collection stages were implemented, reducing participant number In more detail, although 83 learners had their speaking performances audio recorded, 11 learners less than that did not submit their writing as they were absent on the day the writing test was conducted For similar reasons, the number of questionnaire sheets gathered was 64 in total It is acknowledged that there should have been consistency and similarity in the student participation over several phases of data collection. Nevertheless, due to the uncontrollable and unpredictable nature of learners at the language center, arranging times when all of the potential learners could join in every phase seemed to be almost impossible With the relentless efforts to obtain as much data in these phases as possible, the researcher hoped that the results could still yield practical values, especially for the language center selected as the site of research in the present study.

Two teachers teaching the students in this study were also invited to participate, particularly in the interview Both are Vietnamese female natives whose ages exceed 28, hold a Bachelor’s degree in English language teaching,have worked as English teachers for approximately 6 years, and have taughtEnglish 2 classes for at least 4 years Although teachers’ basic information is introduced, their further personal information is kept confidential, thus not being presented in this study In addition, the researcher shall tag the two teacher participants as T1 and T2 to maintain anonymity and encourage honest responses.

Research instruments

Students’ speaking performance, the writing test, student questionnaire,student and teacher interviews were employed to obtain necessary data in the current study While the first two sets of data were to answer the first research question, the second research question was explored by student questionnaire and interviews with both students and teachers.

The students’ speaking performances were audio-recorded in class twice by their teacher, one in week five and the other in week six and then returned to the researcher.

Since the focus of the study is to investigate spatial and temporal prepositional errors, the topics chosen must allow students to show their spatial and temporal preposition knowledge, fall into the language points they actually learn yet not overlap the topics they already practice in class In week five, students were instructed to choose one topic of their preference between (1) describe a trip to a quiet place and (2) describe a school that you went to In week six, two different topics were given and again, students were allowed to select one topic between (1) describe your house and (2) describe a room in your house that you like Although the length of the students’ speaking performance was expected to last 2 minutes, they were gently allowed to have a longer speech on the topic chosen without the teacher’s interruption to reduce unnecessary pressure that might adversely influence their speaking performance.

In this part, students were asked to write a 100-word “A picnic day” story in class based on the pictures provided to let them show their knowledge of both spatial and temporal prepositions as when describing pictures to tell a story, students have to write what they see in the pictures (spatial prepositions), and when things happen (temporal prepositions), all of which fit the purpose of the present study So as not to cause unexpected anxiety to students, the writing test was done in a session different from the ones where the speaking performance took place After the students completed their writing, the teacher in charge collected the papers and returned them all to the research for later analyses.

Roopa and Rani (2012) claimed that a questionnaire includes a list of items asked to gain statistically significant data on a particular subject When properly designed and administered, questionnaires efficiently gather information from numerous respondents in a short time (Jenn, 2006; Roopa & Rani, 2012).

Additionally, the respondents’ identities stay anonymous, encouraging them to provide more trustworthy answers (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2007, p.351). However, Seliger and Shohamy (1989) highlighted two problems commonly found when questionnaires are carried out: low response rates and comprehension difficulties Nevertheless, these two problems were projected beforehand and therefore were overcome in the present study First, before the distribution of the questionnaire, the purposes and the significance of the research were explained to the learners, hoping that they would understand the importance of their serious and truthful completion of the questionnaire. Additionally, the second issue was cleared with no language barrier as the questionnaire was translated into Vietnamese to aid understanding.

The students in the study were invited to complete the questionnaire to explore the causes of errors related to spatial and temporal prepositions The items in the questionnaire were designed with a 5-point Likert scale(1 - Strongly disagree, 2 - Disagree, 3 - Neutral, 4 - Agree, and 5 - Strongly agree) for its usefulness and appropriateness to gather respondents’ opinions and perspectives (Cohen et al., 2007, p.502) However, due to its drawbacks such as limited space for comments (Cohen et al., 2007, p.328), the subsequent semi-structured interviews were conducted to gain profound insights into students’ responses.

The questionnaire represents four groups of error causes, all of which were adapted from Brown (2007, pp 263-266) First, Interlingual transfer,resulting from L1 interference, was measured by a set of 7 items labeled 1.1 - 1.7.Second, Intralingual transfer, caused by the target language itself, was next measured by a set of 7 items labeled from 2.1 - 2.7 Third, Context of learning,arising from inadequate and confusing explanations of prepositions in the textbooks or from the teachers, was examined through 7 items labeled 3.1 - 3.7.Fourth, Communication strategies, including avoidance, language switch, and prefabricated patterns, were gauged using 5 items labeled 4.1 - 4.5.

Table 3.1: The distribution of the questionnaire items

Sections Sub-sections Descriptions Items labelled

Causes of errors Interlingual transfer

The sheer number of English prepositions

The nature of English preposition system

To best increase the reliability and validity of the data collected, interviews were administered Interviewing is advantageous since it enables data to be collected naturally, giving interviewees an opportunity to voice and describe their viewpoints in detail or ask for clarity (Creswell, 2012, p.221;Dornyei, 2007; Jain, 2021), and more importantly, allows other research methods to be validated (Kerlinger, 1970, as cited in Cohen et al., 2007, p.351) However, there still exist challenges such as the interviewer’s influence or recording issues (Creswell, 2012, p.281) With these drawbacks, it is expected that the researchers need to be readily prepared to take up these challenges and effectively employ interviewing as a research tool.

Semi-structured interviews were carried out for their ability to collect more intangible data, including the interviewees’ beliefs, assumptions, and problems (Cohen et al., 2007, p.97) With semi-structured interviews, the interviewers can provide explanations and back-up questions, or probe if necessary for more in-depth information to be explored yet not go astray from the core pre-determined questions, thus gathering a profound data set to investigate the intended subject matter Divided into 3 parts, interviews explore interviewees’ background information, causes and remedies to resolve the problems concerning prepositional errors Moreover, the interview questions were also designed on the theoretical foundation introduced by Brown (2007, pp. 263-266) with four causes of errors to ensure the overall progression in the present study.

Moreover, although an interview might be carried out through various means such as face-to-face, telephone, or even online with or without videos (Jain, 2021) with face-to-face as the most common method (Opdenakker, 2006), calls via Zoom were selected to administer interview sessions for two reasons. First, at the time being, some students who agreed to take part in the interview had completed their course, making in-person interviews inconvenient. Additionally, the break time per session usually lasted 5 minutes only, leaving interviewing time, even with one interviewee, incomplete Therefore, to increase the levels of consistency and convenience, interviews were carried out via Zoom with the interviewees’ permission to audio record.

Besides, for the sake of time and complete understanding, the interviews were conducted in Vietnamese All of the questions were designed in English and

3.5.4.1 Interview with the student participants

Eight student volunteers participated in 3-part interviews (see Appendix D and E) Table 3.2 presents the distribution of interview questions with students in detail.

Table 3.2: The distribution of questions in the interview with student participants

Content of the interview Interview questions labeled

2 Causes of spatial and temporal prepositional errors 2.1 Interlingual transfer 2.1.1 - 2.1.2

2.2 Intralingual transfer 2.2.1 2.3 Context of learning 2.3.1 - 2.3.3

3 Remedies to mitigate spatial and temporal prepositional errors 3.1

3.5.4.2 Interview with the teacher participants

In this interview, two corresponding teachers were asked for their voluntary participation Similar to the interview protocol used for the students, interview questions for teachers were identical in the number of questions asked and the patterns designed However, the actual questions were reworded to match the role of the teachers (see Appendix F and G).

Table 3.3: The distribution of questions in the interview with teacher participants

Content of the interview Interview questions labeled

2 Causes of spatial and temporal prepositional errors 2.1 Interlingual transfer 2.1.1 - 2.1.2

3 Remedies to mitigate spatial and temporal prepositional errors 3.1

Pilot study

Conducting a pilot study is of vital significance as it helps ensure the instrument reliability or consistency of a measurement scale (Bannigan & Watson, 2009; Price, Jhangiani & Chiang, 2015; Roberts & Priest, 2006) In the present study, Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients were computed to examine the questionnaire reliability The correlation among the items of the scale increases the value of Cronbach’s Alpha (CA, n.d; Tavakol & Dennick, 2011) Also, the item deleted method was also used to eliminate one or more items from the scale to promote the scale’s level of internal reliability.

The strength of association is determined based on the coefficient range by Hair, Money, Samouel and Page (2007) as follows.

Table 3.4: Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient range and its strength of association (Hair et al., 2007)

Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient range Strength of association

Less than 0.600 to less than 0.700 Relatively poor

From 0.700 to less than 0.800 Good

From 0.800 to less than 0.900 Very good

According to this rule of coefficients, if the value exceeds 0.700, the internal consistency is guaranteed, and the item can be used as a tool to measure the concept as a result.

The questionnaire (Appendix A) was first piloted with 13 voluntary participants excluding those in the main study to ensure validity and comprehension of the questionnaire in the main study Soon after the student questionnaire was piloted, any confusions or misunderstanding phrases were reworded to make them clearer to understand The following table provides the Cronbach’s Alpha scores of four error causes in detail.

Table 3.5: Cronbach’s Alpha values for four sources of prepositional errors

Causes of prepositional errors Number of items Items Cronbach’s

According to table 3.5, while Interlingual transfer, Context of learning,and Communication strategies receive high Cronbach’s Alpha values ( >.700) and are granted Accepted status, the Cronbach’s Alpha value of Intralingual transfer is only 669 which is less than 700 (see Appendix K for more details).Therefore, there is a need to eliminate inappropriate items by using item deleted method so that the internal consistency within this scale is increased In other words, the items which were irrelevant with value less than 300 were removed until the specific scale reached its highest possible Alpha score Information about items remained and items deleted from the scales are presented in the table below.

Table 3.6: Summary of the items remained and items deleted and final

Number of items Items Cronbach’ s Alpha coefficient s

Number of items remain ed

After deleting the irrelevant item, the Cronbach’s Alpha values of all four scales extend beyond 700, meaning that they are all internally consistent and adequately reliable to be used in the main study (see Appendix L for more details).

The pilot stage also offered an opportunity for questionnaire respondents voluntary participants reported that the items designed in the questionnaire were comprehensible, the phrases “ĐTĐV” and “ĐTQC”, however, caused great confusion to them As a result, these two phrases were promptly reworded to

“Đối tượng định vị” and “Đối tượng quy chiếu” so that the student participants in the main study would not encounter such obstacles when reading through the questionnaire items.

Finally, to understand the respondents personally, the background information part was incorporated at the beginning of the questionnaire with two questions The questionnaire items were then refined and finalized, ready to be distributed to the participants in the main study.

The interview was also piloted in order to adjust the questions if needed. Two voluntary students were gently invited to participate in the pilot interview via Zoom After that, they were warmly welcome to share their thoughts and confusion regarding the interview questions and the interview procedure For the most part, the questions are generally understandable and concern-free However, for certain Yes-No questions such as “Are English spatial and temporal prepositions taught in class?”, the piloted interviewees simply responded Yes-No and did not elaborate their answers in detail Therefore, follow-up questions “If the answer is Yes ” and “If the answer is No ” were added to accompany the main questions The interview protocol was then modified based on the constructive feedback of the piloted participants, hoping to yield more reliable results in the main study To sum up, after these research instruments were piloted, necessary modifications were made before the main study was carried out.

Data collection procedure

3.7.1 Collection of the students’ speaking performance

As previously stated, students’ speaking performance was collected two times in week five and six in class After selecting the topic of their preference,each student spoke about the topic they chose individually without reference materials or support from the teacher As soon as the recording stage was completed, the teacher in charge would send the raw audio files to the researcher.

In total, there were 83 students whose speaking performances were audio- recorded However, not all of them attended both sessions in week five and six.

In fact, some were absent in either week due to unexpected personal reasons. Statistically, among 83 students, there were 7 students who did not go to class in week five, 1 student less than those who skipped the session in week six.

3.7.2 Collection of the writing test

The writing test was completed in class under the careful instructions of the teachers in charge in week eight To facilitate the writing process in general and the comprehension of the pictures that students were about to use to tell a story in specific, the PDF file of the test was sent to the teachers beforehand so that on the day the test was carried out, the colored test paper was shown on screen All of the students' answer papers were kept together and returned to the researcher after the students had completed their writing in 20 minutes.In total, on the day the writing test was administered, 72 pieces of writing were collected eventually.

3.7.3 Collection of data from the Questionnaire

Official questionnaire papers, after being refined, were then distributed to students in the main study (See Appendix B and C) The researcher, at the appointed time with the teachers, visited classrooms to introduce students to the focus, aims, and rationale of the study and to instruct them to complete the questionnaire Eventually, all anonymous questionnaire answer sheets were gathered together for later analyses.

In the present study, questionnaire papers could not be sent to some learners in person as their course had been completed by the time the official questionnaire was distributed Nevertheless, the questionnaire items were designed into an online form Thanks to the support of the class teachers, the link to the questionnaire form was shared with their learners, hoping to reach out to as not as much as initially expected, it still met the requirements in terms of internal consistency when put into Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients, which seemed to be statistically acceptable.

3.7.4 Collection of data from the Interview

The semi-structured interview was conducted with eight voluntary student participants and two corresponding teachers for in-depth understanding of the causes of prepositional errors and suggestions to rectify those errors from their perspectives The average interview time length with each participant lasted approximately 10 minutes.

After the voluntary participation of the interviewees was reached, official appointments with them were decided upon at their convenience On the appointed day, the link to Zoom was sent to each interviewee individually In a friendly atmosphere, the aims and the significance of the research were again briefly explained so that the interviewees thoroughly understood their vital role as participants Each interview session, first of all, started with some background information to gain more understanding of the interviewees After that, the second and the third parts of the interview protocol concerning the causes resulting in prepositional errors and suggestions to rectify those errors were carried out A total of 10 items were raised one-by-one with follow-up questions for certain items.

Data analysis scheme

3.8.1 Analyzing data from the students’ speaking performance and writing test

The data collected from students’ spoken and written performances were analyzed for prepositional errors While the recordings were carefully transcribed on Word Document by one of the researcher’s colleagues and then double- checked by the researcher herself to minimize mishearing words, the writing papers were computerized for analyses Both data sets were thoroughly scanned to extract sentences containing errors related to spatial and temporal prepositions by the researcher and a qualified English teacher with a consent form to increase reliability (see Appendix J) The academic background and teaching experience of the raters were also thoughtfully considered Firstly, the informant invited holds a Master’s degree in TESOL granted by Edith Cowan University in Australia, scores 8.0 in IELTS, and has been teaching English for approximately

5 years Besides, the researcher herself, with 4-year experience in teaching English to Vietnamese learners, earned a Bachelor’s degree in English language teaching granted by the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, HCMC and scored 7.5 in IELTS The role of the informant was to verify the results of the error identification stage In case of disagreement, a third rating was implemented and the final decision was made Errors then were categorized into: omission, addition, misformation, substitution, and misordering before being quantified to explore problematic types of prepositional errors that the learners made.

3.8.2 Analyzing data from the questionnaire

The data collected from the questionnaire, both in the pilot study and the main study, were computed and then analyzed using the software named SPSS statistics After the Cronbach’s Alpha reliability test was run in the pilot study, frequency and descriptive statistics also using SPSS were used to find out the Frequencies, Percentages, Mean scores, and Standard Deviation of students’ responses The higher mean scores imply the higher levels of agreement among respondents while the higher Standard Deviation means the bigger differences in agreement levels among respondents.

3.8.3 Analyzing data from the interviews

During the interviews with both students and teachers, it is expected that there would be several categories and themes emerging As a result, this set of data was analyzed using thematic analysis to have the causes of prepositional errors elaborated and the suggestions to rectify these errors proposed by learners and their teachers.

Findings and Discussion

Participants’ background information

After the data regarding student participants were collected, Descriptive Statistics in SPSS was used to analyze their background information including their gender and years of learning English.

Table 4.1: Student respondents’ background information

Years of learning English < 3 years 3.1%

Two teachers participating in the present study hold the Bachelor’s degree as the highest degree up to now Besides, they have been working as English teachers for more or less than 6 years now.

4.2 Types of errors related to spatial and temporal prepositions made by EFL learners

As presented in Chapter 2, the types of errors related to spatial and temporal prepositions are categorized into five groups: omission, addition,misformation, substitution, and misordering In order to investigate prepositional errors committed by learners, speaking performance audio recordings and writing test papers were gathered, computed, and analyzed by two raters The frequency of errors of each type was displayed in the table below.

Table 4.2: Quantity of errors related to spatial and temporal prepositions

Number Type of errors related to spatial and temporal prepositions

Example(s) extracted from collected data

1 Omission About 1pm Atabout 1pm 81 17.2%

2 Addition In one day soon One day soon 97 20.6%

3 Misformation Opposite ofthe management board

4 Substitution In the second floor Onthe second floor 263 55.8%

As shown in the previous table, it is evident that the EFL learners participating in the present study committed spatial and temporal prepositional errors of omission, addition, misformation, and substitution types Among these four categories, substitution errors were quantified as the largest error type with 55.8%, followed by addition and omission which took up 20.6% and 17.2% respectively While misformation accounted for 6.4%, misordering was not committed by the participants in the study The following subsections present details of each type of error.

Table 4.3: Details of omission errors

Examples from collected data Frequency

The summer Located the South of Vietnam

November 20 The first floor is the living room.

Go back my hometown Get their destination

About 30 minutes Nearly one hour

This is the room I stay in the day 1

Preposition “In” was omitted 26 times In “2019, before the last day we came back to the city”, or “The evening, family usually spent time together.”, participants failed to insert the preposition “In” which was required to make the phrases grammatically correct In the spatial sense, this preposition was also absent in several expressions such as“Dong Nai Province the South of Vietnam”, or“The left corner is the dressing table”.

When producing language with both spatial and temporal senses, some learners did not insert the preposition “On” into their sentences For example, in

“A beautiful Sunday morning.” and “The last time I went to school to visit my teachers was November 20.”,“On” was needed Besides, in a spatial sense, some learners also withdrew“On” out of their sentences To illustrate, two of them uttered “First floor is the living room.” and “a bookshelf which I can put my books.”

There were 11 cases when the learners omitted “At” in their sentences. Among these cases, the learners showed noticeable struggles with time description For example, instead of saying “At 1pm” and “At around 7am”, learners simply omitted “At” in these phrases Besides, many of them attempted to use the verb Arrived yet omitted the spatial preposition right after it as in

“Arrived the picnic spot” or “Arrived the location”.

Preposition “To” was removed 16 times in the phrases where it should have been added First, with verbs describing movement from one place to the other such as Travel,Go, andGet, a spatial preposition is called for However, it was omitted as in “That is the first time I traveled this place.”, “Go back my hometown”, and “Get their destination”.

Learners in the current study omitted “For” in 8 different sentences, all of which related to time indication For example, they said “I studied three years in that school.”, “They went to the garden about 30 minutes.”, and “By sitting under the tree nearly one hour” Even though they all asked for the insertion of the

One particular case in which “During” was omitted is in the sentence

“This is the room I stay in the day.” Indeed, a more transparent and more grammatically correct way to express this is to say “This is the room I stay in during the day.” While the preposition “In” follows the verbStay, the preposition

“During” was called for to precedethe day.

The second type of prepositional errors explored is addition All of the cases in which spatial or temporal prepositions are added when no preposition is grammatically required are classified as addition errors This error classification ranks second with 20.6% Details of errors of this type are displayed in the table below.

Table 4.4: Details of addition errors

Examples from collected data Frequency

Addition of preposition “In” My bedroom is in the second room from the stairs 54

Books can be found in there.

On the first floor is for 10th grade 3 There is a small garden on there.

At there, we also saw some animals.

At above the main entrance

Entered to the Nam Cat Tien National Park 11Get to there

It took us for 8 hours 3

Although it was built for a long time ago, when looking at the school, it is still very new.

My school is also quite famous in the district although it was built for a long time ago.

We came along with the stream bank 6 Sitting next to together

They went through inside the park.

With the preposition “In”, there were 54 cases in which the insertion of

“In” made the sentences incorrect For example, a student uttered “My bedroom is in the second room from the stairs.” while it should have been “My bedroom is the second room from the stairs.” However, the wrong insertion of “In” was seen mostly in cases such as “Books can be found in there.” and “Different types of books can be found in here.”, Students persistently used In here and In there in their language production as an employment of their literal translation from their mother tongue Moreover, in a temporal sense, the incorrect addition of “In” was also witnessed For instance, instead of saying “last Sunday” and “One day soon”, participants said “In last Sunday” and “In one day soon”.

The wrong insertion of “On” was seen in, for example, “On the first floor is for 10th grade.” Instead, the sentence should have omitted “On” and changed into “The first floor is for 10th grade.”

The preposition “At” was wrongly inserted 20 times both as a spatial preposition and a temporal preposition For example, some learners repeatedly there” although “At” should have been removed as it is not required in these sentences Besides, this error was also seen in “In the morning at that day” or

“They came to eat at breakfast.” in which the presence of “At” needed omitting.

There were 11 times that the preposition “To” was added into participants’ sentences incorrectly With verbs that show movement such as Go, Commute, and Arrive, they would require a spatial preposition to follow them before the noun that shows destination is added However, in special cases in which somewhere, there, or together are used, the above said verbs require no spatial preposition to follow The results from the data sets indicate that many students failed to acknowledge when to use “To” and when not to.

In “It took us for 8 hours.”, “Although it was built for a long time ago, when looking at the school, it is still very new.”, and “My school is also quite famous in the district although it was built for a long time ago.”, the preposition

“For” was inaccurately inserted and therefore should have been removed.

Causes of the errors related to spatial and temporal prepositions and

4.3.1 Causes of the errors related to spatial and temporal prepositions

The student questionnaire responses were collected and semi-structured interviews with teachers and learners were carried out First, in terms of the questionnaire, there were four causes of errors related to spatial and temporal prepositions investigated with 25 items in total.

Among these causes, Interlingual Transfer was the first cause investigated which consisted of 7 items Table 4.7 shows the Mean Value and StandardDeviation of this factor.

Table 4.7: Mean Value and Standard Deviation of Interlingual Transfer

N valid Missing Mean Std Deviation

According to the table above, as the mean score of Interlingual Transfer was 3.0938 (>3.00), it could be concluded that this factor was, for the most part, agreed as a possible source of prepositional errors Detailed description of particular items in this factor is presented in the following table.

Table 4.8: Descriptive statistics of items in Interlingual Transfer

Items N Percentage of agreement levels Mean Std.

The table indicates that 61% of respondents “think about prepositions in translate the prepositions from Vietnamese to English Although the number of students who relied on their L1 is remarkably large, it is quite a surprise that the use of Vietnamese-English dictionaries was not a common practice among 54.7% of respondents with high Std Variation (1.221) Besides, every 4 students in 10 did not think English prepositions and Vietnamese prepositions are similar while many of them (32.8%) were in doubt whether or not they see themselves as a reference point when using English prepositions “I do not determine TR and LM when using English prepositions.” received a high percentage of agreeing students, and the figure for those who showed agreement towards statement 1.7 was merely a quarter To sum up, most items in the Interlingual Transfer factor (1.1, 1.2, and 1.6) indicate high levels of agreement, whereas most respondents showed strong disagreement in 1.3, 1.4 and 1.7 The fact that many think about prepositions in Vietnamese first and then translate into English, see themselves as a reference point, and are not familiar with the concepts of TR and LM when using English prepositions is a major culprit to blame.

The next source of errors investigated in the present study is Intralingual Transfer with initially 7 items; however, it reduced to 6 after the Cronbach’s Alpha reliability test was run In total, the mean score along with the Std. Deviation are displayed in the table below.

Table 4.9: Mean Value and Standard Deviation of Intralingual Transfer

N valid Missing Mean Std Deviation

According to the table above, a larger number of students expressed their high agreement levels towards Intralingual Transfer as a source of prepositional errors with the mean score nearly reaching 3.800 The Std Deviation is also noticeably low, illustrating that the respondents’ responses were relatively similar Details of each item are presented in the table as follows.

Table 4.10: Descriptive statistics of items in Intralingual Transfer

Items N Percentage of agreement levels Mean Std.

Table 4.10 shows that almost all items in the Intralingual Transfer factor received significantly strong agreement among respondents Two items: “I think the preposition system in English is too complex.” and “I think English prepositions have a polysemous nature.” had the highest mean value yet lowestStd Deviation (Mean = 4.02, Std Deviation = 951; and Mean = 4.19, Std.Deviation = 924 accordingly) Every 7 to 8 students in 10 believed that the complex system and polysemous nature of English prepositions explained why they frequently committed prepositional errors Three other statements 2.1, 2.5,and 2.3 were agreed by respectively 73.4%, 64.1%, and 56.3% of respondents with Mean score averagely of 3.7 These figures indicated that not only did the rules in most cases were also to blame The other item, which received the lowest Mean score of 3.17 yet highest Std Deviation was agreed by more or less than 32% of the total respondents In short, Intralingual Transfer also became the major source of prepositional errors.

The third factor to be investigated is Context of Learning comprising 7 items The table below shows the figures in terms of Mean value and Std. Deviation of this factor.

Table 4.11: Mean Value and Standard Deviation of Context of Learning

N valid Missing Mean Std Deviation

It is clear that the Mean score is 3.8058, much higher than the threshold of 3.00 This implies that a majority of respondents agreed that Context of Learning causes great problems and is seen as a major source of prepositional errors As well as this, the Std Deviation is also low with only 76757, indicating that not much difference is seen in the respondents’ responses in this factor The table below details all items in specific.

Table 4.12: Descriptive statistics of items in Context of Learning

Items N Percentage of agreement levels Mean Std.

The table shows that roughly 80% of learners stated “similar English prepositions are introduced as a single unit with no clear cut” and that “most in- class time was spent on other grammar points rather on prepositions” With the highest Mean score of 4.11, this status quo proved itself to be the most agreeable yet problematic reason explaining the spatial and temporal prepositional errors that learners made Since the learners were not offered many chances to get themselves exposed to this particular grammar point, they apparently encountered challenges and undoubtedly made lots of errors Besides, approximately 70% of total respondents admitted that they were not introduced to the concepts of TR and LM in English prepositions This shows the disregard for TR and LM which are evidently two of the most significant concepts in learning how to use English spatial and temporal prepositions Two statements including “English prepositions in textbooks lack sufficient explanations.”, and

“English prepositions in textbooks are not introduced in specific contexts.” were agreed by 65.7% and 62.5% of respondents accordingly Finally, 56.3% of respondents stated that the items concerning the presence of Vietnamese equivalents together with English prepositions in the textbooks and the lack of preposition practice were true To sum up, all 7 items analyzed in Context of Learning are contributing elements to prepositional errors that learners committed.

The last factor to be investigated is Communication Strategies which consisted of 5 items These items were analyzed to explore different strategies that learners employed when they were not sure which English prepositions to

Table 4.13: Mean Value and Standard Deviation of Communication Strategies

N valid Missing Mean Std Deviation

As shown in table 4.13, the Mean score of this factor is unusually low with only 2.9125 This low Mean value describes the general disagreement among 64 respondents together with the Std Deviation of 81718 For detailed results of each item in this factor, a table is presented as follows.

Table 4.14: Descriptive statistics of items in Communication Strategies

Items N Percentage of agreement levels Mean Std.

Unlike previous factors, Communication Strategies generally received disagreement from the respondents Among five items, “I convey my ideas in another way in writing if I am unsure of which English prepositions to use.” was agreed by the largest percentage of 53.2% of learners (Mean = 3.58) Lower yet above 3.00 Mean values were seen in items 4.1 and 4.5 in which around 37.6% and 46.9% of learners show their agreement respectively While the former refers to learners’ silence when in doubt, the latter is about using English prefabricated prepositional patterns without considering the contexts The two remaining items received the lowest Mean scores of below 2.50 This shows that even though in some cases when learners were not sure of which English prepositions to use, they generally neither avoid using prepositions nor use Vietnamese instead In short, the results of 5 discrete items in Communication Strategies illustrate respondents’ disagreement levels except for the most striking figures being seen in item 4.2.

The overall data from the student questionnaires indicate that Interlingual Transfer, Intralingual Transfer, and Context of Learning are alarmingly troublesome and need paying attention to, and this was once again confirmed and explained in interview sessions.

Regarding Interlingual Transfer, many students habitually translated prepositions from Vietnamese, unaware of the cognitive differences between two languages 6 out of 8 students admitted to this negative habit for various reasons. While S3 shared that literal translation helps him determine prepositions easily, S4 attributed errors to his lack of English preposition knowledge This habit was also due to the way students were taught prepositions as schoolchildren and it has become a habit of theirs (S7&S8) This was observed by both teachers as well.

From my observation, the students I teach are only at intermediate level with insufficient interaction with English so they often translate literally from Vietnamese first.(T1)

They frequently do so due to their ingrained translation habit (T2)

However, the other student interviewees claimed situational dependency regarding translation When faced with unfamiliar contexts, literal translation was resorted to (S6) Besides, most participants were unfamiliar with TR and LM concepts even though one of them “heard but did not actually know them”.Those who claimed knowledge still made incorrect preposition choices,confirming their insufficient understanding of these concepts Such

T2 believed that these concepts were too theoretical The absence of these concepts in teaching exacerbates students’ dependence on L1, low cognitive awareness, and the employment of intuitive methods.

Discussion

This section presents the discussions between the findings in the present study in parallel with those in the previous studies in the similar research domain.

The first research question was to explore types of errors related to spatial and temporal prepositions The results showed that except for misordering, the other four types were committed with substitution being the highest.

First, the finding regarding substitution errors, being the most common, mirrors that in previous research such as Kim et al.’s (2017) research on 150 secondary school students’ written texts, Utari’s (2017) research among 11th students’ writing papers and Fazriny’s (2018) research from 2nd graders' writing in which errors of this type occupied 95%, 50.43%, and 53.33% respectively, indicating challenges across research settings Besides common misselection cases like in, on, and at, it should be noticed that above, over, into, and other prepositions were also misselected at high frequency The high level of substitution errors also indicated that there was a lack of clarifications and clear- cut between two or even among a group of confusing prepositions in various learning channels such as textbooks or in-class sessions.

Second, addition errors constituted a considerable share of 20.6%, similar to studies conducted by Tahaineh (2010), Chelli (2014), and Wairimu and Ngugi (2021), reflecting a prevalent error pattern among students of various age ranges and language proficiencies In this study, in was wrongly added in students’ sentences, followed by other prepositions includingat,on,to, andfor.

Third, omission errors, where mandatory prepositions were omitted, made up 17.2% and ranked third, aligning with what was concluded in Parada et al 's (2017) and Lembayung’s (2017) research With the relatively significant proportions of omission errors, it could be seen that across studies, students still omitted prepositions while they were necessary in their sentences Besidesin,on, and at, two other prepositions that were frequently omitted incorrectly in the current study wereforandto.

Fourth, misfomation errors, referring to cases in which learners formed prepositions incorrectly, were relatively less frequently identified As stated in the previous sections, since the operational definition of misformation was differently perceived across studies, the current research traced its definition back in time in Dulay et al.’s (1982) work and looked the word up in monolingual English dictionaries While misformation was defined as the abnormal formation of a preposition, many existing research conceived the term as the misselection of one preposition for another Therefore, a large number of previous studies, although categorized errors into a group called misformation, showed examples of substitution This was also a noticeable difference witnessed when comparing

Errors of misordering, characterized by the wrong placing of prepositions, were absent in the current study, and this was in line with previous studies such as Chelli’s (2014) and Fazriny’s (2018) Meanwhile, some authors, namely Tahaineh (2010), Kim et al (2017), and Utari (2017) did not intend to investigate errors of this type in the first place While there were unknown reasons for the absence of this error type in the first two studies, the one by Utari (2017) employed the classification proposed by Jha (1991), and this explains why the researcher did not initially include misordering as a type of error Nevertheless, misordering was still counted and identified in some other studies including Lembayung’s (2017), Wairimu and Ngugi’s (2021), and Ferdian’s (2022). Although some authors still found a minor number of errors of this type, it could be concluded that misordering was not a major problem, thereby requiring less attention to be paid compared to other types of errors mentioned earlier.

In summary, while the findings were generally consistent with previous research, discrepancies in the definition and grouping of misformation errors highlight the need for standardization in prepositional error classifications across studies.

The second research question was to seek for the possible causes of errors along with solutions suggested by teachers and learners to reduce errors To this end, questionnaire items and interview questions carefully designed based on the theoretical framework proposed by Brown (2007, pp 263-266) were conducted. For ease of reading, this framework includes four sources of errors: Interlingual Transfer, Intralingual Transfer, Context of Learning, and Communication Strategies.

The results from the student questionnaire revealed that among four factors, Context of Learning, Intralingual Transfer, and Interlingual Transfer were the primary factors leading students to committing prepositional errors while Communication Strategies factor, with the Mean value of around 2.9, was not generally agreed upon by the student participants as the main source of errors.

The results from the questionnaire were explained and reinforced by the findings in the interviews both with students and their teachers in charge After that, interviewees also recommended several measures that could be adopted with regard to the learners themselves, the teachers, and the textbooks.

In many previous studies, the causes behind prepositional errors were also concluded, with Interlingual Transfer and Intralingual Transfer being the most commonly mentioned factors However, a majority of them simply traced the error causes according to their own beliefs and assumptions rather than on reliable and visible data For instance, in the research carried out by Çabuk (2009), Yousefi et al (2014), Kim et al (2017), Suzanne (2017), and Wairimu and Ngugi (2021), the researchers concluded the reasons triggering prepositional errors solely based on their own perceptions without research instruments to support their standpoints Meanwhile, even though some studies did include interviews in their methodology to find out the causes of errors such as Iqbal, Ullah and Ahmad (2019) and Ferdian (2022), the justifications for how the interview questions were constructed were not presented, thereby decreasing the validity of the interviews.

Unlike the present research study which explored suggestions to rectify prepositional errors from the viewpoints of learners and their teachers as part of the research aims along with the causes of errors, previous studies mostly stopped at error causes without further investigating suggested solutions from different stakeholders Although certain implications, including avoiding teaching correspondence between L1 and English and preparing suitable exercises (Yousefi et al., 2014), and spending more time on teaching prepositions and showing learners how to use prepositions in distinct contexts (Tulabut et al.,2018), were suggested, these were solely implied by the researchers themselves rather than from the perspectives of those involved such as the teachers and learners, highlighting the differences compared to the present study.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Summary of findings

With regard to the first research question investigating errors related to spatial and temporal prepositions, the data collected from 83 students’ speaking and 72 writing performances indicated that among almost 500 prepositional errors, substitution accounted for the largest with 55.8%, in contrast to no misordering errors Besides, addition errors ranked second with 20.6%, compared to 17.2% and 6.4% belonging to omission and misformation respectively For the second research question, the data collected from the student questionnaire and interviews showed that all sources of errors: Interlingual Transfer, Intralingual Transfer, Context of Learning, and Communication Strategies were to blame, with the first three causes being most problematic In other words, the habit of literally translating from the students’ L1 and low awareness of cognitive differences, the sheer number and complex nature of the English preposition system, and the inadequate presence of this aspect in both learning materials and in-class teaching were the very reasons explaining why erroneous uses of spatial and temporal prepositions were identified This conclusion was first drawn from the data gathered through the quantitative questionnaire with the students, then further explained and reinforced by the interviews with them and their teachers. The sharing in the interviews not only helped strengthen the results from the questionnaire concerning the causes of errors, but they also provided several suggestions proposed by the teachers and learners to rectify those errors.

In summary, not only did the findings of the present study corroborated with the existing body of literature in the field of prepositions, especially spatial and temporal prepositions by adding new yet relevant proof and information, but they also cast light on the causes and suggestions in a more systematic way based on the theoretical framework.

Pedagogical implications

Based on the study findings, several pedagogical implications are recommended for both English teachers and learners.

The teaching of English spatial and temporal prepositions needs prioritizing by English teachers to increase learners’ clear language production. Substitution, among five error types, was most common, implying that more clarification and examples to assist learners in differentiating confusing prepositions are needed Although learners mainly misselected, added, omitted or misformed prepositions, they did not misplace them, suggesting that teachers had better shift focus to the former error types.

Additionally, the teaching of spatial and temporal prepositions should be more straightforward and sufficient, covering rudimentary yet mandatory concepts including TR and LM in English prepositions to ensure their learners comprehend the concepts and raise their awareness of cognitive disparities between two languages when it comes to prepositions Finally, more class time should be allocated to address the limited preposition exposure, and for effective preposition presentation, textbooks should be reviewed to include ample illustrations, examples, clarification between confusing prepositions, and adequate practice opportunities.

Students targeting higher language proficiency need to understand errors they make, causes behind, and practical remediations to resolve such errors As stated, Communication strategies such as avoidance or prefabricated prepositional phrases without considering contexts impede mutual understanding, spatial and temporal prepositions at home or in class with their teachers for further explanation and examples rather than trying to avoid using or decontextualize them at all costs Besides, they should acknowledge the distinct nature of the preposition systems between Vietnamese and English to avoid literal translation or transfer errors This particularly invloves the distinctions in cognition in space and time and how various prepositions are used in two languages To this end, monolingual English grammar books and dictionaries are suggested, limiting the habit of literal translating and transferring from one language to another.

In addition, learners are suggested to acquire prepositions systematically and not discretely For example, prepositions showing a higher spatial position,such as “On”, “Above”, and “Over” could be learned at once with clarifications for each of them so that the employment of one preposition is not wrongly substituted with another Besides, some confusing prepositional phrases like “at the corner”, “in the corner”, or “on the corner” should be actively researched for use by the students Perhaps most significantly, the inadequate clarifications,explanations and practice opportunities in textbooks, along with the constrained amount of exposure in class are primary causes of errors, highlighting the need for extending exposure time and increasing in-class focus.

Limitations of the study

Although the answers to the two research questions were obtained in detail, certain limitations remain in the study Given the small participant number due to the study’s location at a small center on the outskirts of HCMC, the interpretation on a larger scale is somewhat restricted Additionally, the inconsistencies across various stages in data collection procedure and the involvement of only two raters in the error identification further undermine the study’s reliability Finally, despite relentless attempts to diversify data sets, it would have been more advantageous if the students had been provided with more chances to show their ability to use English spatial and temporal prepositions,perhaps in the form of controlled tests Nonetheless, since the aims of the study did not involve being the representative of a larger scale or making assumptions to other settings, these limitations did not exert negative effects on the study findings Having said that, to gain profound insights into the error analysis ofEnglish prepositions, various recommendations for research in the future are outlined in the next section.

Recommendations for further research

The current research, although conducted thoughtfully, contributes to the existing literature to a limited extent and more future studies, therefore, are advised to continue to shed more light on the field of prepositions Further research should be conducted with larger participation to ensure broader representativeness, be aware of the possibility of inconsistent participation throughout different phases of collecting data, and employ more raters to increase the reliability of the research Plus, together with spoken and written data, tests of other kinds such as controlled tests should be incorporated to enrich the findings Future research may also study different approaches to better acquire this grammatical point, and experiment with pedagogical measures to calculate their effectiveness in assisting learners to use prepositions Last but not least, apart from spatial and temporal prepositions, several other types also need investigating to understand prepositional errors in a more complete picture.

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Chương trình sau đại học TESOL Đại học Khoa học Xã hội và Nhân văn Đại học Quốc gia Việt Nam - Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh

Nguyên nhân gây ra lỗi giới từ không gian và thời gian

Vui lòng đánh giá các câu hỏi sau bằng thang điểm từ 1 đến 5 Hãy nghĩ về những nguyên nhân mà bạn cho rằng gây ra lỗi giới từ về không gian và thời gian liên quan đến việc học và thực hành tiếng Anh của bạn Vui lòng đánh dấu vào ô

(✓) phản ánh mức độ đồng ý của bạn cho các phát biểu dưới đây.

Hoàn toàn không đồng ý Không đồng ý Trung lập Đồng ý Hoàn toàn đồng ý

1 Chuyển giao ngôn ngữ từ tiếng Việt

STT Phát biểu Mức độ đồng ý

1 Tôi nghĩ về các giới từ bằng tiếng Việt trước khi nói chúng bằng tiếng Anh 1 2 3 4 5

2 Tôi dịch các giới từ từ tiếng Việt sang tiếng Anh 1 2 3 4 5

3 Tôi thường sử dụng từ điển Việt-Anh để tìm kiếm giới từ tiếng Anh khi nói tiếng Anh 1 2 3 4 5

4 Tôi nghĩ giới từ tiếng Anh cũng giống như giới từ tiếng Việt 1 2 3 4 5

5 Tôi coi mình là điểm tham chiếu khi sử dụng giới từ tiếng Anh 1 2 3 4 5

6 Tôi không xác định ĐTĐV và ĐTQC khi sử dụng giới từ tiếng Anh 1 2 3 4 5

7 Tôi nghĩ việc lựa chọn giới từ tiếng Anh không phụ thuộc vào danh từ theo sau 1 2 3 4 5

2 Ảnh hưởng từ tiếng Anh

STT Phát biểu Mức độ đồng ý

1 Tôi nghĩ có quá nhiều giới từ trong tiếng Anh 1 2 3 4 5

2 Tôi nghĩ hệ thống giới từ trong tiếng Anh quá phức tạp 1 2 3 4 5

3 Tôi nghĩ rằng thiếu các quy tắc sử dụng cụ thể trong hầu hết các trường hợp 1 2 3 4 5

4 Tôi nghĩ một giới từ tiếng Anh có ý nghĩa khác nhau trong những ngữ cảnh khác nhau 1 2 3 4 5

5 Tôi nghĩ một ý nghĩa có thể được diễn đạt bằng nhiều giới từ tiếng Anh 1 2 3 4 5

6 Tôi nghĩ các giới từ tiếng Anh khác nhau chỉ tương đương với một giới từ tiếng Việt 1 2 3 4 5

7 Tôi nghĩ giới từ tiếng Anh có tính chất đa nghĩa 1 2 3 4 5

STT Phát biểu Mức độ đồng ý

1 Giới từ tiếng Anh trong giáo trình được giới thiệu bằng giới từ tương đương trong tiếng Việt 1 2 3 4 5

2 Giới từ tiếng Anh trong giáo trình thiếu lời giải thích đầy đủ 1 2 3 4 5

3 Giới từ tiếng Anh trong giáo trình không được giới thiệu trong những ngữ cảnh cụ thể 1 2 3 4 5

4 Không có đủ bài tập thực hành về giới từ tiếng Anh trong giáo trình 1 2 3 4 5

5 Các giới từ tiếng Anh dễ nhầm lẫn được giới thiệu như nhau mà không có sự khác biệt rõ ràng 1 2 3 4 5

6 Tôi chưa được hướng dẫn khái niệm Đối tượng định vị và Đối tượng quy chiếu trong giới từ tiếng Anh 1 2 3 4 5

7 Hầu hết thời gian trong lớp được dành cho các điểm ngữ pháp khác thay vì giới từ 1 2 3 4 5

STT Phát biểu Mức độ đồng ý

1 Tôi giữ im lặng khi nói nếu tôi không chắc nên sử dụng giới từ tiếng Anh nào 1 2 3 4 5

2 Tôi diễn đạt ý tưởng của mình theo cách khác khi viết nếu tôi không chắc nên sử dụng giới từ tiếng

3 Tôi thường tránh sử dụng giới từ tiếng Anh khi nói và viết 1 2 3 4 5

4 Tôi chuyển sang tiếng Việt khi không biết nên sử dụng giới từ tiếng Anh nào 1 2 3 4 5

5 Tôi sử dụng các cụm giới từ có sẵn trong tiếng Anh mà không xem xét ngữ cảnh 1 2 3 4 5

Cám ơn sự hợp tác của bạn

Appendix B: Official student questionnaire (English version)

This questionnaire is intended to collect data for the research entitled AN ANALYSIS OF ERRORS RELATED TO SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL PREPOSITIONS MADE BY EFL LEARNERS AT A LANGUAGE CENTER IN HO CHI MINH CITY Your responses will contribute to the success of the study.

We guarantee that the information collected will be used for the research purposes only Please spend some time giving responses to the following questions as clearly and honestly as possible For each of the following questions with different options, please check (✓)the appropriate choice.

Thank you very much for your time and cooperation.

University of Social Sciences and Humanities

Vietnam National University - Ho Chi Minh City

Question 1: What is your gender?

Question 2: How long have you learned English?

Part II: Causes of spatial and temporal prepositional errors

Center consent form

Mẫu chấp thuận cho phép nghiên cứu

Kính gửi Ban Giám đốc trung tâm tiếng Anh Thầy Giảng Cô Mai,

Tôi tên Bùi Thị Thảo Trang, học viên Cao học khoa Ngữ Văn Anh, trường đại học Khoa học Xã hội và Nhân văn, Đại học Quốc gia TPHCM.

Nay tôi làm đơn này xin được thực hiện nghiên cứu tại đơn vị mang tên BÀI PHÂN TÍCH LỖI SAI LIÊN QUAN ĐẾN GIỚI TỪ VỀ KHÔNG GIAN VÀ THỜI GIAN CỦA NGƯỜI HỌC TIẾNG ANH NHƯ LÀ NGÔN NGỮ NƯỚC NGOÀI TẠI TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ Ở TP HỒ CHÍ MINH.

Mục tiêu của bài nghiên cứu bao gồm tìm hiểu: (1) các loại lỗi về giới từ không gian và thời gian của người học tiếng Anh, (2) các nguyên nhân gây lỗi và các giải pháp giảm lỗi sai theo quan điểm của giáo viên và học viên.

Nếu có bất kì câu hỏi nào trước hay trong quá trình thực hiện bài nghiên cứu, tôi rất sẵn lòng giải đáp Kinh mong ban giám đốc trung tâm cho phép và tạo điều kiện cho tôi được thực hiện nghiên cứu tại đơn vị Tôi xin chân thành cám ơn.

Xác nhận của Ban Giám đốc TPHCM, ngày 18 tháng 11 năm 2022

Title: “AN ANALYSIS OF ERRORS RELATED TO SPATIAL AND

TEMPORAL PREPOSITIONS MADE BY EFL LEARNERS AT A LANGUAGE CENTER IN HO CHI MINH CITY”

The following information is provided to help you decide whether you wish to participate in the present study You should be aware that you are free to decide not to participate or to withdraw at any time.

The purpose of this study is to investigate: (1) types of spatial and temporal prepositional errors made by EFL learners at a language center in HCMC, and (2) possible causes of these errors and suggestions to rectify these errors from teachers’ and students’ perspectives.

To analyze prepositional errors made by learners, different sets of data were collected by the researcher However, to increase the reliability of the error identifying stage in the procedure, you are warmly invited to participate in the study under the role of an informant.

Do not hesitate to ask questions about the study before participating or during the study There are also no known risks/and discomforts associated with this study. Please sign this consent form You are signing it with full knowledge of the nature and purpose of the procedures.

Bui Thi Thao Trang, TESOL postgraduate student, USSH.

Appendix K: Reliability statistics of the preliminary pilot questionnaire

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Scale Variance if Item Deleted

Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted

I think about the prepositions in Vietnamese before speaking them in English.

I translate the prepositions from Vietnamese into

I use a Vietnamese-English dictionary to search for an

English preposition when speaking in English.

I think English prepositions are similar to Vietnamese prepositions.

I see myself as a reference point when using English prepositions.

I do not determine Trajector and Landmark when using

I think the choice of English prepositions does not depend on the noun that follows.

I think there are too many prepositions in English 26.00 5.000 685 535

I think the preposition system in English is too complex 25.77 5.026 522 585

I think there is a lack of rules of usage in most cases 26.00 5.333 561 577

I think one English preposition has different meanings in different contexts.

I think one meaning can be expressed by many prepositions.

I think different English prepositions are equivalent to only one Vietnamese preposition.

I think English prepositions have a polysemous nature 25.31 6.231 330 647

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Scale Variance if Item Deleted

Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted English prepositions in textbooks are introduced in

English prepositions in textbooks lack sufficient explanations.

English prepositions in textbooks are not introduced in specific contexts.

There is not enough English preposition practice in textbooks.

Similar English prepositions are introduced as a single 23.92 21.244 859 865 unit with no clearcut.

I was not introduced to the concept of Trajector and

Most in-class time is spent on other grammatical items rather than prepositions.

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Scale Variance if Item Deleted

Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted

I keep silent when speaking if I am unsure of which

I convey my ideas in another way in writing if I am unsure of which English prepositions to use.

I often avoid using English prepositions when producing language.

I switch into Vietnamese when I am unsure of which

I use English prefabricated prepositional patterns without considering the contexts.

Appendix L: Reliability statistics of the revised questionnaire

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Scale Variance if Item Deleted

Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted

I think about the prepositions in Vietnamese before speaking them in English.

I translate the prepositions from Vietnamese into

I use a Vietnamese-English dictionary to search for an

English preposition when speaking in English.

I think English prepositions are similar to Vietnamese prepositions.

I see myself as a reference point when using English prepositions.

I do not determine Trajector and Landmark when using

I think the choice of English prepositions does not depend on the noun that follows.

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Scale Variance if Item Deleted

Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted

I think there are too many prepositions in English 21.54 5.269 667 657

I think the preposition system in English is too complex 21.31 5.231 529 699

I think there is a lack of rules of usage in most cases 21.54 5.603 548 692

I think one meaning can be expressed by many prepositions.

I think different English prepositions are equivalent to only one Vietnamese preposition.

I think English prepositions have a polysemous nature 20.85 6.308 389 734

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Scale Variance if Item Deleted

Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted English prepositions in textbooks are introduced in

English prepositions in textbooks lack sufficient explanations.

English prepositions in textbooks are not introduced in specific contexts.

There is not enough English