Some Common Problems
Involving Prepositions in Writing English in a Multilingual Context
Barli Bram
English prepositions
continue to pose big problems and challenges. This paper
attempted to (re-)examine and (re-)classify a number of common problems
involving the use of prepositions in students’ compositions in the context of
multilingual education. It was expected that the results or findings of the
(re-)examination and (re-)classification would assist both learners and
teachers to tackle their preposition problems more successfully when writing
English. The impact or role of the multilingual context was also discussed.
As for the
(supporting) data, the writings of some 50 students were collected and
observed. The 50 students represented two writing classes at
The results of the
observation and examination reconfirmed that there were in principle three
types of problems regarding the use of prepositions. First was the use of an
incorrect preposition as in the adjective phrase *similar with, instead of similar
to. Second was the omission of a required preposition as in the verb phrase
*reply your message, instead of reply to your message. Third was the
use of an unnecessary preposition as in the verb phrase *discuss about our plans, instead of discuss our plans. These three categories of preposition problems
were concluded to stem from the interference of Indonesian, Malay or other
languages/dialects spoken by students. In other words, it seemed that
multilingualism played a role in leading learners to produce such
ungrammatical, yet understandable, sentences in their writing.
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Bramm, B. (2005, December). Some common
problems involving prepositions in writing English in a multilingual context.
Paper presented at the 53rd TEFLIN International conference,
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