Difficulties Encountered by EFL Learners in Using and Comprehending Phrasal Verbs

Abstract

Despite the fact that phrasal verbs are essential linguistic items that native speakers of English constantly use in their daily conversations, informal situations, and even in their writings, EFL learners find them difficult to learn and use them less frequently. In order to tackle this issue, the present study aims at investigating EFL learners’ difficulties in comprehending and using phrasal verbs properly. It has been hypothesized that EFL learners at the University of Mohammed Seddik Ben Yahia face difficulties in comprehending and using phrasal verbs due to their semantic and syntactic properties. In this respect, a test was administered to 25 third year LMD university students of the academic year 2018/2019 to find out which semantic and syntactic types of phrasal verbs are more problematic for learners, and a questionnaire was mainly assigned to 15 teachers of oral and written expression as well as those of grammar at the same university to explore their views and perceptions on learning phrasal verbs and the main difficulties learners encounter when learning them. The findings reveal that most of EFL learners misunderstand and misuse phrasal verbs due to their idiomatic meaning. Moreover, the position of the particle and the use of the wrong verb and particle are considered to be the most syntactic problems to EFL learners. This implies that EFL learners at Mohamed Seddik Ben Yahia face difficulties in comprehending and using phrasal verbs because of their semantic and syntactic properties.