Résumé:
The present study aims at investigating the student’s errors in the use of the most common
English prepositions by second year license students at the English department, Mohammed
Seddik Ben Yahia, Jijel University.The purpose of this study is to set out the main reasons
that lead students to misuse those nine prepositions.It is hypothesized that second year
students of English would show the same developmental errors in addition to errors which
result from first language interference.To check the validity of this hypothesis, two means of
research are used to collect data, a grammar test and an analysis of students’ composition.
The test has been administered to 120 participants out of 270 students in order to identify the
most problematic English prepositions they face in using these prepositions by clarifying
their types of errors. The second instrument is a written composition from the first semester
exams papers of the same groups in order to determine the misuse of the most common
English prepositions. Later compare their performances on the grammar test and their own
written expressions. The obtained results show that second year students make errors in the
grammar test. Whereas, a few of them made few errors in written composition. So, they avoid
using complex English prepositions.
