Investigating the Effect of Modern Standard Arabic on English Foreign Language Learners’ Writing: An Analysis Study of Grammatical Errors

Abstract

The present study aims at investigating and determming through error analysis the interference of Modern Standard Arabic in the first year LMD students’ writing at the department of English Jijel- University. To achieve the ultimate aim, a questionnaire is administrated to 7 teachers of written expression at the department of English, through which teachers’ attitudes towards the effect of Standard Arabic (mother tongue) on their learners’ written production will be presented. Additionally, forty paragraphs were collected for an error analysis written by first year students, as well as are analyzing to expose the main common errors types. This research attempts to shed light on the main grammatical errors committed by EFL learners ‘in their writing performance and finding out the main reasons behind these errors. The finding obtained in this study reveals that a lot of different grammatical errors was found and classified into various categories and these errors are due to mother tongue interference (inter-language). On the light of these results, the earlier hypothesis is confirmed that that students’ awareness about the interference of the standard Arabic (mother tongue), may help them to write effectively with less grammatical errors.