Prepositions and ESL Learners - Coursework Example

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Introduction

Students whose first language is not English often encounter a series of challenges when trying to obtain the second language. One area that has proved to be a challenge to most ESL speakers pertains to the use of prepositions. Unlike other English language words and topics, the prepositions are the most difficult to master. A wrong preposition used in a sentence is enough to change the meaning of the initially intended communication. In short, prepositions can cause miscommunication between the ESL and ENL learners. It is made even worse by the fact that a sentence can contain more than one preposition, meaning a learner may end up misusing them. Due to the high number of people trying to obtain the English language, it is imperative to address the use of prepositions by the ESL speakers.

Rationale

Three things inform the need to address the problem of prepositions among the ESL speakers. First, prepositions are paramount in the English language since they can alter the meaning of a sentence thereby leading to miscommunication. Therefore, discussing and addressing this problem would help the ESL speakers to understand the essence of the prepositions. Secondly, the large number of international students will be included in the society where their English command needs to be proficient for easy and effective communication with others. Since globalization has created a platform for people from different language-speaking cultures to meet, proficiency in the English language has become an imperative.

Addressing the problems that are encountered by the ESL speakers will go a long way to help them understand the areas requiring improvement. Additionally, it will help the educators and curriculum developers to find ways that could help the ESL speakers become acquainted with the language. Each year, thousands of international students flock the US to progress with their studies in the US universities. In fact, the number has risen exponentially in the recent years. For instance, in the 1970s, international students accounted for 2% of university graduates in the US, yet the figure had risen to over 5% where almost 1 million students that graduate from the US universities are foreigners (Fuller & McEnaney, 2016). Worse still, most of the students come from nations where English is hardly taught.

For instance, China and Saudi Arabia are the leading countries where foreign students come from, yet an English-speaking colonial master did not colonize these countries. Then, there is also the issue of the universities that most international students end up studying; the figures indicate many enroll in the major institutions. For instance, over 13,000 were enrolled at the New York University; more than 12000 were at the University of Southern Carolina; close to 12,000 were in the Columbia University (Fuller & McEnaney, 2016). Other universities where more than 8000 foreign students enrolled included the Arizona, Illinois, Purdue, and Purdue Universities. The number of these students may keep increasing as the recent trends seem to indicate an exponential rise.

Sadly, the rising number of these students is not always seen as a challenge that ought to be addressed in as far as the English language is concerned. Though the trainers may avoid using vocabularies in a bid to help the ESL speakers, the issue of prepositions hardly arises. In fact, Mueller (2011) noted that the current teaching strategies rarely address the problems of prepositions mainly because it is hard to explain to the learners. The difficulties arise from the fact that one cannot teach about a preposition without using one in the process. As a result, a trainer would have to keep explaining the other prepositions used in a sentence. Therefore, these challenges point toward the need to address the problems of prepositions among the ESL speakers.

Problems encountered with the grammar concept of using prepositions

The ESL students grapple with prepositions due to various challenges one of which is the presence of many of them in a single sentence. Typically, an English sentence contains more than one preposition that may appear confusing to the learners whose first language is not English. Worse still, the ESL students may feel that some positional words are best replaced with others in a sentence. Mueller (2011) recommended that the educators ought to avoid using multiple prepositions in a single sentence as much as possible when dealing with the foreign learners. Though it is not practically possible to avoid prepositions in a sentence, reducing their frequency would have a position impact on the ESL students.

Secondly, the application of prepositions in a sentence often becomes problematic to most learners. In short, the presence of several prepositions that seem applicable to a word compounds the issue. For instance, a learner may not clearly understand when prepositions such as “at” “in,” and “by.” Sadly, the usage of all these prepositions will inevitably determine the meaning of a sentence. For instance, a student using “in” and “at” will be communicating something different without knowledge. To ensure the learners are aware of the variation of these words, Cornelius (2011) argued that it is the trainers’ duty to engage the ESL students on a continued basis. However, there is the lack of consistency in the trainers when it comes to teaching prepositions, thus the need to address this issue in this paper.

Thirdly, the placement of prepositions in a sentence is an additional problem for ESL learners when it comes to prepositions. In grammar, a preposition ought not to appear at the end of a sentence, yet the EFL may not see a problem with that unless a trainer explains it. Unlike other English words that may be easy to grasp, prepositions are somewhat complex due to the placement and usage in a sentence. For the ESL learners, nouns and verbs are easier to comprehend, but it is different with prepositions. Rohdenburg (2010) noted that most ESL speakers expressed frustrations with prepositions due to their apparent complexities when it comes to the usage. Sadly, the problems associated with the prepositions are not always addressed adequately when it come ESL speakers.

In addition to the above problems, many prepositions are polysemous thereby confusing the learners even worse than expected. In other words, prepositions tend to have multiple meanings that can act as a source of frustrations to the learners who may be trying to convey a message. For instance, a student trying to say that they traveled by bus may end up using “with” in the place of “by” thereby confusing the entire sentence. If the learner uses “with” instead of “by”, the impression will be entirely different; it will imply that the student was accompanied by the bus. Evans and Tyler (2005) noted that the polysemy of prepositions often impedes the EFL learners from grasping the English language. Hence, there is a need to offer the learners sufficient materials that expound on the different meanings of the prepositions.

Also, the fact that the English language contains the highest number of prepositions than any other complicates this matter. Apparently, the English language has between 60 and 70 prepositions which is the highest number of all the other languages (Koffi, 2010). Considering that the English language has other grammar-related words, the high number of prepositions only worsens the situation. Consequently, it becomes pretty had for ESL to systemize the prepositions and the situation hardly improve since the prepositions are not reduced.

Still, the challenge of prepositions to the ESL is worsened by the fact that it contains just a few syllables. Prepositions, particularly when spoken, are hard to recognize and related with own language. Lam (2009) noted that since most prepositions including on, for, to, are monosyllabic, the ESL may not recognize and differentiate the prepositions when a person is speaking. Besides, the English prepositions cause a negative syntactic transfer due to the variation. As a result, the prepositions used in the English language have vast meanings in the ESL languages. In essence, the lack of consistency and correlation between the English and foreign prepositions compound the problem.

Moreover, the variation existing in prepositions when it comes to expressing a foreign preposition affects the learners. In many languages, one can express their native words using another one using the foreign language. However, the scenario is different in the case of the English language where some foreign words have multiple English prepositions that can be used in the expression. For instance, the Spanish preposition, por, has multiple expressions in English including by, during, through, and for. As a result of this variation, it becomes hard for the learners to rely on their first language to translate the English prepositions (Lam, 2009; Finegan, 2008). Essentially, if the English language was modified to have uniformity in the area of translations, the ESL learners would be relieved.

Another complexity that characterizes the English prepositions is their position in English words. Typically, other languages allow prepositions to be placed after a noun. Conversely, positional words in English come before a noun, not after it. Furthermore, many other languages complete the work of prepositions using inflections, but that is not the case with the English language (Lam, 2009). Clearly, prepositions behave differently in as far as grammar is concerned from other foreign languages. As a result, the students fail to relate their language prepositions to the English ones. Thus, the learners may continue experiencing the difficulties unless these complexities are addressed.

Also, the English language has been viewed as advancing inconsistencies in its prepositions that often confuses even the native English speakers (ENLs). Evans and Tyler (2005) noted that the inconsistencies in the English prepositions occur in various ways including the application form. A case in point, prepositions such as on and at are applied differently in a single sentence and tend to change the meanings. For instance, a person “in the house” differs with the one “on the house.” While the latter implies outside or standing or seating on the house, the former means that a person is inside the house. While a teacher may explain the different meanings of the two sentences, there is hardly an explanation on the spatial prepositions. As a result, a learner will not understand the reason behind the changes.

Examples

The above concepts have been the major areas that most ESL students encounter the problems. For instance, the spatial prepositions impact the learners in a negative way. In a nutshell, the spatial prepositions are used to show the relationship between something. For instance, besides, near, along, across, and behind are some of the spatial prepositions that confuse the learners. An ESL speaker may not differentiate between ‘against the house’ and ‘across the house’, yet the two sentences have different meanings. The first sentence means that one is leaning or standing on the house, but the second is one implies that one is not even leaning on the house. Evidently, the two prepositions change the meaning of the sentences, yet the ESL may not grasp it unless someone explains deeper.

Additionally, learners need to understand which prepositions ought to appear after nouns. Often, some prepositions are misused even by the ENLs due to the lack of understanding. For instance, “Yesterday I saw an advertisement of a doctor’s position” is grammatically wrong due to the misuse of the preposition. While the preposition is placed at the right place, it is not applicable in that sentence. Rather, the sentence ought to read: “Yesterday I saw an advertisement for a doctor’s position”. In most instances, a learner will just be corrected on the sentences without a clear knowledge of the reason one preposition is wrong. To reduce the problems associated with these prepositions, it is imperative for the teachers to go beyond correcting; an explanation is equally important.

Also, the participial prepositions tend to affect the learners, especially the ESL due to the inability to distinguish which one to apply in a sentence. Typically, a participial preposition incorporates the ed or ing verbs to function as a preposition. For instance, during, assuming, considering, provided, and regarding are some of the major prepositions. Such positional words help in the prevention of a dangling modifier. However, the ESL would need extra help to understand their application. There is a difference between “Jakes comforted Loise assuming her mother’s demise” and considering the demise of Loise’s mother, jakes comforted her. The first sentence is erroneous and would give a different meaning from the second one.

Another area that proves hectic to most ESLs is on the compound prepositions. As noted earlier, the number of prepositions is too many for most ESL to remember all of them. The compound prepositions present an additional challenge. Some examples of these positional words include behind, beneath, before, below, along, around and can easily confuse the ESLs. For instance, “the knife is under the table” and “my vest is underneath my jumper” have two different meanings, but it may not be obvious to ESLs. While the first sentence implies that the knife is directly under the table, the second one means the jumper covers the vest. Such disparities are common causes of confusion to the ESLs unless further elaboration is extended.

Lessons

The problems identified above offer valuable lessons mainly to the education experts as well as the ESL learners. First, it is clear that the ESL cannot easily distinguish the different types of prepositions and their application in a sentence. Since most ESL have a different first language, it is common to try to relate their language with the English, yet the mismatch is significant. In light of this insight, it is imperative for the educators to consider explaining the disparity between the English language syllables and other used in foreign languages. For instance, it is important for the trainers to inform the students that other English prepositions can replace por which is a Spanish word for by.

Secondly, the ESLs ought to be involved in a series activities meant to improve their comprehension of the prepositions. While this recommendation may appear somewhat hard to implement considering the time constraints, the exercise could be done after the class sessions. As indicated above, the difficulties experienced by the ESLs are partly attributable to the lack of enough time to practice the prepositions. In fact, the problem is not just for the ESLs but also the ENLs as well; there are only a few sessions dedicated to learning about the positional words. Hence, increasing the time for the studies would have a positive impact.

Thirdly, the educators need to spend considerable time explaining more about prepositions than is the current trend. Lindstromberg (2010) noted that prepositions are hardly assigned enough time in many English classes; apparently, a single page or session is all that the learners access in this topic. Considering the importance of prepositions to the English language, the trainers have to allocate more time. In addition, it is important to engage the learners in the areas that they may find it hard to understand. As noted, the English language has close to 70 prepositions, which makes it hard for foreign language speakers to remember. However, if the trainers spend enough time educating the ESLs about the prepositions, it would lessen the burden.

Also, it is important for the education practitioners to develop a solution that addresses the problem with prepositions. As earlier pointed out, the English language has been termed as inconsistent in the area of prepositions. Furthermore, the language is complex as it does not always rhyme with some foreign words that would help foreigners to relate their prepositions with those of the English language. Worse still, the trainers lack experience the complexity of the language in the classroom and opt to avoid teaching it for a reasonable time. While it may be easier to blame the trainers, it is important to appreciate and address the complexities of some English prepositions after which a solution is easy to develop.

Conclusion

In summary, the ESLs are faced with the challenge of prepositions in their efforts to attain English proficiency. The challenges are attributable to several factors including the disparity between the English and the foreign languages. Many ESLs find that some of the prepositions they use in the language are replaceable by several others in the English language. Additionally, the time constraints often hinder the teachers from dedicating enough time to the topic, especially when the subject is not related to English lessons. Further, the high number of English prepositions makes it hard for the foreign learners to remember them and their precise application. In light of these problems, it is important to find a lasting solution since the problem affects even the ENLs. The solution exists in the collaboration between the education practitioners and the students.