COMMON ERRORS IN USAGE OF PREPOSITION AS A

BASIS FOR TEACHING OF GRADE 7 STUDENTS IN

CAVITE NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL S.Y. 2017-2018

ANDREA B. CELESTIAL
DANIELLE R. DELA CRUZ
CEEJAY P. ISAAC

An undergraduate thesis manuscript submitted to the faculty of the Department of Teacher

Education and Languages Department, Cavite State University – Cavite City Campus in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the subject, ENGL90B: Language Research.
Prepared under the supervision of Ms. Xyza Marie B. Balangue.

INTRODUCTION

English language is an important tool in this changing world. It is one of the instruments

a 21st century teacher needs to use in communicating with his learners. It is also used in four

different language skills namely: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Writing as one of the

four language skills serves as a training ground to practice and enhanced the English language

accurately. It is the way the researchers use written words to express their ideas or opinions

regarding a certain topic. Moreover, it is an effective way to express and communicate ideas to

the fast changing world and emerging master users of the English language. Second language

learners are in a great pressure today in writing due to the complexity of the rules governing in

grammar. They face difficulties to certain rules and one of this is the confusion on the proper

usage of English preposition. Which is difficult to master by a second language learners.

The reasons behind this confusion varies as the researchers analyze the errors committed.

One of the reasons the errors are evident is due to the student’s lack of understanding the context

in using appropriate prepositions and they do not know which preposition to use (Cabuk, 2009).
As said above, writing as a language skill is used as means to express ideas and opinions but the

errors committed are frequent in their writing compositions.

The preposition is one of the significant portion of words contained in a complete English

language sentence. It was also observed that most of the English language sentences produced

contained at least one preposition and that three out of ten most frequent words of the English

language are prepositions (Collins, 1991). Therefore, it is crucial to know the reasons of the

errors and difficulties faced in the usage of English preposition namely time, place and direction

because of its essentiality in the grammar discipline.

The researchers focused on the prepositional errors committed by the students. This study

can be beneficial not only to the students but also for the teachers wherein, they will familiarize

on the difficulties of the learners in preposition which in the future may lead them to know and to

choose what is best way in teaching the preposition. Having this as a basis, it is also beneficial to

the students later on as the teacher unravel the proper way of teaching the English preposition.

Statement of the Problem

This study is designed to investigate the problems encountered by the secondary students

in the use of preposition within their writing practices. Specifically, this study will sight to find

the answer on the following questions:

1. What is the demographic profile of the participants in terms of age and gender?

2. What are the common errors in the usage of preposition particularly time, place, and

direction?

3. What gender has a greater possibility of committing errors in using preposition

particularly time, place and direction?

 4. How does the instruction affect the errors committed by the students in their writing

activity?

Objectives of the Study

Generally, this study will aim to determine the common errors in the usage of preposition

as basis for teaching of Grade 7 students of Cavite National High School S.Y. 2017-2018.

Specifically, this study will aim to determine:

1. the demographic profile of the participants in terms of age and gender;

2. the common errors in the usage of preposition particularly time, place and direction;

3. the gender that has a greater possibility of committing errors in the usage of preposition

particularly time, place and direction; and

4. the effect of instruction to the errors committed by the students in their writing activity.

Significance of the Study

There are few studies or research focused in the subject of preposition particularly in

time, place and direction. Interest to study this area in grammar, preposition to be exact is a

challenge due to insufficient studies wherein the researchers may model their effort. Thus, the

researchers conceptualized that the frequent prepositional error committed by the students in

their written work especially those dealing with time, place and direction needs a thorough

analysis and special investigation. This study provides basis on the Common Errors in Usage of

Preposition as a Basis of Teaching for Grade 7 Students in Cavite National High School S.Y.

2017-2018. This study is beneficial to the following:

Teachers. This study will be beneficial to the teachers by being aware of the possible

causes of prepositional errors in these students, it will help them on the best way on how to deal

with the prepositional errors committed by the students. This study would also help them to
address onto which prepositions relatively difficult to learn, needed more discussion,

explanation, emphasis and practice.

Students. This study will be beneficial to the students for them to be able to cope up with

the difficulties experienced with these prepositions and may lessen their errors committed by

their sufficient understanding of the prepositions particularly time, place and direction taught by

their teachers.

School. This study will beneficial to the school for they will have a basis of teaching the

preposition particularly time, place, and direction that may help their teachers to conduct suitable

teaching techniques and strategies in teaching preposition as well as to lessen the common

prepositional errors committed by the students.

Researchers. This study will be beneficial to the researchers not only because of the

experience in writing a research paper but also in their hope to gain a deeper understanding of

the common errors on the usage of English preposition encountered by the students.

Future Researchers. This study will be beneficial to the future researchers for they will

have a support study and a source of information that can be related to this.

Time and Place of the Study

The study will be conducted at Cavite National High School, Chief E. Martin St.,

Caridad, Cavite City from September 2017 to December 2017.

Scope and Limitation of the Study

The researchers will be concentrated on the common errors in usage of preposition of

Grade 7 students in Cavite National High School during the school year 2017-2018. The

researchers delimited the study in having 317 participants in 35 sections, the researchers will

choose 5 males and 5 females for the total of 10 participants each section. The participants are
selected since they are more prone to commit errors on the preposition particularly time, place

and direction which may help them improve their knowledge and understanding by using

prepositions accurately with correctness of the usage in the succeeding years. The researchers

also delimited the content of the instrument by 8 (eight) different preposition in time, place and

direction for the total of 24 (twenty-four) items.

Definition of Terms

The following terms are defined according to their use in the study.

Preposition. It refers to words which are used to connect a noun or a pronoun to another

word, usually a noun, verb or adjective.

Error. It refers to the learners’ unusual utterances which are against the grammatical

rules of the target language reflecting their inter language competence.

Prepositional Error. It refers to the wrong choice of preposition suitable to a sentence.

Error Analysis. It refers to a systematic process of identifying, describing, and

explaining the incidence, nature, sources and consequences of errors made by learners in their

oral or written production on the target language.

Cloze Test. A test in which one is asked to supply words that have been removed from a

passage in order to measure one's ability to comprehend text. Cloze tests provide evidence of

how easy a text is to be read and understood for a specified target audience.

Theoretical Framework

According to J. Richard et al. (2002), Error Analysis Approach (EA) is developed as a

branch of linguistics which further came light to argue that the mother tongue was not the main

and the only source of the errors committed by the learners. It is also described as a set of

procedures for identifying, describing and explaining learner errors. This theory analyzes the
nature of errors and their sources (Ellis and Barkhuizen, 2008). According to Hashim A. (1999),

language effect is more complex and these errors can be caused by the target language itself and

by the applied communicative strategies as well as the type and quality of the second language

instruction.

The aims of Error Analysis according to J. Richard et al. are: first is to identify strategies

which learners use in language learning in terms of the approaches and strategies used in both of

teaching and learning; second is to try to identify the causes of learners’ errors, that is,

investigating the motives behind committing such errors as the first attempt to eradicate them;

And third is to obtain information on common difficulties in Language Learning, as an aid to

teaching or in the preparation of the teaching materials

Error Analysis in this study will be used to better understand the causes of the common

errors in usage of preposition as observed in the writing composition of the students. It may

serve as guideline to improve the study which in the future will be the basis of the teachers in

executing the best way of teaching the English preposition to their students.

Conceptual Framework

Demographic profile of the participants in terms of

age, gender

Common errors in usage of preposition particularly

time, place and direction

Effect of instruction to the errors committed by the

students in their writing activity
 Figure 1. Conceptual Framework of the Study: Common errors in usage of preposition and the

effect of instruction to the errors committed by the grade 7 students

Figure 1 illustrates the process of gathering data for the study, Common Errors in Usage

of Preposition as Basis for Teaching of Grade 7 Students in Cavite National High School S.Y.

2017-2018. The inputs of the study are the demographic profile of the participants in terms of

age and gender since this will describe them. Since the study was a descriptive research, the

researchers use cloze test questionnaire to analyze the common errors in usage of preposition

particularly time, place and direction and lastly the researchers conduct an interview to the

learners and later on to the teachers to evaluate the effect of instruction to the errors committed

by the students. The whole study will be the basis of the teachers on the said institution to further

improve their teaching strategies and techniques in teaching preposition from the common errors

committed by the students during the study.