ACQUISITION OF THE INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE: AN ERROR ANALYSIS APPROACH

Abstract

This paper aims to identify errors committed by Arab learners of English as a foreign language in the area of inflectional morphology. Errors are classified according to their type in comparison with what seems to be correct in the target language. In order to pinpoint the areas of difficulty and find what makes these areas difficult, the researcher classified errors with reference to their sources into intralingual, interlingual, ambiguous and other errors. The paper also aims at finding possible solutions for the difficulties learners encounter when learning a foreign language in general and English language in particular in a way that would help teachers overcome such difficulties when teaching English to Arab students. It concludes that learners’ mother tongue plays a minor role as the interlingual errors constitute less than 25% of the total number of learner errors; whereas, other factors such as overgeneralization and learning strategies play a major role in learning a foreign language as far as this sample is concerned.