Assessing the Performance of Iraqi EFL University Students in Using Marginal Prepositions

Marginal prepositions are words function as prepositions but their form is that of words belong to other word classes such as verbs or adjectives.The problem of this study rises when the Iraqi EFL university students fail to recognize the marginal prepositions, in the same time, they fail to recognize which marginal preposition should be used in a certain context for they are unfamiliar to most of this type of prepositions. For the same reason, students fail to use these prepositions in meaningful sentences and they tend to use them as verbs or adjectives influenced by their forms.Therefore, it is hypothesized that:1- Iraqi EFL university students are expected to face difficulty in recognizing marginal prepositions.2- Such learners are expected to face more difficulty in using the suitable marginal preposition in certain sentences.3- The same learners are expected to be influenced by the form of the marginal prepositions when they use such prepositions in sentences.A diagnostic test has been designed and applied on a sample of one hundred Iraqi EFL university students at third year Department of English, College of Education for Human sciences, University of Babylon, (2014-2015). Data analysis has revealed that:1- EFL University students have failed to recognize marginal prepositions as the rate of the incorrect responses is (59.75%) whereas that of the correct ones is (40.25%).2- The same learners have failed to use the correct marginal prepositions to complete the meaning of the given sentences and they fail to produce meaningful and grammatical sentences that include the given marginal prepositions. Accordingly, the rate of the incorrect responses at the production level is (63.15%) while that of the correct ones is (36.85%).3- The results of the test reveal that EFL university students are facing difficulty in using marginal prepositions.