Scrutinizing the issue of Negative Interference: The Impact of Arabic and French languages on EFL learners’ writing profiency and learning English as a Foreign Language.

Abstract

t The present dissertation work is an investigation in the field of learning English as a foreign language , at the department of English university of Ibn khaldoun, taking first year EFL students as a case of study .The work attempts to explain the influence of Arabic and French languages on learning English ,Thus ,the overall aim of this research work is to scrutinize the impact of Arabic and French languages on the writing skill of English language in the Algerian EFL classrooms and to answer the main question “to what extent can the first language and the second language interference be a reason of EFL learners’ English production?.Three chapters constitute the present research work. Chapter one sheds light on the linguistic situation in Algeria dealing with Arabic, French and English languages from both historical and linguistics point of view. In addition a set of theories describing second language acquisition, and language transfer be it negative or positive are being set. It describes also the levels of interference of Arabic and French into English for the sake of exploring reasons and sources of students’ errors .Chapter two; however, is a practical part. It aims at collecting data and analyzing them, in order to achieve the study’s objective, a descriptive method has been adopted in this chapter, data are collected via three research instruments; a questionnaire for both students and teachers and a test addressed to students. .In chapter three, the results are interpreted from both tools of research. Moreover, the results of the questionnaires and test have confirmed the research hypothesis .Subsequently, some suggestions and recommendations are proposed to alleviate the burden of language interference and to minimize students’ production errors in the English language. As a result the findings have shown that the First language «Negative transfer” affects negatively the EFL learner’s writing and speaking proficiency. In this light, thelow level of the student’s writing proficiency is due to the L1 “Negative transfer” and they need to develop the foreign language background that enhances their writing proficiently, in order to reduce the impact of L1 transfer.