Hausa Interference on English Language Usage: The Case of Prepositions in Some Selected Schools in Bauchi State

Abstract

This work undertakes a study of Hausa Interference on English Language Teaching: The Case of Some Selected Schools in Bauchi State. For many years, there have been expressed concerns about the problems faced by most of Hausa native students in learning English as a second language. The problems of teaching English language are not recent issues but, have existed since the introduction of the subject in the school curriculum. However, Hausa affects the usage of English in terms of phonology, which has to do with sound (e.g. /p, v/ which is replaced by /f/ & /b/ in Hausa) morphology, is the word formation process, grammar, semantics and syntax. Therefore, the focus of this study is to investigate how the use of prepositions in Hausa and how they affect the use of English. A preposition is a word that expresses the relationship of one word with another. But people tend to misuse the use of these prepositions. This is because of the influence of mother tongue interference (Hausa) when speaking English as a second language. This study investigated the errors committed by Hausa native students on the use of prepositions, by use of questionnaire and test in some selected Bauchi State secondary schools, Nigeria.