The Effect of Language Transfer on EFL Learners’ Written Production The Case Study of First-Year EFL Students at EL Bachir El Ibrahimi University, BBA

Abstract

t The present dissertation attempts to investigate the impact of language transfer on EFL students’ written production. The purpose of this study is to shed light on the issue of first language transfer among first-year university students’ writing at the Department of English, Mohamed ElBachir ElIbrahimi, University of Bordj Bou Arreridj. In order to answer the research question: "How does language transfer affect first-year students’ writing?", a mixed method was employed. Therefore, data was collected using two online questionnaires completed by 102 students and 5 teachers of the written expression module at the English Department, aiming to explore their opinions about the effect of the language on English writing. Furthermore, 90 short paragraphs written by first-year students were used to obtain more accurate data. The findings revealed that first-year EFL students face a variety of hindrances, namely poor vocabulary, grammar, and language transfer. This latter, is the most evident; students use their first language when writing on numerous levels, including grammatical, semantic, and lexical. They also adapted the structure of their own language (Arabic) to English. The majority of errors in learners’ performances are caused by their first language transfer.