Exploring the Influence of the Mother Tongue on EFL Learners’ Writing Skills : Teachers’ and Learners’ Perspectives

Abstract

After years of learning English as a foreign language, large numbers of EFL students are unable to express their ideas and convey their thoughts in writing. These problems in writing are due to different reasons like lack of vocabulary and ideas, grammar rules, and thinking in their mother tongue (Arabic) rather than writing in English. The present study attempts to explore the extent to which EFL learners’ mother tongue influences students’ writing skills at the English Language Department of MUC. It also aims at raising both teachers' and students' awareness about the impact of first language interference on EFL learners' writing skills. In addition, this research seeks to find the difficulties that students encounter when they come to write in FL and identify the most common errors they make. In order to answer our research question which is "is L1 interference the main reason behind learners' low writing performance? two questionnaires were adopted for this study. The first questionnaire was addressed to 55 second-year English language students, and the second one was submitted to 13 teachers of the Written Expression module at the Department of Foreign Languages at MUC. The results obtained from both questionnaires indicate that second-year EFL students commit different types of errors, which are mainly due to their mother tongue interference. On this basis, some recommendations are provided for both students and teachers for reducing L1 interference as the key factor to improving students' writing skills.