Assessing the challenges with prepositions in phrasal prepositional verbs: Insights from Arab EFL learners

This study investigates the challenges Arab EFL learners encounter when using prepositions in phrasal prepositional verbs (PPVs). Data of the study were collected in two phases. First, 100 common PPVs were identified through eliciting them from 10 EFL teachers. The verbs that were most frequently mentioned were verified for common usage in daily discourse through the BNC. The 20 most frequent PPVs in this list were selected and used as a test administered to 40 English-major students at the Arab Open University, Kuwait to gauge their recognition and production of the correct prepositions. The findings reveal significant difficulties in both recognizing and producing the correct prepositions, influenced by factors such as frequency of PPV usage, lack of transparency in their meanings, lack of equivalent expressions in Arabic, and insufficient focus on such verbs in EFL curricula.