The performance of Iraqi EFL university students in using noun clauses in English : error analysis

Abstract EN

A noun clause is a dependent clause that works like a noun.

It is one of the essential constructions in English grammar and a problematic area for the Iraqi EFL university learners.

The study aims at investigating the performance of Iraqi EFL university students in using noun clauses by form and function and finding out the area of difficulty in this regard and suggesting remedial work for the alleviation of these difficulties It is hypothesized that Iraqi EFL learners encounter difficulty in using noun clauses in English.

The study begins with the theoretical aspect encompassing definitions, forms, and functions of noun clauses in English.

Then, the practical aspect represented in a diagnostic test applied to a random sample of (60) students taken from the third level in the Department of English, College of Education for Human Sciences, University of Babylon to assess Iraqi their performance at both the recognition and production levels.

The findings of the test show that Iraqi EFL university students face difficulty in using noun clauses which, in turn, verifies the hypothesis of the study.

In the light of the results of the test, some conclusions are drawn and a number of suggestions and remedial work are presented so that the learners can overcome the difficulty they encounter in using noun clauses in English.