The performance of Iraqi EFL students on nationality words

Abstract EN

This paper attempts introducing a somehow detailed presentation of Nationality Words in English .These are a grammatical area that students should know its derivations, uses, groups and the syntactic features each group may reflect in these uses.

The present study is of two aims .The firs is to specify the degree to which forth-year students are able to identify or recognize the different uses of Nationality Words as Nationality Adjectives referring to the nationality or style of a country, Nationality Nouns referring to the people of that country or Language Name referring to its language .Also, it is aimed to know how far the students are acquainted with producing these Nationality Words correctly (in form and grammatical feature) to express these uses.

It is hypothesized that forth-year students are rather able to identify the Nationality Word in question either as Nationality Adjective, Nationality Noun or Language Name.

But, they have certain problems in producing these uses in the suitable form and with the correct syntactic features.

The second hypothesis is that students show a clear variation in recognizing and producing the different four groups of Nationality Words.

For verifying the hypotheses above, a test of two sides: recognition and production is conducted.

Students were encouraged to submit for the test.

They spent one hour and a half doing it.

Their responses are analysed.

The results obtained confirm the hypotheses.

Their responses on the recognition of Nationality Words are better than their production of these words.

They are good at answering some groups other than the other groups