A Study of the Acquisition of Spatial Prepositions by Selected Nigerian Learners of English

This paper examines the usage of English spatial prepositions by selected senior secondary school students in Nigeria. The participants were 300 students drawn from three schools in Lagos State of Nigeria. The elicitation instrument was a guided essay writing assignment. The spatial prepositions in the scripts were identified and these constituted the data for the study. Our findings showed that only two types of spatial prepositions were used productively while the others were used sparingly. On the basis of the findings suggestions are made to facilitate effective acquisition of English spatial prepositions by the learners. African Research Review Vol. 1 (3) 2007: pp. 96-10