Teaching the preposition “bâ” to Persian learners by a cognitive approach

Prepositions appear to be the grammatical words that help learners with language skills. On the other hand, the multiple meaning of each preposition in different contexts makes them one of the most challenging topics in teaching and education. Memorizing seems a traditional and inefficient method of teaching and learning language as the structure of learners speaking and sentences shows. /bâ/ is one of the most used prepositions in Persian. It has several meanings based on the context of the sentence (such as tool, companion, etc.). This research aims to teach the preposition /bâ/ based on cognitive semantics approach. In this approach, image schemas are the most prominent teaching tools and have a significant role in learning and retention prepositions in language learners' minds. In this article, the semantic uses of this preposition are extracted from the semantic map of Narrog and Ito 2007, Farhang-e Feshordeh-ye Sokhan (Persian-Persian Dictionary, 2009), and the Hambam (Hamedan-bamberg Corpus of contemporary spoken Persian) (2020). Then, pre-exams are taken from language learners with selective questions in the text to compare with the results of this research. Next, a cognitive method is designed to teach this preposition in Persian by visual schemes of Lakoff and Johnson (1987) and Langaker (1987). It seems that the combined schema of text and image is the best method to teach prepositions such as /bâ/ in Persian (cf. Vahidi Ferdasi et al., 2017). Finally, a post-test of the fluent language will take. The results will present in the form of a graph.
Extended Abstract:
Introduction
Prepositions are one of the most frequent items in languages around the world. Prepositions form a closed class and are historically formed from adverbs of place (Rasekh-Mahand, 2013). Learning these prepositions has a significant role on language development. Persian, as other languages have prepositions used in different contexts and situations and mostly has multiple meanings because of the limited class of prepositions. Teaching a second language is of great importance. There are challenges in the way of language learners and teachers. One of these challenges appears to be learning prepositions, and as mentioned earlier, their teaching and learning are controversial for teachers and language learners due to their ambiguity. This paper sheds more light on the preposition /bâ/. Persian preposition /bâ/ is roughly equivalent to English "with" which means companion and tool. But there are many other meanings to mention based on the texts and sentences used. In this research we will discuss the multiple meanings of /bâ/. Then, by image schemas and context, a cognitive method is designed to teach this preposition to language learners. The main goal of this research is to investigate the schematic cognitive methodology in Persian language teaching, and the authors seek to find out whether this method is effective in teaching the preposition /bâ/ or not. The following part is assigned to review previous studies about preposition /bâ/ both in linguistics and teaching Persian to non-Persian speakers. Then, the schemas and multiple meanings of /bâ/ will be discussed. Finally, authors will analyze the results by giving the research method.
 
Methodology
This research seeks to teach Persian learners about the preposition /bâ/ by cognitive semantic approach to language learners, so they can better understand of this preposition in Persian with a new cognitive method. For this purpose, the authors have adopted the following method:

First, the multiple meanings of /bâ/ were extracted from Farhang-e Feshordeh-ye Sokhan (Persian Dictionary, 2009), Hambâm (Hamedan-bâmberg Corpus of contemporary spoken Persian) (Haig and Rasekh-Mahand, 2022) and the semantic map of Narog (2012, cf. MohammadiRad and RasekhMahand, 2014).
Then, 16 Persian students were selected from the Persian Language Center of Bu-Ali Sina University in Hamedan. The group of the language learners were between 20 and 50 years old and all of them are in advanced level. These students were all from Iraq and their mother tongue is Arabic.
Next, the P students were divided in two groups of 8 students called sample and control, and an experimental method has been adopted.

After that, a pre-test was taken from both groups. In the pre-test, sentences containing /bâ/ multiple meanings in contrast to other prepositions were presented to the learners of both groups and they were asked to answer four-choice questions. This test contained 20 questions each with 1 score and the total score was 20. Other instructors also assessed the test in order to check the validity of the pre-test.
Teaching to the sample and control group has been executed during 3 weeks and two sessions each week, and totally their classes were of 6 sessions and in 30 minutes in each session
Results
After teaching the preposition with in the sample and control groups, the language learners of both groups got acquainted with the different meanings of this preposition with the traditional and cognitive approach. After that, a post-test was taken from the learners. In the post-test, they were tested in three separate parts of comprehension, recognition and production of the language of education. The pre-test and post-test grades and the question form are completely identical, and the language learners had to answer the post-test questions in a time interval of 45 minutes. After checking the results, the performance of both groups in the post-test section is shown in the graph below:
 
 
In the post-test section, the performance of the control and sample groups can be seen in the graph above. In the understanding section, there is no significant difference between the control group and the sample, and both groups show almost the same level. Understanding at this stage is the ability to extract the preposition with multiple meanings. It seems that both traditional and cognitive approaches have worked in line with each other in this field and the results of both groups are very close to each other. Understanding a language is perhaps the easiest part of language learning and is one of the first stages of education.
In the diagnosis stage, the sample group shows an acceptable performance. The percentage of this group is higher than the control group, and as a result, it can be said that the cognitive approach has had a significant impact on the recognition of the preposition with among language learners. This performance is also noticeable in the production sector. Language learners of the control group had a weaker performance in the production sector than the sample group.
The above graph shows the difference between the two control and sample groups in the post-test, and as is clear, there is a significant difference between the two groups. For a better understanding of this issue, the graph of the progress percentage of both groups in the post-test and pre-test is presented in the form of the following graphs.
 
It can be seen from the above graph that the language learners of the control group have improved after completing the course, but their progress should be compared with the 
By comparing the two graphs above, the significant improvement of the sample group is visible compared to the control group. In the diagnosis department, significant progress can be seen, and in the production department, the sample group has shown a good performance.
 
Conclusion
In this article, the cognitive semantics approach was examined in contrast with the traditional approach. The approach of cognitive semantics is bâsed on image schemas that present language concepts with a physical image and in this way, by recording the image in the human mind, it facilitates the learning of concepts. Bâsed on this approach, in this research, the cognitive semantics approach has been used to teach the preposition "bâ", in other words, the Persian language learners (sample group), using the cognitive semantics approach, They have learned the multiple meanings of the preposition bâ in an experimental setting, in line with the other group (control group) in a traditional setting. The results of this experimental research are as follows:
Sample and control group learners had similar performance in the pre-test phase.

After completing the four-week training process, the sample group showed better performance in the sector and production, and the progress chart confirms this result.
In the post-test phase, both the sample and control groups performed similarly in the comprehension section, perhaps because language comprehension is the first and most elementary stage of education.
The comparison of progress charts of the sample and control group shows that the sample group has a significant difference with the control group in the final results, and as a result, it confirms the positive effect of the cognitive semantics approach in teaching the preposition with for Persian learners.

Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank the Persian language teaching centers of Bu-Ali Sina university for providing the basis for collecting research data.