The Effect of First Language Interference on English Composition Writing Among Fulfude-Speaking Students in Adamawa State

First language interference remains one of the most persistent sources of error in ESL composition writing, and the linguistic distance between Fulfude and English creates distinctive error patterns that have received little systematic attention in the applied linguistics literature. This study investigates the effect of Fulfude L1 interference on English composition writing among secondary school students in Adamawa State, focusing on grammatical errors attributable to Fulfude structural features. A set of two hundred and eighty composition scripts from Senior Secondary School 2 students in six schools across Yola North, Song, and Mubi North LGAs was collected and subjected to error analysis using a framework that distinguishes interlingual from intralingual errors. Syntactic error categories showing evidence of Fulfude transfer include subject-verb agreement violations linked to Fulfude noun class agreement patterns, tense marking omissions consistent with Fulfude's aspect-prominent temporal encoding, and preposition errors corresponding to Fulfude postpositional constructions. Interlingual errors account for approximately forty-seven percent of all identified errors, confirming the significant role of L1 interference in this learner population. Lexical interference is also noted, with direct loan translations of Fulfude idiomatic expressions appearing in a subset of scripts. The study recommends that English teachers in Adamawa State receive training in basic Fulfude grammatical structure to enable contrastive awareness-raising instruction. Keywords: L1 interference, Fulfude, English composition, error analysis, Adamawa State.