Is Avoidance a Reflection of Mother Tongue Interference? The Case for the English Present Perfect Tense (original) (raw)
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A Cross-sectional Study of the Present Perfect Tense in Arabic and Indonesian EFL Settings
Language Teaching and Educational Research
This document-based paper investigates EFL learners’ uses of the present perfect tense when using English as their second or foreign language. A sample of 216 sentences written by 38 Indonesian and Arab undergraduate students was analyzed to detect erroneous uses of the present perfect tense (PPT) in their English writing. Twelve erroneous structures in the Arab corpus and 17 in the Indonesian dataset were underlined. The incorrect sentences were singled out and discussed. Pairing these grammar-related errors to SLA research and existing literature, the findings demonstrate that the majority of errors were grounded in either Arabic or Bahasa Indonesian language interference with English. The Arab learners seem to have more difficulties in using the PPT than the past simple tense. In contrast, the Indonesian EFL learners seem to have difficulties in both past and present perfect tenses altogether due to the absence of the past tense in the Indonesian tongue. It is concluded that lear...
MALAY ESL LEARNERS' ACQUISITION OF THE ENGLISH PRESENT PERFECT -A FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Volume 8(2) September, 2021
The current paper presents the findings of a research study examining the acquisition of the English Present Perfect by Malay learners of English. Our main objective was to determine whether the structural features of Malay language could influence Malay ESL learners' acquisition of present perfect forms in English. The instruments used consist of three elicitation tasks: a cloze task, a Grammaticality Judgement Task (GJT), and a translation task. Written output from the participants of two levels of English proficiency (advanced and intermediate) whose first language is Malay and second language (ESL) is English was collected. The data analysis provides evidence that even the advanced proficient group faced the persistent difficulty to acquire the English present perfect. The difficulty is the result of interacting factors such as the markedness, there being no equivalent form to express the English present perfect in Malay, and the complexity in meaning and the ambiguous nature of the English present perfect. The paper concludes with a discussion on the implications of our findings.
This paper discusses the extent to which both crosslinguistic and intralingual differences may be considered as factors causing errors committed by Malay learners in the acquisition of the present perfect which has been identified as an area of considerable difficulty in the learning of English grammar. Using elicitation procedures that probe into learners' intralingual and interlingual confusion, the researcher offers some useful data that can provide new insights into the design of activities appropriate to learners encountering difficulty in acquiring tenses. Percentages of errors made in the use of the present perfect, in particular, were analysed and explained by (1) identifying the differences between the subjects' mother tongue and the target language, (2) considering the subjects' tendency to use certain verb forms in various situations, and (3) referring to the rules governing its use in English. The findings suggest that a large portion of the errors can be ascribed to both cross-linguistic differences in the use of perfective verb phrases and intralingual difficulties in differentiating the temporal references of certain verb forms. Based on the findings, the researcher has come up with important recommendations on how the learning of the present perfect may be facilitated by comparisons and contrasts of the rules governing its use and how a different pattern of exercise that stimulates conscious internalisation of crosslinguistic and intralingual differences can be given to learners.
International Journal of Linguistics
The current study aims to investigate the influence of interlingual and intralingual interference as sources of the errors of past and perfect tenses. The former refers to the errors generated by the negative effect of EFL learners' mother tongue as they try to bridge certain linguistic gabs. The latter, however, is pertaining to the errors produced by the target language itself as learners progressed in the learning process and face difficulties to employ the large amount of knowledge they have just acquired. The participants chosen are EFL Saudi Undergraduates whose academic specialisation is English. The result of the study showed that there was statistically significant difference between intralingual interference strategy and first language negative transfer as sources of errors of the past and present perfect tenses. This result revealed that the participants have reached a linguistic stage where the diverse rules of the target language itself create confusion for learners...
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The simple past and present perfect are two areas of English grammar that are introduced to Malaysian learners at an early stage at primary school level. However, many Malaysian learners seem to have persistent difficulty distinguishing between the two and using them even at an advanced level of proficiency. This persistent difficulty raises the question of whether or not such difficulty is directly attributable to first language (L1) influence. Since competing hypotheses attempting to explain this phenomenon have received limited testing particularly in the Malaysian context, this study considers the implications of the FFFH approach, (Hawkins & Chan, 1997) to explain how the L1 might influence the L2 acquisition of the English present perfect. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether the persistent difficulty in the use of the present perfect and the simple past is directly attributable to L1 influence. In addition, the study also investigated whether or not Chinese spe...
Effect of Explicit Instruction on Comprehension of English Present Perfect by Persian EFL Learners
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2013
The English present perfect is one of the most difficult grammatical items for the Persian EFL learners to comprehend. The current study examined whether an explicit grammar explanation would work for this grammatical item among sixty university level learners. Experimental group practiced the target structure with explicit grammar explanation and control group practiced the target structure in the same manner without explicit explanation. The statistical analysis revealed that a significant difference between the pre-test and immediate post-test was found in those who had explicit explanation prior to practice. However, the results of delayed post-test suggested that their comprehension is temporary.
Journal of Education and Practice, 2017
The purpose of this study is to investigate the problems facing foreign language learners at Department of English, and the Department of English and French literature students at Al Zaytoonah University in learning perfect tenses from the viewpoint of students, and also aimed to investigate the effect of year, and GPA on the point of view of students. To achieve the purpose of the study, a questionnaire was distributed among the students. The study sample consisted of (180) students; (96) males and (84) females from Al Zaytoonah University. Means and standard deviations and t-test were used to analyze the results. The results showed that there were statistically significant differences in the views of the students on the problems facing them in learning perfect tenses , also showed a statistically significant differences at the level of significance (α ≥ 0,05) in their views due to the gender variable, as there are statistically significant differences at the level of significance ...
L2 Acquisition of English present perfect semantic and pragmatic conditions
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This study investigates L2 acquisition of English present perfect by Greek Cypriot Greek speakers. One hundred Greek Cypriot university students took part in the study, the first part of which examined the sensitivity to grammatical norms (a passage correction task, based on Odlin et al. 2006), and the other part was focused on the production of English present perfect (elicitation of natural discourse, essays about personal experience). The results showed that L2 learners used more non-target tense forms (present simple and past simple) than the target present perfect in typical contexts, which is due to transfer from L1 Cypriot Greek (CG). The data only partially supports the Inherent Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen and Shirai 1996; Bardovi-Harlig 1999), as L2 learners used perfective and past tense morphology with both punctual-telic predicates (achievements or accomplishments) and atelic or durative predicates (state or activity), though their production of target present pe...