Husain Abdulhay

Examining Iranian EFL Students’ Correct Use of Tense: Connecting the Past to the Present

Introduction

Examining iranian efl students’ correct use of tense: connecting the past to the present. Examine Iranian EFL students' correct use of English tenses (past, present perfect, present perfect progressive). Discover common errors, challenges due to Persian vs. English tense systems, and implications for EFL instruction.

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the ability of Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students to accurately recognize and use past, present perfect, and present perfect progressive tenses. A mixed-method approach was employed to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. The study involved 65 EFL students majoring in English language at a university in Iran, all of whom had previously taken grammar courses. The findings revealed that most students struggled to distinguish between the past tense and the present perfect or present perfect progressive tenses. In both the production and recognition tests, there were frequent instances of the past tense being incorrectly used instead of the present perfect. The analysis also highlighted errors stemming from mismatches in tense usage, particularly in reflecting the relationship between event time and speech time. Students often failed to accurately translate events that began in the past but continued to affect the present. These difficulties can be attributed to differences between the tense systems of English and Persian. Persian lacks the ability to express the continuum of time, especially the relationship between speech time and reference points that are inherent in English non-past perfect verb forms. Furthermore, students' reliance on their native language in the early stages of language acquisition led to erroneous tense transfers from Persian to English. The findings contribute to EFL programs by emphasizing the importance of addressing tense-related challenges and incorporating a deeper understanding of the differences between English and Persian tense structures.

Review

This study, "Examining Iranian EFL Students’ Correct Use of Tense: Connecting the Past to the Present," delves into a critical area of second language acquisition: the accurate deployment of complex tenses. Employing a robust mixed-method approach, the researchers investigated the ability of 65 Iranian EFL university students to recognize and produce past, present perfect, and present perfect progressive tenses. The core finding clearly indicates significant difficulties among students, particularly in differentiating the simple past tense from the present perfect and present perfect progressive. This challenge manifested as frequent incorrect substitutions of the past tense for the present perfect in both receptive and productive tasks. The abstract further illuminates the specific nature of these errors, pinpointing issues related to the mismatch between event time and speech time. Students consistently struggled to convey actions that began in the past but maintain an ongoing relevance or connection to the present, a nuance crucial to English perfect tenses. The study attributes these persistent difficulties primarily to the fundamental differences between the English and Persian tense systems. It highlights that Persian inherently lacks the grammatical mechanisms to express the continuum of time and the precise relationship between speech time and past reference points that are central to English non-past perfect forms. Consequently, students' reliance on their native language in early acquisition stages often led to detrimental L1 transfer errors. Overall, this research offers valuable insights for the field of English language teaching, particularly within the Iranian context. By meticulously identifying specific areas of tense-related struggle and proposing linguistically grounded explanations, the findings strongly advocate for a more explicit and contrastive approach to tense instruction in EFL programs. The study's emphasis on addressing these challenges and fostering a deeper understanding of the structural differences between English and Persian tense systems is a significant contribution, providing practical guidance for curriculum developers and language educators aiming to improve learners' temporal accuracy and communicative competence.

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