Iraq Preparatory School Students’ Errors in Using The Present Perfect Simple Tense and The Past Simple Tense

The aim of this study is to detect and describe the errors Iraq preparatory school students commit when using the past simple tense and the present perfect simple tense. The study also has a special interest in discovering the sources of errors committed by the subjects of the study in this area. To achieve its goal the study adopts a descriptive qualitative approach. The subjects of the study were 100 students at the 6th preparatory stage at Al-Balad Al-Ameen Preparatory School in Baghdad , Iraq. The data were the students’ answers to a written test. The test sentences were designed to find out whether the subjects could distinguish the past simple tense from the present perfect simple tense. And to further serve the purpose of the study The test sentences were also divided into those containing adverbials that give students clues to decide the correct tenses and those that lack any overt clues. To give a detailed explanation of the sources of errors, the study followed Brown's (2000) classification of errors. The results of the study showed that the students errors in using the past simple tense and the present perfect simple tense can be attributed to three sources ; Interlingual, Intralingual and Context of learning. Context of learning errors were found to be the largest group in number. The next largest groups of errors can be successively attributed to Intralingual and Interlingual factors. Finally, some pedagogic recommendations are presented for English teachers and syllabus designers.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Preparotory school stufents, Students error, present perfect simple tense, past simple tense

The aim of this study is to detect and describe the errors Iraq preparatory school students commit when using the past simple tense and the present perfect simple tense. The study also has a special interest in discovering the sources of errors committed by the subjects of the study in this area. To achieve its goal the study adopts a descriptive qualitative approach. The subjects of the study were 100 students at the 6th preparatory stage at Al-Balad Al-Ameen Preparatory School in Baghdad , Iraq. The data were the students’ answers to a written test. The test sentences were designed to find out whether the subjects could distinguish the past simple tense from the present perfect simple tense. And to further serve the purpose of the study The test sentences were also divided into those containing adverbials that give students clues to decide the correct tenses and those that lack any overt clues. To give a detailed explanation of the sources of errors, the study followed Brown's (2000) classification of errors. The results of the study showed that the students errors in using the past simple tense and the present perfect simple tense can be attributed to three sources ; Interlingual, Intralingual and Context of learning. Context of learning errors were found to be the largest group in number. The next largest groups of errors can be successively attributed to Intralingual and Interlingual factors. Finally, some pedagogic recommendations are presented for English teachers and syllabus designers.

Keywords: Preparotory school stufents, Students error, present perfect simple tense, past simple tense

Sayfa Aralığı: 61-72

Faeq, F. M. (2023). Iraq Preparatory School Students’ Errors in Using The Present Perfect Simple Tense and The Past Simple Tense. Journal of Current Researches on Educational Studies, 13 (1), 61-72.