Explicit Instruction in English Tense and Aspect as a Structured Form-Meaning Pairing System

Abstract

The appropriate use of English tense and aspect is known to be difficult for EFL learners whose mother tongue is Chinese, where tense is not morphologically marked. To help L2/EFL learners overcome L1 interference and learn the target forms, explicit instruction has been recommended (e.g., Bardovi-Harlig, 1992, 2000, among others) and has been reported to have positive effects on teaching Chinese EFL learners English past tense (simple or perfect) forms (e.g., Lee & Wang, 2002; Lin, Wang, & Fan, 2013; Yang, 2010). As pointed out by Larsen- Freeman, Kuehn, and Haccius (2002), the tense-aspect combinations need to be taught/learned as part of an overall system. Linguistic semantics offers insights of the English tense-aspect system that are directly applicable in the ESL/EFL classroom to facilitate learning (Wu, 2007a). The present qualitative quasi-experimental study investigates the effects of explicit instruction in English tense and aspect as a structured form-meaning pairing system where the semantic distinctions may be visualized, schematized, compared and contrasted, and analyzed along with the forms used to encode the intended meanings. The study shows that the participating college students at different proficiency levels benefited from such an approach. It also reveals specific areas that needed more work. The findings should be useful in helping EFL students at various proficiency levels learn and master the English tense and aspect system.