Students' Gender and Ability Levels Impact on the Acquisition of Two French Verb Tenses

Abstract

The usage of passé composé and imparfait is one of the most challenging topics in French grammar for anglophone learners. Based on the aspect hypothesis formulated by Andersen and Shirai (1994), this study explored the patterns of errors made by higher-ability as opposed to average-ability students and male vs. female students with different abilities in the acquisition of the two French tenses. A model for predicting the difficulty of test items related to passé composé and imparfait was previously devised by Nikolova (2009). The current article further develops the ideas in the above-mentioned study and examines similar data from a more pedagogical point of view. It brings forth evidence that female students scored better than males on prototypical usage of the tenses and females of high ability outperformed all other groups on instances of their nonprototypical usage. The study discusses these results in light of findings on giftedness, gender, and second-language acquisition. It suggests ideas for differentiating instruction for various groups of students attempting to master this grammatical topic.