THE ACQUISITION OF THE ENGLISH PRESENT PERFECT BY ALBANIAN EFL LEARNERS AND ITS TRANSLATION EQUIVALENTS IN ALBANIAN

Abstract

Finding translation equivalents through the analyzed corpus in order to understand which Albanian verb tenses and constructions correspond to the English Present Perfect is the target of this paper, which we believe will be of great help to Albanian speakers who learn English as a foreign language.Contrastive analysis in this paper is not performed only by the similarities and differences that exist between these two languages, which are reviewed and analyzed through examples of the works of famous writers and their translations, and which show that verb tenses in one and the other language do not overlap, but also through research that was conducted with some secondary school students who are L1-Albanian –speaking learners of English, in order to examine linguistic factors that may lead to difficulty for Albanian EFL high school students in learning the Present Perfect and using it properly in spoken and written language.In order to help EFL learners be familiar with their writing skills and ease their anxiety, making a clear concept is necessary. The concept of ‘unspecified time’ can be very confusing to English learners, so students cannot use the tenses comfortably or accurately. Thus, in order to point the differences in the structure of English and Albanian, as well as to prepare learners, who want to acquire some competence in the foreign language, teachers should suggest some general and specific strategies and ideas for the classroom. They ought to use eclectic teaching approach and give an overview of the problems students have with the Present Perfect and possible reasons for these.Data were collected from 27 EFL secondary school students who participated in the study. Answers from multiple-choice questions and translation of some sentences from English into Albanian and vice versa were collected from each participant. Data were analyzed in terms of the number of errors produced in each pattern of the Present Perfect. The findings have revealed that evidence of cross-linguistic influence was found in both areas. The reasons for these errors mostly derive from mother tongue influence and lack of adequate linguistic background.