It would be most difficult for learners of English as a foreign language to acquire correct usage of English tense and aspect, especially for Korean(L1) learners of English. As Korean(L1) lacks an independent grammatical morpheme for present perfect t...
It would be most difficult for learners of English as a foreign language to acquire correct usage of English tense and aspect, especially for Korean(L1) learners of English. As Korean(L1) lacks an independent grammatical morpheme for present perfect tense or ‘indefinite past’ tense, Korean learners of English have many difficulties in distinguishing simple past and present perfect in English.
The purpose of this study is to show how Korean learners of English acquire English past tenses (e.g., simple and indefinite pasts) under the influence of the knowledge of morpheme ‘-ess-’ in the L1, Korean.
To achieve this purpose, the current study starts from the following two assumptions: one is that Korean learners would not precisely distinguish English simple past and English present perfect due to the ambiguity of the Korean grammatical morpheme ‘-ess-’. The other is that Korean learners tend to use English simple past for situations which English present perfect would be more suitable with due to Korean’s lack of a separate grammatical form for the present perfect tense. Hence it is more likely for Korean learners of English to make an error with present perfect in English. To verify these assumptions, about two hundred and forty middle, high, university students participated in the study, and furthermore were asked to answer two grammatical judgment surveys of choosing correct verbal forms in tense. The results of the surveys are summarized as follows.
First, one finding shows that the percentage of correct answers on English present perfect is much lower than on English simple past. This finding supports the assumption that Korean learners are more prone to incorrect use of English present perfect regardless of their proficiency level. Also, the higher their proficiency level is, the higher the percentage of correct answers on English present perfect is. However, this does not necessarily mean that Korean learners can acquire the English present perfect perfectly.
Second, instead of English present perfect, Korean learners tend to use English simple past or present for the situations of present perfect. This finding also evidences the second assumption.
Third, the Korean subjects are inclined to depend on specific time adverbial expressions such as yesterday, two hours ago, etc. in order to distinguish English tenses. This does not mean that the Korean subjects have learned the concept ‘indefinite past’.
Fourth, the results show that Korean learners have regular acquisition pattern for English tenses. We can suppose that since English present tense form is a basic form of verbs as an unmarked form, learners are inclined to use it as basic answers in the survey. As a result, Korean learners notice and acquire the simple tenses like English present and past tenses as an unmarked form earlier than English present perfect tense.
Fifth, the result of the survey shows that Korean learners are likely to use the Korean grammatical morpheme ‘-ess-’ when they see both simple past and present perfect in English. Also, Korean learners consider it natural to use the Korean grammatical morpheme ‘-ess-’in two tenses.
To put these results together, the following conclusion can be made that it is natural for Korean students to have difficulties studying English tenses, especially in the differences between simple past and present perfect in English. Then, though there is not perfect way to acquire English tenses in the classrooms, learners should be led to being given effective materials and learning them implicitly in an authentic English context.
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