The learning of past tenses and aspects in English is difficult for Chinese learners due to the fact that there is no past tense in the Chinese language (Chiswick & Miller, 2004). This difference creates a learning obstacle in Chinese people achieving communicative competence in English, because grammatical competence is an essential component in achieving communicative competence. Communicative competence is the ability to (a) use grammar and vocabulary, (b) speak for longer periods of time yet retains coherence, (c) use and respond to language under certain settings in communication, and (d) repair communication breakdown (Hymes, 1972; Lund, 1996). However, without a sufficient knowledge base of English grammar, Chinese learners find it more difficult to construct the components required in communicative competence, which impedes the English learning and affects the lives of the learners if they live in the country of the target language. According to related studies, the learners have difficulties acquiring particular basic linguistic structures in English, which relatively impedes their development of English proficiency and communicative competence (Chen, 2009; Lim, 2007). Also, as shown on the score of the TOEFL (test of English as a Foreign Language) exanimation in 2012, the Chinese learners scored lower when compared to examinees of other nationalities. The present thesis is a review of pedagogical literature that focuses on constructing a framework of effective instruction, which based on previous studies and theories in the field of foreign and second language education. The focus of this research is on how learners can acquire the ability to use English to locate and describe events in time. Specifically, the study will be on particular tenses and aspects in English. Among the twelve tenses and aspects, the ones to be focused on are simple present, present perfect, simple past, and past perfect. Those target tenses and aspects usually create problems for the Chinese learners, and also often are the last ones to be acquired by most learners. The ways of expressing time in English and Chinese are first introduced and compared, so that positive and negative influences resulting from the differences and similarities between the two languages can be explained. The result from the comparison could be used to track sources of error made in learning in order to develop an accurate instruction that deuces learners more effectively. / A Thesis submitted to the School of Teacher Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Summer Semester, 2013. / June 28, 2013. / Chinese, Language teaching, Tense / Includes bibliographical references. / Rebecca Galeano, Professor Directing Thesis; Lawrence Scharmann, Committee Member; Elizabeth Jakubowski, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_183784 |
| Contributors | Kung, Jiunn-Ying (authoraut), Galeano, Rebecca (professor directing thesis), Scharmann, Lawrence (committee member), Jakubowski, Elizabeth (committee member), School of Teacher Education (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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