Arabic Speakers’ Avoidance of the English
Present Perfect
Islam Farag
Missouri State University
Introduction
12 tenseaspect system
in English
The misuse of one
tense can lead to
misunderstanding.
ESL students need
to understand and
master the use of
tenses.
Avoidance is
another type of
error.
Overview
1. Theoretical Background (Contrastive analysis, Shachter’s Avoidance)
2. Research questions and hypotheses
3. Research Methods
A) Present perfect VS Arabic tense system
B) Data Collected and Analysis of student’s essays
4. Results
5. Pedagogical Implications
1- Theoretical Background
Contrastive
Analysis
Avoidance
• “Those structures that are similar [to L1 structures] will be
easy to learn because they will be transferred…Those
structures that are different will be difficult because when
transferred they will not function satisfactorily in the foreign
language and will therefore have to be changed” (Lado 59).
• In her analysis of the production of relative clauses,
Schachter found that Chinese and Japanese students made a
smaller percentage of errors in comparison to Persian and
Arabic learners. Although Japanese and Chinese are different
languages to English in forming relative clauses.
1- Theoretical Background
Avoidance (Two Conditions)
1- “If the [two constructions] are radically different, he
[student] will either reject the new construction or use it
with extreme caution” (Schachter 212).
2- “The student can take advantage of paraphrase relations
to avoid constructions he finds difficult” (Schachter 212).
Other research papers.
1- Theoretical Background
2- Research questions and hypothesis
Research
Question
• Do ESL Arabic speaking students avoid using the
English present perfect in their writings?
Hypothesis
No1
• The English present perfect tense is different
from the linguistic structure of the Arabic
tenses.
Hypothesis
No 2
• ESL Arabic speaking students avoid using the
English present perfect in their writings.
1- Theoretical Background
2- Research questions and hypothesis
3- Research Methods
Hypothesis No1 (2 constructions are different)
Constrasting the English present perfect with the Arabic tense system
Hypothesis No 2 (avoidance and paraphrasing)
Analyzing 25 Essays written by ESL high intermediate and advanced
Arabic speaking students
1- Theoretical Background
2- Research questions and hypothesis
3- Research Methods
A) Present perfect VS Arabic tenses
English Present Perfect
Arabic Tenses
1- Subject+ (have/has)+past participle:
Ex: He has studied French.
1- No accurate reference to time. Verb indicates the action not
the tense (Schular 12). Particles and adverbs to express (when).
2- A) An action that happened in the past
and still continues to the present.
Ex: He has been a doctor since 2001.
2- TWO tenses: the imperfect ( present) & the perfect (past)
B) An action that has just finished
before the time of speaking.
Ex: I have just cooked.
c) An action that happened in the past
but the effect of the action still
continues to the present
Ex: I have learned swimming.
3- The Perfect: an action completed in the past without time
reference/ the imperfect(present) incomplete action.
EX: Yazor (to visit) Zara (visited)/ Ex: Jack visited his uncle.
A- Jack zara (visited) Kholoh bilams. (Simple Past)
B- Jack zara (visited) khaloh thoma zahab (went) to the
hospital (Past perfect/simple past)
C- Kana Jack Yazor (visit) khaloh endama kabilto(met him) (Past
Continuous/simple past).
1- Theoretical Background
2- Research questions and hypothesis
3- Research Methods
A) Present perfect VS Arabic tenses
English Present Perfect
Arabic Tenses
D- (qad, laqad) are particles for confirmation
Qad zara (went) Jack Khaloh qabl wafatoh (Present perfect)
Therefore, there is not any tense in Arabic that is
equivalent to Present perfect.
The Present perfect tense is different from the
Arabic tense system, which may cause interference,
and students might avoid using this tense.
1- Theoretical Background
2- Research questions and hypothesis
3- Research Methods
A) Present perfect VS Arabic tenses
B) Data collected and analysis of the essays
2nd hypothesis: student’s avoidance of present perfect in their writings
• Corpus: 25 written essays written by high intermediate (5 essays) and
advanced students(20 essays) who attended the English Language
Institute (ELI).English present perfect is first introduced to students at
high intermediate level.
Procedures:
1- Examining the number of
a) appropriate uses of the present perfect
b) incorrect uses of the present perfect
c) sentences that should have been used in the present perfect
1- Theoretical Background
2- Research questions and hypothesis
3- Research Methods
A) Present perfect VS Arabic tenses
B) Analysis of the essays
4- Results
Results
Table 2: Actual Vs Total Required
Table 1: Correct Vs Incorrect Uses
The total of
actual uses
(correctly and
incorrectly)
Number of the Number of the
present perfect present perfect
used correctly used incorrectly
High Inter.
Inter. level
0
Advanced
level
17
Total
17
0
2
2
High Inter. level
Advanced level
Total
Total number of
sentences that
should have
been written in
the present
perfect
0
1
19
39
19
40
1- Theoretical Background
2- Research questions and hypothesis
3- Research Methods
A) Present perfect VS Arabic tenses
B) Analysis of the essays
4- Results
• The total number of the English present perfect production used either
correctly or incorrectly is 19 times (17 correctly and 2 incorrectly). 90%
of the uses were correct.
• These 19 sentences were found in just 9 out of 25 essays , which is 36%
of the total students who tried to use the present perfect.
• This suggests that students avoid using this tense until they become
more confident.
1- Theoretical Background
2- Research questions and hypothesis
3- Research Methods
A) Present perfect VS Arabic tenses
B) Analysis of the essays
4- Results
Paraphrasing as a technique
• Students tend to paraphrase using the tense they know very well (i.e.,
the simple past).
• Ex: “Also, did experts make any investigation during all shifts work? Or
did experts make any surveys with representative questions?”
• Have experts made any investigation during all shifts work? Or have
experts made any surveys with representative questions?
1- Theoretical Background
2- Research questions and hypothesis
3- Research Methods
A) Present perfect VS Arabic tenses
B) Analysis of the essays
4- Results
5- Conclusion
Conclusion
• ESL Arabic speaking students tend to avoid using the English present
perfect in their writings because they have difficulty understanding the
English present perfect.
• They rely on patterns found in their native language in order to avoid
making errors from using the English present perfect tense.
• The results also reveal that ESL Arabic speaking students use the English
simple past tense - which is linguistically similar to their native language
patterns- instead of using the English present perfect.
Pedagogical Implications
• As a teacher, how can you help Arabic speaking students overcome their
avoidance of the present perfect in their writings?
Questions
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• Work Cited
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