DISSERTATION / DOCTORAL THESIS
Titel der Dissertation /Title of the Doctoral Thesis „The effect of different teaching methods on the acquisition and integration of tense forms into spontaneous speech“
A comparison between the ‘Traditional’, ‘Five-Stage’ and ‘Learning through Teaching’ (Lehren durch Lernen-LdL) method
verfasst von / submitted by Jasmina Mirtoska MPhil.
angestrebter akademischer Grad / in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doktorin der Philosophie (Dr. phil.)
Wien, 2017 / Vienna, 2017
Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt / A 792 343 degree programme code as it appears on the student record sheet: Dissertationsgebiet lt. Studienblatt / Anglistik und Amerikanistik field of study as it appears on the student record sheet: Betreut von / Supervisor: Univ. Prof. Dr. Christiane Dalton-Puffer
“Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
To the SEEU/English Department Students Abstract
This study investigates the effect of teaching methodology on the acquisition and integration of tense forms into speech by tertiary level learners of English whose first language is Albanian. The study has been inspired by three issues present in the context of the English major program at the South East European University-SEEU, Tetovo, Macedonia; first, high failure rates in the compulsory course “Morphology 1” which is dedicated to the English tenses; second: students’ considerably poorer spoken than written competence and performance of tense forms; third: the need to investigate the effect of and the attitudes toward previous and new teaching methodology used at SEEU on the acquisition of tense forms into speech. In order to explore the scope of these issues, previous literature that has dealt with teaching methodology and as well as the reasons causing difficulty in learning grammar in second languages was addressed. It has been discovered that the challenges that SLA learners have when learning grammar and tense-aspect are crosslinguistic (Lim, 2007; Niemeier and Reif, 2008; DeKeyser, 2005), intralinguistic (Vijaya and Viswanath, 2010; Larsen-Freeman et al., 2001; Collins, 2007) and instructional (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999; Cowan, 2008; Vaezi and Alizadeh, 2011). In order to account for the crosslinguistic and intralinguistic interference when L1 Albanian students learn tense-aspect combinations in English, the tense-aspect systems of both languages (Albanian and English) are discussed in depth from a linguistic and pedagogical point of view, followed by a one-on-one comparison of target tense-aspect combinations in both languages. In order to account for the potential impact of instructional settings, a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the chosen teaching methods (‘Traditional’, ‘Five-Stage’ and ‘Learning through Teaching’ (Lernen durch Lehren-LdL)) and their adaptation for this study’s experimental setting is provided. The study employs a pre-post test design in the comparison of three instructional methods. Three groups of randomly assigned Albanian first and second year undergraduate students (N=108) at SEEU were tested in spoken and written form before and after an experimental instructional period that lasted 15 weeks. The study’s main hypothesis is that the students taught in the Five-Stage method will perform better in both post-tests (written and spoken) since according to the teaching method, they will have retained most of the information and will have integrated it into their active written and spoken competence. The hypothesis predicts that the Five-Stage group will perform better than the Traditional and LdL group in both contextualized and decontextualized exercises. The tests in this study include: a proficiency test, a tense-aspect competence written and spoken pre- and post-test, and a WIHIC (What Is Happening In This Class) questionnaire exploring students’ perceptions of the instructional setting they experienced. One-way ANOVA is used to investigate if there are significant differences in the spoken and the written test prior to the training and after the training, while a correlation test is used in order to find out if there are any among-groups differences in performance. Some of the results are unexpected since the Five-Stage group was not the best in all tests as was predicted in the main hypothesis. Rather, the findings indicate that all three groups performed significantly better in the written and spoken post-test when compared to the written and spoken pre-tests. While the Five-Stage group was better (but without statistical significance) than the other two groups in the spoken pre-test, the Traditional group had a statistically significant advantage over the other groups in the spoken post-test. The fact that the Five-Stage group outperformed the LdL group significantly in the spoken post-test was to be anticipated since the purpose in the Five-Stage group was integration of tense-aspect forms into speech. On the other hand, it was unanticipated that the Traditional group would show such significant improvement in the spoken post-test since this was not an element of the teaching model itself. Due to the results of the post-tests and the very positive attitudes at the end of the 15-week training period for all three groups (results of student WIHIC questionnaire), regardless of the method, it can be concluded that the reason for the issues that SEEU students face, could rather lie in the material and temporal organization of the course of Morphology 1 rather than the teaching methodology or the students’ attitudes.
Zusammenfassung
Diese Studie untersucht den Effekt der Lehrmethodologie auf den Erwerb und die Integration von Zeitformen in den aktiven Sprachgebrauch von EnglischlernerInnen mit Albanisch als Erstsprache. Inspiriert wurde die Studie von drei Problemstellungen, die im Rahmen des englischen Hauptfachstudiums an der Südosteuropäischen Universität (South East European University-SEEU) Tetovo, Mazedonien, vorhanden sind. Erstens, die hohen Ausfallraten im Pflichtkurs ‘Morphologie 1’, die den englischen Zeitformen gewidmet ist. Zweitens, die Tatsache dass die mündliche Kompetenz der Studierenden deutlich schlechter ist als die schriftliche Kompetenz. Drittens, eine Wissenslücke bezüglich des Effekts von traditionellen und neuen Lehrmethoden beim Erwerb von Zeitformen in Englisch als Fremdsprache sowie bezüglich der Einstellungen der Studierenden zu den verschiedenen Lehrmethoden, die an der SEEU verwendet werden. Der empirischen Studie vorangestellt ist ein umfangreicher Literaturüberblick zur kontrastiven Grammatik von Tempus und Aspekt des Albanischen und des Englischen, sowie zu Lehrmethoden und Ansätzen in der Fremdsprachendidaktik. Ein weiteres Theoriekapitel befasst sich mit den Gründen für die Schwierigkeiten beim Erlernen der Grammatik in einer Zweitsprache. Es wurde festgestellt, dass die Herausforderungen, die die Lernenden beim Erwerb von Grammatik und Tempus-Aspekt haben, zwischen-sprachlich (Lim, 2007; Niemeier und Reif; 2008, DeKeyser, 2005), inner-sprachlich (Vijaya und Viswanath, 2010; Larsen-Freeman et al., 2001; Collins, 2007) oder unterrichtsbedingt (Celce- Murcia und Larsen-Freeman, 1999, Cowan, 2008, Vaezi und Alizadeh, 2011) sind. Um zwischen-sprachliche und inner-sprachliche Interferenzen beim Erwerb Englischer Verbformen durch albanische LernerInnen zu berücksichtigen, wurden die Tempus-Aspekt- Systemebeider Sprachen (Albanisch und Englisch) aus sprachlicher und pädagogischer Sicht ausführlich erläutert und ein direkter kontrastiver Vergleich von Zeitformen in beiden Sprachen durchgeführt. Um die potenziellen Auswirkungen von Lehrmethoden auf den Fremdsprachenerwerb empirisch erfassen zu können, wurden drei Lehrmethoden (‘Traditionell’, ‘Fünf-Stufen’ und ‘Lernen durch Lehren’ (LdL)) ausgewählt und in ihren Prinzipien ausführlich vorgestellt. Die empirische Studie beschäftigt sich im Rahmen eines Pre-Test Post-Test Designs mit dem Vergleich dieser drei Lehrmethoden in der Vermittlung des englischen Tempus und Aspekts. Drei Gruppen von zufällig zugewiesenen albanischen Englischstudierenden im ersten und zweiten Studienjahr (N=108) wurden über eine 15- wöchige experimentelle Lehrphase hinweg mit jeweils einer der drei Methoden unterrichtet und davor und danach in gesprochener und schriftlicher Form getestet. Die Haupthypothese der Studie ist, dass die Studenten, die in der Fünf-Stufen Methode gelehrt werden, in beiden Post-Tests (geschrieben und gesprochen) bessere Resultate erzielen werden, da diese Lehrmethode ihnen erlaubt sich die meisten Informationen einzuprägen und diese in ihre geschriebene und gesprochene Kompetenz zu integrieren. Die Hypothese prognostiziert, dass die Fünf-Stufen Gruppe in kontextualisierten und dekontextualisierten Übungen besser sein wird als die traditionelle und die LdL-Gruppe. Zu den Tests in dieser Studie gehören: ein allgemeiner Proficency-Test, ein speziell entworfener Tempus-Aspekt-Test (schriftlich/mündlich), sowie ein Fragebogen zur Wahrnehmung der Studierenden von der Lehrveranstaltung (WIHIC - What Is Happening In This Class). In der Auswertung der Testergebnisse kam eine One-Way Varianzanalyse zur Anwendung, um zu untersuchen, ob es signifikante Unterschiede in den schriftlichen und mündlichen Tests vor und nach der 15- wöchigen Interventionsphase gibt. Um herauszufinden ob es irgendwelche zwischen den Gruppen Unterschiede in der Leistung gibt, wurde ein Korrelationstest verwendet. Einige der Ergebnisse sind unerwartet, da die Fünf-Stufen Gruppe nicht in allen Tests die besten Ergebnisse erzielte, wie zunächst in der Haupthypothese vorhergesagt wurde. Vielmehr deuten die Befunde darauf hin, dass alle drei Gruppen im schriftlichen und gesprochenen Nach-Test im Vergleich zu den geschriebenen und gesprochenen Vor-Tests deutlich besser waren. Während die Fünf-Stufen Gruppe im gesprochenen Vor-Test besser war (aber ohne statistische Signifikanz) als die beiden anderen Gruppen, hatte die traditionelle Gruppe im gesprochenen Nach-Test einen statistisch signifikanten Vorteil gegenüber den anderen Gruppen. Die Tatsache, dass die Fünf-Stufen Gruppe die LdL-Gruppe im gesprochenen Nach-Test deutlich übertraf, war zu erwarten, da der Fokus der Fünf-Stufen Gruppe die Integration von Zeitformen in die mündliche Produktion war. Andererseits ist es überraschend, dass die traditionelle Gruppe eine so deutliche Verbesserung in den gesprochenen Nach-Tests zeigt, da dies kein Element des Lehrmodells selbst war. Aus den Ergebnissen des Nach-Tests und der sehr positiven Einstellung am Ende des 15-wöchigen Unterrichtszeitraumes für alle drei Gruppen (Ergebnisse des WIHIC-Fragebogens), unabhängig von der Methode, kann man schließen, dass der Grund für die Herausforderungen, denen sich die SEEU-Studenten gegenüberstehen, eher in der materiellen und zeitlichen Organisation des Kurses „Morphologie 1“ liegen als in der Lehrmethodik oder der Einstellung der Studenten.
Acknowledgements
My deepest appreciation and gratitude is for God, who has guided me and has shown me grace in my life, especially during my education period.
A special thanks to my mentor whose feedback and supervision have made me a better researcher and English teacher. Moreover, I would not have been able to reach this stage of my research if it had not been for her expertise, dedication, prompt replies and valuable directions as my mentor and my teacher in PhD seminars.
My husband Erdjan, deserves a great deal of the appreciation since he has encouraged and supported me constantly and has always believed in me. I would also like to express my gratitude to my family for their support, time and space they have given me in order to be able to dedicate most of my time to my research.
I am also grateful to the South East European University which has provided me with the time and means for my study. I would like to thank my colleagues and our dean who has been very supporting and forthcoming with any kind of help, be it administrative or academic.
Table of Contents
List of abbreviations ...... i List of figures ...... ii List of tables ...... ii
1. Introduction ...... 1 1.1. Research topic ...... 1 1.2. Theoretical, empirical and applied aims ...... 4 1.3. Topic relevance ...... 6 1.4. Research inspiration and motivation ...... 6 2. Tense and aspect ...... 12 2.1. Tense and time ...... 12 2.2. Tense and aspect as different categories ...... 13 2.3. Tense in language ...... 18 2.4. Aspect in language ...... 23 2.4.1. Grammatical aspect ...... 24 2.4.1.1. Imperfective ...... 25 2.4.1.2. Perfective ...... 26 2.4.1.3. Imperfective and perfective in comparison ...... 28 2.4.1.4. Progressive ...... 33 2.4.1.5. Habitual ...... 35 2.4.1.6. Perfect ...... 38 2.4.2. Lexical aspect ...... 39 2.5. Concluding remarks ...... 41 3. Tense and aspect in English ...... 42 3.1. Tense in English from a linguistic point of view ...... 43 3.2. Aspect in English from a linguistic point of view ...... 45 3.2.1. Grammatical aspect ...... 46 3.2.1.1. Imperfective and perfective in comparison ...... 47 3.2.1.2. Progressive ...... 48 3.2.1.3. Progressive in research ...... 50 3.2.1.4. Habitual ...... 51 3.2.1.5. Perfect ...... 53 3.2.2. Lexical aspect in English ...... 53 4. A descriptive account of the focal English tense-aspect target combinations ...... 55 4.1. Simple Past ...... 55 4.2. Past Progressive ...... 56 4.3. Present Perfect ...... 57 4.4. Past Perfect ...... 60 4.5. Present Perfect Progressive and Past Perfect Progressive ...... 61 5. Tense and aspect in Albanian ...... 64 5.1. Tense in Albanian from a linguistic point of view ...... 64 5.2. Aspect in Albanian from a linguistic point of view ...... 67 5.2.1. Imperfective and perfective in comparison ...... 69 5.2.2. Progressive ...... 71 5.2.2.1. The role of the particle po ...... 76 5.2.2.2. The role of the particle duke in comparison to po ...... 80 5.2.2.3. Po and duke in previous research ...... 83 5.2.3. Habitual vs. actual ...... 86 5.2.4. Perfect ...... 88 5.3. Concluding remarks and concerns for the learner ...... 91 6. Contrasting the focal tense-aspect combinations in Albanian and English ...... 91 6.1. E PAKRYERA (imperfect) vs. Habitual Past and Past Progressive ...... 92 6.2. E KRYERA E THJESHTË (Aorist) vs. Simple Past ...... 97 6.3. E KRYERA vs. Present Perfect ...... 102 6.4. MË SË E KRYERA vs. Past Perfect ...... 106 6.5. E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (Pluperfect) vs. Past Perfect ...... 108 6.6. Present Perfect Progressive and Past Perfect Progressive counterparts in Albanian ...... 111 6.7. Concluding remarks ...... 114 7. The pedagogical point of view ...... 118 7.1. Tense in English from a pedagogical point of view ...... 121 7.2. Aspect in English from a pedagogical point of view ...... 123 8. The teaching methods ...... 125 8.1. Teaching/learning preliminaries ...... 125 8.2. The teaching methods: structure, purpose, benefits and disadvantages ...... 127 8.2.1. The Traditional Method ...... 128 8.2.2. The Five-Stage Method ...... 134 8.2.3. The Learning through Teaching-LdL (Lernen durch Lehren) Method ...... 142 9. Student perception of different methodologies-the WIHIC questionnaire ...... 146 9.1. WIHIC questionnaire description ...... 147 9.2. WIHIC questionnaire in previous research ...... 149 9.3. Adapted WIHIC questionnaire ...... 150 10. Previous research on learning second or foreign languages ...... 152 10.1. The difficulty of learning grammar and tense-aspect systems ...... 154 10.2. The effect of teaching and teaching methodology on learning in SLA (second language acquisition) ...... 163 10.3. Prior tense-aspect teaching methodology research ...... 168 11. Present study research setup...... 171 11.1. Rationale of the present study ...... 171 11.1.1. Research gap...... 171 11.1.2. “Morphology 1” - the course that most students fail at SEEU ...... 174 11.1.3. Personal teaching and learning experience ...... 175 11.2. Research questions and hypotheses ...... 176 11.3. Setting ...... 178 11.4. Participants ...... 181 11.5. The tests ...... 183 11.5.1. Language proficiency test ...... 183 11.5.2. Spoken pre- and post-test ...... 184 11.5.3. Written pre- and post-test ...... 186 11.5.4. WIHIC questionnaire ...... 188 11.5.5. The scoring of the tests of this study ...... 188 12. Analysis and discussion of results ...... 191 12.1. Language proficiency test ...... 192 12.2. Written pre- and post-test ...... 195 12.2.1. The written pre-test for all three groups ...... 195 12.2.2. Correlation of the Language proficiency test and the written pre-test results ...... 197 12.2.2.1. Correlation of the Language proficiency test and the written pre-test for the LdL group ...... 197 12.2.2.2. Correlation of the Language proficiency test and the written pre-test for the Traditional group ...... 198 12.2.2.3. Correlation of the Language proficiency test and the written pre-test for the Five-Stage group ...... 199 12.2.3. The written post-test for all three groups ...... 200 12.2.4. Written pre- and post-test progress for all three groups ...... 202 12.2.5. Comparison of contextualized and decontextualized activities ...... 204 12.2.5.1. Contextualized activities pre- and post-test progress for all three groups ...... 205 12.2.5.2. Decontextualized activities pre- and post-test progress for all three groups ...... 206 12.2.5.3. Contextualized and decontextualized activities pre- and post-test progress for all three groups ...... 208 12.3. Spoken pre- and post-test ...... 210 12.3.1. The spoken pre-test for all three groups ...... 211 12.3.2. The spoken post-test for all three groups ...... 212 12.3.3. Spoken pre- and post-test progress for all three groups ...... 215 12.4. WIHIC questionnaire results ...... 217 12.4.1. WIHIC current study analysis ...... 217 12.4.2. WIHIC frequency analysis ...... 224 13. Discussion of research question and hypotheses ...... 230 14. Summary and Conclusion ...... 234 14.1. Major findings of this study and summary ...... 235 14.2. Contributions of the study ...... 249 14.2.1. Theoretical contributions ...... 249 14.2.2. Empirical contributions ...... 252 14.2.3. Educationally applicable implications ...... 253 14.3. Limitations of this study ...... 254 14.4. Suggestions for future research ...... 255 15. References………………..………..……………………...………..…….…………….258 16. Appendix………………..………..…………………...….………….…………………267 List of abbreviations
SLA...... Second Language Acquisition ESL...... English as a Second Language EFL...... English as a Foreign Language SEEU...... South East European University WIHIC...... What Is Happening In This Class GPA...... Grade Point Average PFV...... Perfective aspect IPFV...... Imperfective aspect L1...... First language/mother tongue L2...... Second language/foreign language LdL...... Lernen durch Lehren-Learning through Teaching (R)...... Reference time (E)...... Event time (S)...... Speech time CL...... Linking clitic ANC...... Albanian National Corpus PROG...... Progressive/emphatic particle REFL...... Reflexive form PASS...... Passive voice PART...... Particle IMPRF...... Imperfect tense SUBJ...... Subjunctive mood SD...... Standard deviation ANOVA...... Analysis of variance MANOVA...... Multivariate analysis of variance SPSS...... Statistical Package for the Social Sciences CDA...... Critical discourse analysis TOMRA...... Test of Mathematics-Related Attitude VARK...... Visual, aural, read/write, kinesthetic inventory ICE...... International Corpus of English SBC...... Santa Barbara Corpus Brown...... Brown University Corpus LOB...... Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen Corpus F-LOB ...... Freiburg-Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen Corpus Frown...... Freiburg-Brown AmE...... American English BrE...... British English ICE-GB...... International Corpus of English-Great Britain DCPSE...... Diachronic Corpus of Present-Day Spoken English Std...... Standard
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N...... Sample size F...... F-value t...... t-value df...... Degrees of freedom CI...... Confidence interval
List of figures Figure 2-1: Pre-present, present and post-present sectors (Declerck, 1995: 5) ...... 19 Figure 2-2: Reichenbach’s (2011: 3) representation of the direction of time ...... 20 Figure 5-1: Absolute and relative tenses in Albanian by Demiraj (2002: 315) (on the left) and an adaptation in English (on the right) ...... 66 Figure 12-1: Mean plot of the proficiency test scores among the three groups ...... 194 Figure 12-2: Mean plot for all three groups for the written pre-test ...... 196 Figure 12-3: Written pre-test against language proficiency test for LdL ...... 198 Figure 12-4: Written pre-test against language proficiency for the Traditional group ...... 199 Figure 12-5: Written pre-test against language proficiency for the Five-Stage group ...... 200 Figure 12-6: Mean plot for all three groups for the written post-test ...... 201 Figure 12-7: Mean plot for all three groups for the spoken pre-test ...... 212 Figure 12-8: Mean plot for all three groups for the spoken post-test ...... 213
List of tables Table 5-1: Target tense-aspect terminology and the English equivalents ...... 66 Table 5-2: Tense, aspect and time in Albanian by Newmark et al. (1982: 22) ...... 67 Table 5-3: The combinability of tense and aspect in Albanian by Ҫamaj (1984: 151) ...... 68 Table 5-4: Aspectual differences of tense forms in Albanian (Newmark et al., 1982: 36) ...... 69 Table 5-5: Progressive particles across dialects in Albanian (Ҫamaj, 1984: 149-150) ...... 74 Table 5-6: Periphrastic and inflectional progressive realizations by different authors ...... 75 Table 5-7: The different functions of the progressive emphatic particle po ...... 80 Table 5-8: The difference in use of the progressive emphatic particles po and duke in the Albanian language ...... 83 Table 6-1: Types and use of the imperfect for progressive and habitual purposes in Albanian (Agalliu et al., 2002: 306-311) ...... 96 Table 6-2: Text adapted into a table from the grammar reference section by Evans and Dooley (2008: 158-159) ...... 116 Table 7-1: DeCapua’s (2008: 195) 12 “combinations of time + aspect”...... 124
ii
Table 9-1: WIHIC scales and explanation table from Roberge et al. (2011: 7) ...... 147 Table 9-2: WIHIC item adaptation ...... 151 Table 12-1: Comparison of the mean and standard deviation of all three methods ...... 193 Table 12-2: Means and statistical significance for the proficiency test among the three groups ...... 194 Table 12-3: Means and standard deviation differences in the written pre-test among the three groups ...... 195 Table 12-4: Among group differences in the written pre-test ...... 195 Table 12-5: Means and standard deviation differences in the written post-test among the three groups ...... 201 Table 12-6: Among group differences in the written post-test ...... 201 Table 12-7: Written pre- and post-test results for the LdL group ...... 202 Table 12-8: Paired difference results between the written pre- and post-test for the LdL group ...... 202 Table 12-9: Written pre- and post-test results for the Traditional group ...... 203 Table 12-10: Paired difference results between the written pre- and post-test for the Traditional group ...... 203 Table 12-11: Written pre- and post-test results for the Five-Stage group ...... 203 Table 12-12: Paired difference results between the written pre- and post-test for the Five-Stage group ...... 204 Table 12-13: Means and Standard Deviation between written pre- and post-test contextualized exercises among the three groups ...... 205 Table 12-14: Paired difference results of contextualized activities between the written pre- and post-test ...... 206 Table 12-15: Means and standard deviation between written pre- and post-test decontextualized exercises among the three groups ...... 207 Table 12-16: Paired difference results of decontextualized activities between the written pre- and post- test ...... 207 Table 12-17: Means and standard deviation between the written pre- and post-test contextualized and decontextualized exercises among the three groups ...... 209 Table 12-18: Paired difference results of both contextualized and decontextualized activities between the written pre- and post-test ...... 209 Table 12-19: Means and standard deviation differences in the spoken pre-test among the three groups ...... 211 Table 12-20: Among group differences in the spoken pre-test ...... 211 Table 12-21: Means and standard deviation differences in the spoken post-test among the three groups ...... 212
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Table 12-22: Among group differences in the spoken post-test ...... 213 Table 12-23: Spoken pre- and post-test results for the LdL group ...... 215 Table 12-24: Paired difference results between spoken pre- and post-test for the LdL group ...... 215 Table 12-25: Spoken pre- and post-test results for the Traditional group ...... 216 Table 12-26: Paired difference results between the spoken pre- and post-test for the Traditional group ...... 216 Table 12-27: Spoken pre- and post-test results for the Five-Stage group ...... 216 Table 12-28: Paired difference results between the spoken pre- and post-test for the Five-Stage group ...... 216 Table 12-29: ANOVA means and standard deviation for the WIHIC questionnaire for all three groups ...... 218 Table 12-30: WIHIC scale means for all three groups ...... 220 Table 12-31: ANOVA test for the WIHIC questionnaire for all three groups ...... 223
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1. Introduction
1.1. Research topic
Tense, aspect, and tense-aspect combinations, as “one of the difficult grammatical areas for ESL/EFL students to master” (Larsen-Freeman et al., 2002: 3), have always caused difficulties for students majoring in English Language and Literature at the South East European University (SEEU in Tetovo, Macedonia). As a result, SEEU students following the courses Morphology 1 and 21 have had a poor oral command of tense-aspect combinations in English in general and in contextualized activities, as well as an obvious mismatch of spoken and written knowledge of tense-aspect forms2. Several possible reasons for the students’ problems have been conjectured by the teachers at SEEU and are addressed in what follows.
The first potential reason could lie in the idea that “[w]hat learners produce spontaneously [in speaking] is often very different from what they produce when they are concentrating on making sentences” in written form (Willis, 2003: 2). Secondly, lack of motivation might also be an explanation for the challenges the students face, since “[w]ithout sufficient motivation, even individuals with the most remarkable abilities cannot accomplish long-term goals, and neither are appropriate curricular and good teaching enough to ensure student achievement” (Dörnyei and Csizér, 1998: 203). The unclear portrayal of tense and aspect in linguistics books, as opposed to books used for pedagogical purposes (in both English and Albanian), seems also to contribute to the difficulty in comprehension and the accurate production of tense and aspect and tense-aspect combinations. A final reason for the SEEU students’ struggle with aspect and tense-aspect combinations could be the teaching method or even the students’ perceptions of that teaching method. Hence, my study investigates what effect different teaching methods have on the acquisition and integration of tense forms into speech3 by comparing the Traditional Teaching Method (cf. section 8.2.1.) with the Learning through Teaching method (Lernen durch Lehren-LdL) method by Jean-Paul Martin (2000; 2002) (cf. section 8.2.3.) and a new Five-Stage Method suggested by Dave Willis (2003; cf. section 8.2.2.). The present study
1 Cf. section 11.1.2. for more information about the courses Morphology 1 and 2. 2 ‘Tense-aspect combinations’ and ‘tense forms’ are used interchangeably to refer to tenses and combinations of tense and aspect, throughout my study. 3 ‘Spontaneous speech’ or ‘speech’ in this study is used to refer to stimuli-triggered, elicited, spoken narratives, discussions, sentence completion and answers produced by the participants.
1
also tests which teaching method affects motivation and in which way, and which method is perceived the most positively by SEEU students.
Overall, my study has the following main aims:
to find out which teaching method helps with the acquisition of tense-aspect combinations; to determine which teaching method helps with the integration of tense-aspect combinations into learners’ spontaneous language production (cf. section 1.4.); to test a new instructional method (Five-Stage Method by Willis, 2003), which claims to embrace learning processes by leading learners through five stages of learning strategies (cf. section 8.2.2.); to investigate empirically which method helps the students apply tense-aspect knowledge in exercises with and without context (cf. sections 1.4. and 12.2.5.); to investigate the students’ attitudes toward the respective teaching environment (with a WIHIC questionnaire; cf. section 9.1. and 9.3.); to establish a clear picture of tense and aspect in Albanian (cf. Chapter 5) so that this can be compared to tense, aspect and the tense-aspect combinations in English (cf. Chapter 6) and as such facilitate the teaching/learning process in the experiment of my study; to illustrate the lack, mismatch or opposition of the portrayal of tense and aspect pedagogically (cf. Chapter 7) and linguistically in Albanian (cf. Chapter 5) and English (cf. Chapter 3).
The group of past tenses and tense-aspect combinations targeted in my study includes the following: Simple Past, Present Perfect, Present Perfect Progressive, Past Perfect and Past Perfect Progressive4. The methodology used for assessing the effectiveness of the teaching methods includes: a written and spoken pre- and post-test (cf. sections 11.5.3. and 11.5.2. respectively), a language proficiency test (11.5.1.), and a WIHIC questionnaire exploring the classroom environment and the participants’ attitudes (cf. Chapter 9 and section 11.5.4.).
4 The Past Progressive is not included in the experiment since this tense-aspect combination has not posed problems in the acquisition and integration into speech for the participants in the experiment of this study (cf. Chapter 11). Nonetheless, a descriptive account has been given on the Past Progressive in section 4.2..
2
Throughout my research, I keep in mind that the process of teaching and learning goes beyond language teaching methodology. In fact, methodology is just a means for the purpose of teaching. Teaching and learning are affected by a number of non-academic factors like the sociolinguistic environment, motivation, attitudes, student workload, learning strategies, personal preferences, and private life, among others. Additional factors that can affect teaching and learning are: dislike of the teacher or teaching methodology or approaches, or an overall dislike of grammar. All of these factors can consequently disturb the students’ focus on learning or the effect of the teaching and can have an influence on the priorities of the learners (or the participants in a teaching experiment, in the case of this study). Since there are so many variables that affect or interrupt the teaching and learning process (or the effect of the method on the learning outcomes), it is necessary to take these into consideration. Hence, difficulty in successfully acquiring language, grammar or tense-aspect combinations in class cannot be linked to the teaching method alone.
While most of the above-mentioned factors are not under the teacher’s or the teaching method’s control, there are some variables in the experiment presented in my study that could be controlled. In the present research, the attempt to account for the extra instructional factors includes the following points: the students were from the same region, which means that they had a similar background in education and exposure to the English language; their first language was Albanian, which controls the L1 influence factor; they had the same ethnic background, and they were in a similar socio-economic position (since they all attend a private university). In addition, in the experiment it was attempted to meet the students’ needs, learning styles and preferences with the versatility of the instructional practices (in the Five-Stage and LdL Method), and finally, the teacher factor was neutralized since there was only one teacher involved in the delivery of all three teaching methods.
Given that the students’ university education is crucial and costly, teachers need to find the best teaching method not only to convey language, or in this case grammar, but also help the students’ to integrate this knowledge into their daily use of English. Regardless of the method chosen for teaching language in a particular setting, “[t]eachers have to be especially resourceful, as they are often called on to adjust their methods to be appropriate to the needs, goals, and expectations of their students, and to be in compliance with the educational and financial resources of their schools, colleges, and universities” (Pica, 2000: 4).
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Although the teacher can hardly eliminate the factors from outside of the classroom that affect learning focus, the teacher certainly can choose a method that will facilitate the teaching and learning processes in the classroom. Nonetheless, since “each method is affected by the contexts in which it is implemented” (Pica, 2000: 3), it follows that “for any single teaching context, there is in fact a method that is best” (Prabhu, 1990: 163). Therefore, this study investigates which is the ideal method for teaching university students at SEEU, Macedonia.
The optimal teaching method ideally should offer the learner a variety of inputs of the same language unit and more frequent input opportunities by using different stimuli and reasoning types. The method should also take into account the general negative attitudes towards grammar (that some students might have), while at the same time motivate them to interact, study and participate. It should also foster integration of the grammatical rules when the students use English in different situations, forms, and contexts. Finally, it should foster retention of the acquired grammatical rules and promote lifelong learning. This may seem an ambitious task and a huge responsibility for the instructor, but the right teaching method could help do most of the heavy lifting when applied properly. Which method in the current experiment (Traditional, Five-Stage or LdL) is more successful and in what particular way is addressed in the analysis and discussion part of my study (cf. Chapter 12).
1.2. Theoretical, empirical and applied aims
The aims of my study are theoretical, empirical and applied (as outlined in section 1.1.). The theoretical aims are to produce a contrastive description of tense and aspect in Albanian and English (both linguistically and pedagogically), and to investigate which teaching method fosters the integration of correct tense-aspect forms into speech. After the role of tense and aspect in both English (cf. Chapters 3 and 4) and Albanian (cf. Chapter 5) is established separately and then comparatively (cf. Chapter 6), another theoretical aim is to illustrate the dissimilarity and inconsistency of tense and aspect accounts (individually or in combination) in books used for pedagogical purposes (cf. Chapter 7).
Another theoretical aim that borders on an empirical one is the investigation of the effect of the different teaching methods on students’ performance in contextualized and decontextualized activities. The empirical aim of this same issue investigates whether increased competence in contextualized rather than decontextualized activities will foster the successful integration of
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tense forms into speech. Lastly, the application aim of this study is a methodological change in the delivery and syllabus of linguistics courses (like Morphology 1 and Morphology 2 at SEEU) based on the empirical findings of this study. The theoretical, empirical and applied aims are elaborated in detail in the following paragraphs.
Besides investigating which of the three pedagogical methods discussed best fosters and facilitates the integration of tense-aspect combinations into speech, the current study also investigates task-specific competences fostered by the three instructional methods regarding students’ success in different types of activities (contextualized and decontextualized). This last aim has a theoretical element and an empirical one. On the theoretical level, the aim is to find out which teaching method fosters knowledge of the grammatical forms in activities with or without context5. On the empirical level, the aims are to find empirical support for the effectiveness of the teaching methods (Traditional, Five-Stage or LdL). For this reason, a teaching experiment (cf. Chapter 11) was conducted with the aim of finding out which method has an effect on the acquisition and integration of tense forms into speech. This was done by implementing the methods in the classroom and comparing the results of the three teaching methods (cf. Chapter 12).
On the level of application, the aim of my study is to contribute to a theoretically and empirically improved well-founded curriculum (undergraduate and graduate) at the South East European University, Tetovo, Macedonia. The research question for this study arose while teaching the course “Pedagogical Grammar” to master’s students at SEEU while using the book “Rules, Patterns and Words: Grammar and Lexis in English Language Teaching” as a course book (Willis, 2003). This book addresses several issues, one of which is ways of teaching the English tense-aspect system. The book points out the shortcomings of other methods (traditional and systematic), resulting in students’ frequent failure to internalize language forms and integrate them into spontaneous speech and proposes a new teaching method (the Five- Stage Method), which promises to take care of the previously mentioned issues. It follows that, if this new method does what it claims to do, then this method will contribute to changes in
5 Competence in contextualized activities is thought to be one of the steps toward integration of grammar, or in this case, tense forms into speech (Willis, 2003).
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curriculum and in teaching practices at SEEU (mainly for teaching English grammar in undergraduate studies and the Pedagogical Grammar course for the graduate program).
1.3. Topic relevance
The issues researched in this study are relevant to language teaching and learning because a new teaching method (Five-Stage Method by Willis, 2003) is tested. Moreover, my research involves an evaluation of the effectiveness of the three teaching methods in terms of their instructional practices: implicit vs. explicit instruction, deducing vs. inducing rules, focus on form vs. focus on forms and contextualized vs. decontextualized use of activities.
The new method is based on the students’ natural learning processes, and promises to foster retention and, most importantly, the integration of grammatical forms into spontaneous speech. This investigation will help me as a researcher and as a language teacher to get answers to questions which have arisen during my seven years of experience in teaching English language and linguistics at SEEU. Firstly, it is subjectively crucial to find out why my students face challenges with tense, aspect and tense-aspect combinations, and what causes difficulties in internalizing language forms into speech. Secondly, it is pedagogically important to find out which method (Traditional, Five-Stage or LdL) will foster the integration of tense forms into speech.
This study will contribute to research by comparatively investigating teaching methods in second language education. It will also contribute to the development and improvement of the teaching philosophy at SEEU, because after the research has been carried out, depending on the outcome of the tests, the most successful method will be applied in the teaching environment and lesson planning at SEEU. In addition, carrying out this research will benefit the students, who, after the results of the study are applied, will be taught grammar with an improved methodology which claims to be adapted to their natural learning processes, thereby fostering the retention of the knowledge, and ideally, enabling the learners to make use of the tense forms in spontaneous speech in and outside of the classroom (Willis, 2003).
1.4. Research inspiration and motivation
It is both the suggestions and findings of previous research and my personal teaching experience at SEEU that have inspired me to investigate the effect of teaching methodology on
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the acquisition and integration of tense forms into speech. In previous research (cf. Chapter 10), several aspects of instruction have been considered that might be directly connected to the teaching and learning outcomes (which were taken into consideration when the teaching methods for my study were selected). While some researchers criticized entire teaching methods or approaches, others addressed specific teaching methods and pointed out their shortcomings. Among other factors (that make the learning challenging) are the books and materials used in instructional settings and the purpose of different schools of grammar theory. What follows here is a brief discussion of some of the crucial elements that affect teaching and learning that have also been the main source of inspiration for my research. These include: the general criticism of the Traditional Method, the different portrayals of tense and aspect by grammarians, the different schools of grammar and the vast variety of books.
One of the first language teaching methods is the Traditional Method6, which is explicit and deductive, as opposed to other approaches which apply both deductive and inductive instruction in the same teaching method (for instance, the Five-Stage Method by Willis, 2003). The “[t]raditional grammars have been built around standardized Latin and have thus evolved as idealized, static, abstract, and artificial”, which is one of the reasons why “modules on grammar are often the most hated and feared among language teachers” and students as well (Pennington, 2002: 79). Since the Traditional Method is thought to be incomplete, some have tried to fill the gaps of the traditional grammars by introducing competence-oriented, performance-oriented and learning processes-oriented approaches to grammar (Brazil, 1995 as quoted in Pennington, 2002).
Since there are different schools of grammars, and different types of books that discuss or describe grammar, the way in which this is done is addressed in the following lines. For structuralists, grammar is a collection of patterns and structures and is mainly syntax-oriented, which results in syntax overwhelmed syllabi (Bourke, 2005: 87-89). Descriptive grammar is objective and, relying on structural analysis, it shows how language is used in a manner rather different to the prescriptive presentation of grammar, which is subjective, and dictates how language should be instructed and used. Perspective grammar, in the systematic functional approach, is social and aims for communicative outcomes (Bourke, 2005: 92). Generative
6 Cf. sections 10.2. and 10.3. for further definitions of what the Traditional Method represents and for an empirical application of the Traditional Method in previous research.
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grammar has a mentalist approach to grammar learning, which relies on the innate ability that humans have. Taking all these grammar schools’ advantages, disadvantages and classroom applicability into consideration, it has been suggested that pedagogical grammars should provide the “ability to exploit one’s grammatical resources in order to make meaning” (Bourke, 2005: 96).
The existence of different types of books along with their different aims could also be the reason for the difficulties that arise when teaching or learning because of their different organization, content, and the treatment of grammar (or the tense-aspect system in this study’s case). For instance, pedagogical and course books usually do not include information about language change and language development. Another potential reason that could cause difficulties in learning is the fact that the work of theoretical linguists is not always taken into account by teachers when teaching English as a second language in cases when the aim of teaching or a given instructional method is restricted to learning applied knowledge only. Focus on production without knowledge of theoretical background will raise more issues rather than solving the existing ones.
Previous research has also identified issues that make the teaching and learning of a language challenging and have suggested some improvements. For instance, Bourke (2005: 85) describes the five schools of grammar (prescriptive, descriptive, structuralist applied, generative and systematic functional) and gives guidelines for good pedagogy. It should be opted for: real English usage and simplicity including explanations and examples in plain English; straightforwardness and understandability involving inductive processes and displaying form- meaning mapping.
Since grammar is treated and described differently by different authors and books, and since existing methods have a number of shortcomings (cf. Chapter 10), it needs to be established how grammar ought to be addressed in the classroom and what improved method can be used in order to teach it. Nonetheless, caution is needed, especially in the search of the best method, since one can easily fall into the trap of overcompensating and overdoing it simply because:
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[l]anguage instruction that attempts to cater directly to social objectives, learning needs, target needs, learners' wants, teachers' preferences, learning styles, teaching constraints, and attitudes all round can end up as a mere assemblage of hard-found pieces of content and procedure-a formula that manages, with difficulty, to satisfy multiple criteria and therefore cannot afford to let itself be tampered with. (Prabhu, 1990: 165)
This means that even though “much good can come from working with language teaching methods, especially those that are contrary to one's established practice” (Larsen-Freeman, 2000b: 67), “no single method is best for everyone, as there are important variations in the context that influence what is best […] relating to social situation […] educational organisation […] teacher-related factors […] and learner-related factors” (Prabhu, 1990: 162). What this means is that there is no ideal teaching method or approach or even language teaching-learning theory that will take care of the issues outlined above for certain (and this is by no means the purpose of this study). A given method cannot work with all learners at all times. For instance, some teaching methods might be purpose specific, and that one method cannot work for all learners in the same way. Some methods cannot be applied in different teaching situations, and some methods work differently with different participants and with different teaching materials or subject matters.
Before establishing which of the three methods (Traditional, Five-Stage or LdL) would work best for SEEU undergraduate students, in the following lines, it will be analyzed what the word ‘method’ actually means and entails. Definitions of the word ‘method’ refer to the concept as a procedure, technique, lecture, game, and inquiry. This again would mean that, since a method can embody so many different elements of the teaching and learning process, it justifies the claim that not all teaching methods can work in diverse teaching environments. It is therefore the teachers’ role to find out which method works best for a given context. The question that remains is which method is the best method and how this can be determined. The answer could be that:
the notion behind an objective evaluation of methods is that there is something in a method that is by itself- independent of anyone's subjective perception of it-superior or inferior to what there is in another method. If some method were shown by such evaluation to be superior to all others, then that method would be expected to benefit all (or a large number of) classrooms, regardless of how it is subjectively perceived by the different teachers involved. (Prabhu, 1990: 171)
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In order to investigate which method would work best with this study’s particular environment, existing methods are reviewed (cf. Chapter 10), and only three are used in the experiment. Hence, the method that will be declared the best will be the method that:
yields the best results in terms of learning outcomes. Since the aim of all teaching is to bring about as much learning as possible as quickly as possible, it seems self-evident that teaching methods should be judged by the amounts of learning they can lead to, in a given period of time. (Prabhu, 1990: 168)
In addition to the above-mentioned issues that might affect learning, as a language and linguistics teaching assistant at the South East European University for seven years (where I have taught the courses English Morphology 1 and Morphology 2 to L1 Albanian students), I have encountered further challenges that are relevant for the setting of the current research study. The main problem that has been encountered (by me and my colleagues), was that even the best and most motivated learners with the highest GPA (Grade Point Average), fail to retain the appropriate use and application of the tense-aspect system by the time they enroll in linguistics courses (Morphology 2 and Syntax 1) in the semesters that follow Morphology 1.
Additionally, there is also (as mentioned above) an evident failure by these students to use the tense forms in spoken language while they are studying them, a skill which deteriorates further in the semesters to come. This guides one to the conclusion that SEEU students perform accurately in producing tense-aspect forms when they focus on form (doing exercises and taking tests), but use the tense forms inaccurately in speech inside and outside the classroom. My colleagues at SEEU and I have taken notice of this issue in our countless formal and informal encounters with our students, in all of which there was an insistence on communicating exclusively in English. This realization led to the following question: “how is it that learners can know something, in the sense that they are well aware of it when they are making sentences carefully and attentively, but at the same time not know it when they are producing language spontaneously?” (Willis, 2003: 2).
This means that even though the students are able to name the tense, generate sentences or identify the tense forms in isolation, they still fail to understand or use them appropriately when speaking. As a result, some of the students feel hesitant to use certain tense-aspect combinations (for instance the English Present Perfect, Past Perfect, Present Perfect Progressive or Past Perfect Progressive). In addition, those students who are aware of these gaps in their
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knowledge, avoid using certain tense forms altogether. This could also be due to the fact that some tense-aspect combinations (Present Perfect Progressive and Past Perfect Progressive) are not as frequently used as the other target tenses of this study. However, since these tense forms are part of the English tense-aspect system and part of the curriculum at SEEU, they need to be taught, learned and internalized by my students as future teachers and linguists.
The seriousness of the problem concerning the learners who are the participants of this study lies in the fact that the students can hardly successfully learn the passive voice, reported speech or the syntax of the English language if they have not mastered the English tense-aspect system. In order to be successful in SEEU courses like Syntax 1 and Morphology 2, they have to revise and relearn the tense forms taught and learned in the Morphology 1 course before they start the more advanced courses.
Alternatively, the failure to retain the information gained in the Morphology 1 course could also have a didactic cause. The teaching methods used in the Morphology 1 course, which are a combination of the Audio-Lingual Method and the Grammar-Translation method, could possibly impede integration and retention of tense forms. In order to test whether Traditional Methods are the cause of the struggle for SEEU students, as part of this study’s experiment, one group was taught in this way while two other groups were taught in alternative methods (Five-Stage and LdL).
A further cause of the difficulty to retain and integrate tense forms might lie in the motivation of the SEEU students and students in general (as already mentioned in section 1.1.). In the numerous formal and informal encounters with some of these students, a considerable number of them have admitted that their primary purpose of studying is not to obtain knowledge to use in their future professions, which underscores what has just been stated regarding students’ predominant motivation in this section. Some students study primarily to get a good grade or pass the exam, others study to get a high GPA as a prerequisite for starting a master’s degree, or in order to get or retain a scholarship. Consequently, the knowledge obtained in this way abides for a short period of time and is unlikely to enter their long-term memory or become part of their spoken English. As a result, these can be considered as additional factors that contribute to difficulties in learning tense and aspect.
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The final issue noted and investigated in my study is the fact that SEEU students perform worse in the mid-term and final exams in the course English Morphology 1 in contextualized exercises, as opposed to decontextualized exercises. For the sake of investigating the influence of task type on the acquisition of tense forms, both types of activities (contextualized and decontextualized) have been integrated into the written part of the experiment (cf. section 11.5.3. and Appendix 6).
For all of the above-mentioned reasons, I decided to investigate which method (Traditional, Five-Stage or LdL Method) will improve the acquisition and integration of English tense forms into speech. Nonetheless, before the settings of the investigation are outlined (cf. Chapter 11) and before it is examined which method is best for teaching tense-aspect (cf. Chapters 8 and 12), the next chapters (cf. Chapters 2,3,4,5 and 6) analyze the role and function of the tense- aspect systems in English and Albanian.
2. Tense and aspect
Since my study investigates the acquisition and integration of tense forms into speech, there is a need to define the terms and concepts relevant to tense and aspect theories (cf. Chapter 2); the tense-aspect system of the target language (English; cf. Chapter 3); the target tense-aspect combinations in English (cf. Chapter 4); the target tense-aspect combinations in Albanian (cf. Chapter 5); and finally, the direct comparison of the investigated tense-aspect combination in both English and Albanian (cf. Chapter 6). The general notion of time and how it relates to tense in grammar is addressed and the terms defined in this chapter followed by a more detailed analysis of the categories of tense and aspect. This chapter also briefly reviews previous discussions about the definition and realization of tense and aspect; finally, I detail the position assumed in my study.
2.1. Tense and time
The grammatical and notional difference between ‘tense’ and ‘time’ is one on which there is most agreement in previous research because of their straightforward and simple distinction. According to prior research, there are two major differences between the terms tense and time: a conceptual/logical difference and a reference/deictic distinction.
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As concerns the conceptual difference between tense and time, while time has a broader sense and a more general application, tense is widely regarded as a grammatical notion. The conceptual distinction between time and tense lies in the fact that time can be considered ‘extralinguistic’, while tense has ‘linguistic’ features (Declerck et al., 2006: 11). Moreover, “a tense expresses a tense structure [which] is a blueprint for one particular way of locating a situation in time” (Declerck et al., 2006: 95), meaning that the ‘extralinguistic time’ serves as a framework in which the linguistic tense can identify when a situation happened and determine the precise length of that action.
In addition, tense is a category that carries more information and has a more advanced relationship with the event itself than does the notion of time, which itself has a more general meaning and reference. The category of tense locates actions, situations or events in time, which makes it more specific and precise than the general notion of time. ‘Extralinguistic time’, on the other hand, is about the time flow of actions in general and is not grammaticalized, while the ‘linguistic time’ can be expressed morphologically (through verbs) and lexically (with temporal expression which co-occur with tense-aspect combinations). On a similar note, Michaelis (2006) claims that the notion of time is viewed in relation to space. This means that the linguistic description of tenses and combinations is done by using a space-time analogy called the ‘timeline’ consisting of the past, the present and the future (as Michaelis explains in the introduction of her paper).
The second way in which time differs from tense is in terms of deixis. Unlike time, the category of tense locates actions in time. Lyons (1977: 682) refers to tense as a ‘deictic category’ which means that tense is not simply tied to time, but rather that it entails connotations, on one hand, of event reference, and, on the other hand, time of speaking. From the above, we can conclude that time and tense differ both logically and deictically. What follows in the next section is the comparison of the category of tense with aspect, another feature of the verb.
2.2. Tense and aspect as different categories
While the dissimilarity of ‘linguistic tense’ and ‘extralinguistic time’ lies in the function and linguistic relevance of the two notions as demonstrated above, the following section presents the differentiation of tense and aspect, which is not considered as straightforward. A trend that has been present in previous research did not make a clear distinction between tense and aspect
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or rather treated them as one category. Comrie (1985: 7) issues a warning about treatment of tense and aspect as one category in traditional grammars and then indicates that “it is advisable to make the terminological distinction in order to avoid conceptual confusion”, which is what is intended in the rest of this section. The comparison of tense and aspect, or any attempt to discuss the two categories separately, is considered challenging and complex, as reflected by the conclusions from the literature reviewed in this section. Pinpointing the difference between tense and aspect is particularly hard when the tense-aspect systems of two languages are contrasted (Dahl and Velupillai, 2013). Nevertheless, as my thesis considers the differences in tense and aspect between English and Albanian, this distinction needs to be thoroughly addressed as an underlying principle of my argumentation.
As a clarification, since in my study tense and aspect (or rather the acquisition and integration of tense and aspect into speech) play a major role, and since the comparison of these systems becomes more challenging when two languages are compared (Dahl and Velupillai, 2013), the definitions and use of the categories are addressed by close analysis of the relevant research literature. This discussion is followed by a declaration of which standpoint is assumed in my study in order to establish a clear image of these two categories for the purpose of my analysis. The definitions and positions proposed are then assumed and implemented in the instructional and experimental part of this study. Establishing specific roles of tense and aspect will therefore facilitate the comparison of the English and Albanian tense-aspect systems (cf. Chapter 6), which will then be advantageous for the analysis of the results (cf. Chapter 12).
Concerning the separability of tense and aspect (based on the literature cited and the argumentation provided in this section), there is more support for treating the concepts as two distinct categories. The views for the equivalency of tense and aspect are analyzed first, followed by the numerous arguments for classifying them as distinct categories. The first argument for the connection of tense and aspect lies in their semantic similarity. Scholars who consider tense and aspect as linked (Michaelis, 2006) argue that they are ‘intimately related’ (Hornstein 1990: 9) because “aspect is so closely connected in the meaning with tense” (Quirk et al., 1985: 189). It follows that the first argument for the connection of tense and aspect lies in their semantic similarity.
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The second argument for the intimate relation of tense and aspect can be illustrated with one example that Comrie (1985: 7) uses to indicate the misleading presence of both tense and aspect in the same verb in the Spanish verb hablaba ‘speak’. In this Spanish verb, the tense is past and the aspect is perfective. Similarly, in the Albanian language, the verb bisedoja ‘speak’ illustrates features of both tense and aspect in one word, in which the tense is imperfect (cf. section 6.1.) while the aspect is progressive or habitual. For this reason, Comrie (1985: 7) points out that “it is crucial to maintain the conceptual distinction between tense and aspect” and the terminology used to define tense and aspect (and with that the terminology used to define the categories of tense and aspect) needs to be distinct. However, even though this argument indicates relatedness between tense and aspect, the fact that there are forms of the verb that contain both aspect and tense at the same time is not ultimate proof that the two are not separate categories, since there are verbs forms that have only one of them in the same language, and there are languages that have only aspect or tense in their verb forms (Olsen, 1997).
On the other hand, there are several strong arguments for the separability of tense and aspect. By definition, tense and aspect in English are different since aspect is “situation-internal time” and tense is “situation-external time” (Comrie, 1976: 5), whereas aspect (or the progressive aspect, to be more specific), provides an “inside view” into the nature of the action (Leech, 2004: 18). Aspect is also referred to as “the internal temporal contour of the event” (Downing and Locke, 2006: 370). The examples that Downing and Locke (2006) use to show the dissimilarity between tense and aspect are: He locked the safe and He was locking the safe. While both sentences are in the past tense, their aspect differs, since it is non-progressive in the first sentence and progressive in the other due to the “view point and focus of attention” of the actions (Downing and Locke, 2006: 369-370).
An additional difference between tense and aspect is that “[a]spect does not tell us anything about when the action takes place; it tells us something about whether the action is ongoing or completed” (Dypedahl et al., 2006: 89). In other words, the knowledge that we gain from aspect is not the exact time of the event happening (which is information that is provided by the category of tense), but over what period of time the action takes place and whether this action has been completed or not. Comrie (1976: 5) explains that tense is concerned with the location of the action, while aspect is more concerned with the duration and length of the action. He
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uses the following example: John was reading when I entered, which shows that the action of reading started before someone entered and could have continued after the person entered.
Furthermore, distinctions between tense and aspect are analyzed below grouped into semantic, logical, deictic, morphological, syntactical and durational differences. One difference between tense and aspect is in the realization of the category (Quirk et al., 1985), which is of morphological and syntactic nature, namely that:
the distinction in the English grammar between tense and aspect is little more than a terminological convenience which helps us to separate in our minds two different kinds of realization, the morphological realization of tense and the syntactic realization of aspect. (Quirk et al., 1985: 189)
Comrie (1985: 9) further exemplifies and defines the difference between tense and aspect in terms of realization of category by saying that “we would look at a particular form in a language, decide whether it does in fact express location in time and whether it is indeed a grammatical category, and then pronounce it to be tense or not”. This indicates that tense locates actions in time while the role of aspect is different. In his analysis of the examples he uses to clarify this, he states that the difference between: “John sang and John sings in English is one of tense, whereas that between John sings and John is singing […] [is] rather of aspect” (Comrie, 1985: 9). This means that tense indicates when exactly something happened while aspect clarifies the duration of the action.
Furthermore, as a counterargument to the claim that marking of tense and aspect in Romance languages is inflectional, which was given by Michaelis (2006) as a reason for considering them as one category, examples from other languages can be used to illustrate that the opposite is true. For instance, aspectual marking in English is periphrastic and in Slavic languages it is derivational, which provides grounds not only for the separateness of tense and aspect in some languages but also separate realization. Another instance in favor of “[t]he separation of tense from aspect is supported by the fact that some languages encode one but not the other” (Olsen, 1997: 5). The notion here is that since there are languages which do not have one of the categories this should mean that there is a way to separate the categories of tense and aspect.
The logical approaches also present grounds for the separation of the categories tense and aspect, by viewing tense as an operator extending its feature over or beyond aspect, while aspect operates within the verb. This means that while tense gives information about how the
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action relates to another time interval, aspect shows the duration and the completeness of the action within the state or action. For instance, “tense basically situates an event or state in present or past time, aspect is concerned with such notions as duration and completion or incompletion of the process expressed by the verb” (Downing and Locke, 2006: 361). Downing and Locke (2006) here provide a clear difference by claiming that the role of the category of tense is to indicate when an action took place, while the category aspect points out whether this action located by tense, has finished or is still on-going.
The deictic versus non-deictic quality of tense and aspect is the next argument used to indicate that the two categories are separate. Quirk et al. (1985: 188) differentiate between tense and aspect by saying that “[u]nlike tense, aspect is not deictic, in the sense that it is not relative to the time of utterance”, meaning that, while the category of tense can relate actions and states in utterances to the moment of speaking, this cannot be achieved with the category of aspect. Comrie (1985: 14) agrees that “tense is deictic […] [b]y contrast, aspect is non-deictic, since discussion of the internal temporal constituency of a situation is quite independent of its relation to any other time point”. This is a clear distinction between tense and aspect in terms of deixis which can also be illustrated with these two examples: She read a book and While reading, she took a call. In the first sentence, the reference is the past, while in the second sentence the action of reading is related to the call. In other words, while the action read took place in the past in relation to the deictic center, the action of reading in the second sentence, which is interrupted by took, is clearly longer and does not relate to the current deictic center. This then shows that tense is indeed a deictic category while aspect is not.
The feature of tense is thought to have a larger range of grammatical functions that go beyond the category of aspect (Herweg, 1991). This can be used as an additional argument for separating tense from the category of aspect. The semantic, logical, deictic, morphological and durational differences realized by tense and aspect are a further indicator of the difference between tense and aspect in the span that the former has over the latter. Tense as a category and as a grammatical form has a broader function (in terms of meaning, reference and inflections) and operation extent than aspect. Aspect serves the purpose of expressing duration and completion of actions. An example where morphology is used to determine the distinction between the two categories is the English Present Progressive, which has a tense feature represented with the auxiliary verb, and the aspect feature expressed with the -ing form of the
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verb (Michaelis, 2006: 2). Since tense and aspect employ different morphological means to indicate their purposes, they are indeed different categories.
It follows that, tense and aspect have a shared purpose namely, revealing information about an action and are a category of the verb, but they do differ in other respects (semantic, logical, deictic, morphological, syntactical and durational) as discussed in the previous paragraphs. This study, addresses the separability of these two categories in grammar and teaching texts, the reasons for this, and their linguistic (cf. Chapters 2,3,4 and 5) and pedagogical portrayal (cf. Chapter 7), along with the impact the separability of tense and aspect could potentially have on the success of the instructional undertaking in the current experiment (cf. Chapter 6). This study assumes that tense and aspect are not only different when it comes to their temporal relations, but differ also in morphological forms and meaning.
For this reason, tense and aspect are treated as separate categories in this study as concerns their description and realization. They are introduced as separate categories in all three teaching methods since their meaning and use are clearly differentiated in the grammars of both languages (English and Albanian). Considering tense and aspect as separate with different morphological and semantic connotations is in the interest of the testing of the teaching methods used in the experiment of my research. This approach is especially favorable when comparing the tense-aspect system of the English and Albanian language of the participants in this study since aspect is realized inflectionally and periphrastically (cf. Chapter 5) in the native language of the participants (L1 Albanian), hence this is the view that will be adopted and followed throughout my research.
Subsequently, tense (cf. section 2.3.) and aspect (cf. section 2.4.) are defined and analyzed in greater detail by drawing on examples from different languages in the following sections. More detailed analysis of tense (cf. section 3.1.) and aspect (cf. section 3.2.) in English and tense (cf. section 5.1.) and aspect (cf. section 5.2.) in Albanian is offered below in the relevant chapters.
2.3. Tense in language
After having established that the category of tense is different from ‘extralinguistic’ time (cf. section 2.1.) and different from the category of aspect (cf. section 2.2.), the exact definitions,
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theories, functions, reservations, and semantic diversity in discourse and in grammatical and lexical means of realization of tense are analyzed in this section.
Tense is feature of the verb that shows how verbs can “express the time of an event (tense)” (DeCapua, 2008: 165) which can be identified in time by using a timespan depicting the past, present and future (cf. Figure 2-1 by Declerck, 1995: 5). Tense can also be defined as a means of locating time using grammatical tools (Comrie, 1985), which is in direct relationship to another time reference, namely, an interval in time (Bybee, 1992). The approaches of Comrie (1985) and Bybee (1992) to the category of tense are close to Reichenbach’s (1947) explanation of how tense reference works in terms of intervals which include: speech time (S), reference time (R) and event time (E). All of these definitions of tense in language are considered further in the following paragraphs.
Declerck (1995: 5-6) illustrates his theory of tense by using a timespan which includes the sectors pre-present, present and post-present:
Figure 2-1: Pre-present, present and post-present sectors (Declerck, 1995: 5)
The sectors of past, pre-present, present and post-present are absolute tenses with regard to the t0 (temporal zero) point, where the past is separated in the Figure 2-1 from the other sectors, since Declerck (1995) believes that these sectors are not contiguous, arguing that there is a temporal greater or longer distance between the past and the pre-present when compared to the relationship between the pre- and post-present.
Comrie (1985: 3) seeks to provide an even more “general theory appropriate to all cultures, and thus to all languages” concerning the category and the concept of tense. When defining tense, Comrie says that “tense is [a] grammaticalised expression of location in time” (1985: 9) and that “locating situations in time is a purely conceptual notion” (1985: 7). According to Comrie’s claims, it can be observed or generalized that tense uses grammatical means to identify actions in time, which then again, is not a precise practice since Comrie (1985) calls this identification a concept. Therefore, the more precise identification of actions in time is more theoretical and perceptual than concrete.
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Comrie (1985: 14) explains that tense has the function of a locator of actions “at the same time as the present moment […] prior to […] or subsequent to the present moment” in terms of temporal intervals. What Comrie (1985) implies with this statement, in attempting to define how tenses determine the location of situations, is that tenses are used to express connections between temporal intervals. These temporal intervals had been previously elaborated on by Reichenbach (1947), who named them as speech time (S), which is the moment of speaking about an action, reference time (R), which is the time the action refers to, and event time (E), which refers to the actual time at which the action took place. One of the examples that he provides, I had been seeing John, illustrates that the event time (E) covers a longer time span, which means that seeing John had taken place over a longer period of time, in this case before the reference time (R), which happened after the event time (E), followed by the speech time (S) (Reichenbach, 1947: 290).
An illustration provided by Reichenbach (2011) shows that reference time (R), event time (E) and speech time (S) can be different in the time span. This difference can be seen in Figure 2- 2.
Figure 2-2: Reichenbach’s (2011: 3) representation of the direction of time
In the sentence I had seen John (cf. in Figure 2-2), all three time intervals have a different slot in the time span. Reference time (R) and event time (E) overlap when the speaker refers to a time in which that same event actually took place (cf. I saw John in Figure 2-2). I have seen John, on the far right of Figure 2-2, is a situation that is relevant to the current moment and this is probably the reason why reference time (R) and speech time (S) overlap.
Tense as a means of locating actions in time can have three different functions: “first to mark purely temporal relations of past and present time, secondly in the sequence of tenses that is mainly relevant for reported speech and thirdly to mark ‘unreality’ particularly in conditional clauses and wishes” (Palmer, 1988: 43). What is meant by temporal relations, sequence of
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tenses in reported speech and unreality in conditionals and wishes, is explained by Palmer (1988) in detail. First, time relations indicate past and present time. The second function of tense is the sequence of tense in reported speech referring to the shift of one tense back from direct into reported speech. This rule is not absolute as Palmer (1988: 44) explains, since the tense of the direct speech sentence can be used in the reported speech. The third function of tense is unreality in conditionals and wishes, which refers to the use of the past tense form for politeness, conditionals and wishes (Palmer, 1988: 47).
Palmer (1988) also explains that there are three reservations that need to be made about the function of tense. The first reservation is that the present time represents any period of time, irrespective of length, which has the present moment embedded (Palmer, 1988: 43). The second reservation, an exception to the first reservation, is one which Palmer (1988: 44) refers to as the historic present, where the present is used instead of the past in order to emphasize the element of vividness to the event being described. He mentions that this feature is not limited only to the English language. The third reservation is the complexity of the way in which tense is used because of habitual and future uses or forms (Palmer, 1988: 44).
Another dimension that Comrie (1985) applies to the semantic diversity of tense is the one of discourse. He says that:
the investigation of the meaning of a tense […] can best be approached by studying its use in discourse: rather, all that is argued here is that the investigation of the use of a grammatical category in discourse should not be confused with the meaning of that category; instead, the discourse functions should ultimately be accounted for in terms of the interaction of meaning and context. (Comrie, 1985: 29)
Here Comrie (1985) argues that the meaning in discourse and the grammar of the category of tense should not be confused with one another, since discourse is merely there to illustrate the relationship and role of the use of the tense in a given context. Comrie (1985: 19) explains that location in time of the tense can be contradictory in the case of Simple Past in English. The example that he uses here is: If you did this I would be very happy (Comrie, 1985: 19). Obviously, did in this sentence refers to the non-past rather than the past. It implicates that the happiness of one person would depend on what needs to be done being completed, and even occur once this has happened.
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It also needs to be pointed out that in the attempt to define and determine grammatical, semantic and morphological characteristics of the category of tense, there is a further definition that needs to be mentioned, namely the distinction between tense and tense form:
[a] tense is the grammatical expression of a particular temporal meaning. This means that a tense is an abstract concept: it is the correlation of a particular meaning with a particular form. […] A tense form is a concrete verb […] involving […] formal expression of a tense meaning. […] the meaning (semantics) of a tense is the temporal structure that is realized when a tense form locates a particular situation in time. (Declerck, 1995: 3)
This realization is important to this study because if tense is an expression of a meaning with grammatical or morphological means which can be inflectional or periphrastic versions of the verb, the concrete forms of the verb also need to be defined. This is undertaken in the following paragraphs.
“Tense is expressed by inflections, by particles, or by auxiliaries in construction with the verb” (Bybee, 1992: 223). This means that tense can be realized morphologically with affixes, particles and helping verbs (auxiliaries). Instances of all of these strategies for expressing or constructing tense can be observed in the Albanian language. In the sentence Unë mësova ‘I learned’, -va is an inflection for the imperfect tense. In the sentence Unë isha duke mësuar ‘I was studying’, duke is a particle that signals progressiveness. In the same sentence isha ‘was’ is an auxiliary, which is the third strategy for tense expression. Since this is the case in the Albanian language (the native language of the participants in my study) this definition of what tense is the view adopted in my study due to the pedagogical advantages it carries with it (cf. Chapter 6).
In addition to the morphological expression of tense, there is a further type and way of locating events. For instance, Comrie (1985) identifies lexicalization as a second kind of strategy for expressing localization in time. Lexicalization, unlike grammaticalization, displays no features of being “obligatory and morphologically bound” (Comrie, 1985: 10). A lexicalized tense would be the realization of the event reference by a lexical word rather than a grammatical indicator in the verb itself, like in the instance: We leave next week. Here the only indicator of when the event will take place is the time phrase next week. This example adds to Bybee’s (1992: 223) definition of what constitutes a tense. Hence, the view that inflection, particles and auxiliaries can be used to express tense, is the view that is adopted in the present study.
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The category of tense is described separately for English (cf. section 3.1.) and Albanian (cf. section 5.1.) as the languages of interest to my study, while the different types of tenses and tense-aspect combinations are addressed for English in Chapter 4 and in Chapter 6 where the English target tenses are compared to the Albanian near equivalents. The next category of the verb that can also be realized morphologically, the category of aspect, is addressed in the next section.
2.4. Aspect in language
Aspect has numerous definitions and different types (grammatical and lexical), and a distinct use and role when compared to the category of tense. This multitude of approaches to aspect means that it needs to be defined, but that doing so is rather challenging; the category of aspect is explored in what follows and in the following sections (cf. sections 2.4.1.-2.4.2.).
The following quotation is an indication of the versatility in the description of the category of aspect. It shows that deciding on a single definition of the term is challenging due to the numerous subjective views of this category of the verb: “[a]spect has almost as many definitions as there are linguists who have attempted to deal with it” (Tobin 1993: 3-4). If every linguist has his or her own definition regarding the category of aspect, this will of course make it difficult to draw conclusions about aspect and its role in the field of grammar. Nonetheless, what is evident from the statements and definitions analyzed in this section is that it seems to be easier to approach the category of aspect linguistically (cf. sections 2.4.1.; 2.4.2.; 3.2.1.; 3.2.2.; 5.2.) than pedagogically (cf. section 7.2.).
In more general terms, “[a]spect refers to a grammatical category which reflects the way in which the verb action is regarded or experienced with respect to time” (Quirk et al., 1985: 188). In other words, the category of aspect describes “the way in which the event is viewed” by the observer (Downing and Locke, 2006: 369-370) or “the way we view an action or state, in terms of the passing of time” (Leech et al., 2001: 54), meaning that it offers a closer look at and an inner approach to the action itself and the circumstances of that action. This so-called “inside view”, “internal temporal organization” or “situation-internal time” of an event (Bybee 1992: 157; Comrie 1976: 5; Leech, 2004: 18; respectively) provides “information regarding the duration or completion of an event” (DeCapua, 2008: 165; Dypedahl et al., 2006) and the continuousness or boundedness of an action (Palmer, 1988).
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The position that this study assumes (as already established in section 2.2.) concerning the separability of aspect from the category of tense is restated here for the sake of defining the category of aspect. As stated above (2.2.), there are some languages in which aspect plays a more important role than tense, or has even fully replaced the category of tense. For instance, Comrie (1976: 81) mentions that in Yoruba and Igbo there is no overt marking for the Simple Past to differentiate it from the Present Tense. However, these tenseless languages do have aspectual markers preceding the verb when expressing a situation related in the imperfect. Comrie (1976: 82) adds that the lack of means to indicate tense and lexical time reference does not hinder the past-present distinction in these languages since the perfective forms are considered as past and the imperfective ones as present, which is achieved with aspect rather than tense. These languages are an example of the significance of aspect in language and its ability to exist and function despite of the absence of the verb category of tense. Furthermore, tenseless languages can be used to support arguments stating that tense and aspect are different categories of the verb (as already established in section 2.2.). In fact, they are so different that one can survive without the other in the languages met honed above (Yoruba and Igbo). Even though there seem to be versatile definitions of aspect, the conclusion that can be drawn is that aspect is a category of the verb that is different from the category of tense because it focuses on the development of the action and provides information about the action, revealing whether it is ongoing or finished.
The following sections focus on the different types and roles of aspect in language and reveal some misconceptions about aspect and the major differences between the different types of aspect. It needs to be said that this is a semantic distinction of aspect, while the morphological one differentiates between grammatical types of aspect (cf. section 2.4.1.) and lexical aspect (cf. section 2.4.2.) which are described separately.
2.4.1. Grammatical aspect
The following sections (2.4.1.1. - 2.4.1.6.) address the different types of grammatical aspect, in particular their form, meaning and use, and counterparts in different languages (Albanian, Macedonian and English).
Every attempt by scholars to describe and define the category of aspect has also included information about the main types of aspect (perfect, progressive, perfective, imperfective).
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Nonetheless, these distinctions between the different types of grammatical aspect are not always clear, which is one main reason why there is much disagreement as to how to refer to certain aspectual terms (Comrie, 1976: 11). In some cases, the same term can be polysemous, whereas in other cases, two different terms can refer to the same thing. For instance, the perfect and perfective are two different terms in that the perfective illustrates the action as a whole (when compared to the imperfective), while the perfect designates an action with current significance (Comrie, 1976: 12).
The position assumed in this study is that there are different types of grammatical aspect, realized inflectionally or periphrastically, and which depending on their duration, continuousness and completedness can be imperfective (cf. section 2.4.1.1.) or perfective (cf. section 2.4.1.2.). In addition, I provide a comparison of the perfective and imperfective (cf. section 2.4.1.3.), progressive (cf. section 2.4.1.4.), habitual (cf. section 2.4.1.5.) and perfect aspect (cf. section 2.4.1.6.). This approach to aspect facilities the comparison of English and Albanian and the experimental part of my study.
2.4.1.1. Imperfective
According to Smith (1991: 111) the “[i]mperfective viewpoints present part of a situation, with no information about its endpoints”. This means that the imperfective does not indicate when and whether the action might finish as this is not its purpose; it rather focuses on the information within the action without pointing out its relevance to the outer structure. It can be referred to as a situation in which we use “a verb form which explicitly refers to part of the internal temporal structure of the situation, i. e. a verb form which does not refer to the complete situation, but only to its beginning, middle or end” (Declerck et al., 2006: 31). An example to illustrate this is: I was writing an essay when Henry came in, where the action of writing was interrupted by Henry’s arrival (Declerck et al., 2006: 31).
Concerning the imperfective aspect, depending on whether the focus is on the initial, middle or final stage of the incomplete action or the action in progress, Declerck et al. (2006: 31) explain that there are ‘ingressive’, ‘progressive’ and ‘egressive’7 types of imperfective aspect.
7 In this study the ingressive and egressive are not part of the analysis. Only the progressive and habitual are defined and exemplified, since only these types of imperfectivity exist and are of interest in both the languages under consideration (English and Albanian).
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The habitual is also considered as a type of the imperfective aspect according to Downing and Locke (2006: 377). After defining the imperfective, what follows here is the analysis of the perfective aspect.
2.4.1.2. Perfective
This section defines the perfective aspect, and gives a comparative account of the perfective and the perfect aspect. The conceptual distinction of perfective and imperfective will serve as a reference point to the opposition in English (cf. section 3.2.1.1.) and in Albanian (cf. section 5.2.1.).
“Perfectivity is often taken to be 'the' category of aspect” (Dahl, 1985: 69) [original emphasis] which is general and holistic (Comrie, 1976) and is used to convey “the idea of current relevance” (Declerck et al., 2006: 38) for a given action or situation. A similar take on the use of the perfective is offered by Bybee et al. (1994: 92), who claim that perfectivity denotes a ‘present state’, meaning a connection or relevance to the current moment.
Comrie (1976) defines the perfective as an action that is ‘complete’ but not ‘completed’, since the term completed focuses on the fact that the action is finished. The perfective, however, takes all parts of the action into consideration and does not put emphasis on just one of them. The completed-complete distinction can be best defined when the perfective is compared to the perfect. A clear difference between perfect and perfective, terms that have so far been used interchangeably in scholarship (Dahl, 1985: 139-10; Dypedahl et al., 2006), is illustrated with the following examples borrowed from Macedonian and Albanian (2-1a, 2-1b, 2-1d, 2-1e):
(2-1a) Macedonian perfective: Тие из-работија нов метод. They past-develop new method ‘They developed a new method.’
(2-1b) Albanian perfective: Ata zhvillu-an një metodë të re. They develop-past one method CL. new ‘They developed a new method.’
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(2-1c) English perfective: They developed a new method.
(2-1d) Macedonian perfect: Tие има-ат изработе-но нов метод. They have-present develop-participle new method ‘They have developed a new method.’
(2-1e) Albanian perfect: Ata kan-ë zhvill-uar një metodë të re. They have-present develop-participle one method CL. new ‘They have developed a new method.’
(2-1f) English perfect: They have developed a new method.
From a morphological point of view, the formation of the perfective and perfect in all three languages (Macedonian, Albanian and English) is very similar. In fact, all three languages use morphological means, namely affixes, to show the completedness of the perfective sentence: из- for Macedonian, -an for Albanian and -ed for English. Likewise, the formation of the perfect in all three languages is alike, since all three languages use a helping verb: имаат ‘have’ in Macedonian, kanë ‘have’ in Albanian and have in English. In the perfect too, the participle verb form is used: изработено ‘developed’ in Macedonian, zhvilluar ‘developed’ in Albanian. Consequently, the three languages (Macedonian, Albanian and English) also show syntactical similarities, since the word order is identical in all three languages for the perfective and the perfect. From a semantic point of view, the perfect and perfective examples (2-1a to 2- 1f) have the same result: a new method now exists and the action has finished. In other words, the result is the same and both the perfective and the perfect examples show that the action has been completed. The only semantic difference would be that the perfect stresses the process of building, whereas the perfective focuses on the outcome and the fact that the action is completed. So, while the perfective indicates that an action has been completed, the perfect relates a past action to the current moment or emphasizes the result in the present.
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2.4.1.3. Imperfective and perfective in comparison
In the previous two sections, the perfective was defined as an aspect that indicates if actions are complete (Comrie, 1976) (cf. section 2.4.1.2.), and the imperfective as an aspect that draws attention to the ongoingness of the action (cf. section 2.4.1.1.). The current section compares the semantics, use, form and attempts to resolve the confusion evident in scholarly literature about the meaning of the imperfective in comparison to the perfective.
The perfective-imperfective opposition can be best explained when it is compared to the aorist- non-aorist opposition (Dahl, 1985: 85). In some languages (Russian, Polish, Czech and Bulgarian according to Dahl (1985: 85; and, I would note, Albanian), there is a direct link between the perfective and aorist on the one hand, and the imperfective and non-aorist on the other, which would lead to the conclusion that the aorist is a finished, completed action while the non-aorist is an unfinished incomplete action8.
Perfective and imperfective differ in the way they view the action, since in the perfective “the situation is to be viewed as a bounded whole” while the imperfective “looks inside the temporal boundaries of the situation” (Bybee, 1992: 157). They differ further in the way that they focus on an action, and the part of the action they are concerned with, namely:
the perfective looks at the situation from outside, without necessarily distinguishing any of the internal structure of the situation, whereas the imperfective looks at the situation from inside, and as such is crucially concerned with the internal structure of the situation, since it can both look backwards towards the start of the situation, and look forwards to the end of the situation, and indeed is equally appropriate if the situation is one that lasts through all time, without any beginning and without any end. (Comrie, 1976: 4)
In other words, the perfective aspect provides the overall information about the action, while the imperfective aspect focuses on when the action began and when it will finish. The imperfective covers actions that might have a beginning and an end, and the imperfective can also be used when the starting point or finishing line are irrelevant.
Since neither the perfective nor the imperfective provide information about the precise length of the action or whether the action is completed, Comrie (1976: 16) points out that there is a
8 This opposition in the Albanian language is elaborated on in Chapter 5; section 5.2.1..
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misconception about the perfective and the imperfective in that the perfective aspect is used with shorter actions while the imperfective is used with longer ones, discussed with the help of examples (cf. examples 2-2a to 2-2d below). In these examples, the only scenario in which the imperfective could be longer is the case in which the building lasted for two years and might continue (cf. examples 2-2c and 2-2d), since this is an incomplete action as opposed to a perfective one that lasted for two years and was completed within those two years (cf. examples 2-2a and 2-2b). In other words, if the building continues in the imperfective sentence then this could mean that the imperfective does in fact express a longer action than the perfective in general.
Nonetheless, from the examples 2-2a to 2-2d, it can also be observed that the there is no indication that the imperfective is used with longer actions than the perfective, as both example sentences (perfective and imperfective) in both languages (Macedonian and Albanian) use the same verb. In both cases the building of the house could have lasted exactly the same amount of time, the sole difference being that the moment of speech for the perfective sentence is after the action finishes, while for the imperfective sentences the moment of speaking is during the action of building. This means that the perfective stresses the fact that the action is finished, while the imperfective stresses the process of building the house.
Examples (2-2a to 2-2d) show that Albanian9 and Macedonian are both languages that can express perfective and imperfective actions by using morphological means including: helping verbs, prefixes and suffixes. Precisely the morphological realization of these two aspects is challenging to determine and the difficulty in deciding “which member of the opposition is marked and which is unmarked is connected with the tendency for PFV:IPFV to be realized not by affixation or by periphrastic constructions but rather by less straightforward morphological processes” (Dahl, 1985: 73). The concern about the clear marking of the perfective or imperfective becomes evident when we look at examples (2-2a) and (2-2c) in Albanian and Macedonian, where the only difference between the perfective and the imperfective example sentences is that the verb in the perfective example, that indicates that the action has finished, has the prefix из- (cf. example 2-2a), whereas the suffix -a in example
9 Imperfective actions in Albanian can also be expressed with the imperfect tense which can be realized with suffixation and/or progressive particles (cf. section 6.1.).
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2-2c indicates the imperfectivity of the action. In 2-2b and (2-2d) there are suffixes that also clearly indicate the perfective-imperfective opposition; compare -an and -shin, respectively.
(2-2a) Macedonian perfective: Tие из-градиja куќа зa 2 гoдини. They past-build house for 2 years ‘They built a house in 2 years.’
(2-2b) Albanian perfective: Ata ndërtu-an një shtëpi për 2 vite. They build-past one house for 2 years ‘They built a house in 2 years.’
(2-2c) Macedonian imperfective: Tие градe-a куќа зa 2 гoдини. They build-IMPRF. house for 2 years ‘They were building a house for 2 years.’
(2-2d) Albanian imperfective10: Ata ndërtoj-shin11 një shtëpi për 2 vite. They build-IMPRF. one house for 2 years ‘They were building a house for 2 years.’
Here a morphological analysis can provide more insight into the perfective and imperfective in these two languages. The prefix из- in the verb of the sentence in Macedonian indicates that the action has been completed (2-2a). The suffix -an in Albanian (2-2b) indicates that the action has finished. In the imperfective example (2-2c) for Macedonian, the prefix из- is missing in the Simple Past, and the imperfective form of the verb realized with the suffix -a is used to express that the action is not finished. In example 2-2d, the Albanian language makes use of the suffix -shin to mark imperfectivity, which is also a suffix indicating the third person plural. This means that this suffix would have different forms in the conjugation of the verb for person and number.
10 The imperfective aspect in Albanian can also be achieved with particle constructions (cf. section 5.2.2.). 11 The imperfect tense in Albanian can also be used for habitual actions (cf. section 6.1.).
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English uses the Simple Past and a non-progressive aspect to express perfectivity, namely that the house was built (which naturally takes some time) and that the action of building it has finished. When analyzing the English sentence (They were building a house for 2 years), it becomes apparent that an auxiliary and the suffix -ing are used to express imperfectivity; in other words, the Simple Past is used with a continuous aspect. Unlike English, what can be noticed in the examples above is that Macedonian and Albanian do not need to use the perfect tense or the progressive aspect in order to express the imperfective or an unfinished action.
A further difference between the perfective and imperfective is offered by Comrie (1976: 7) who discusses aspect in semantic terms regardless of whether this grammatical feature is expressed lexically or grammatically. The languages that Comrie (1976) uses to explain this are Russian and Spanish, which have a clear distinction in form and meaning regarding the perfective and the imperfective as opposed to English, which cannot provide for the same distinction. The sentences below (cf. examples 2-3a to 2-3n) are illustrations of the perfective and imperfective in languages that have an overt marking of the two aspects:
(2-3a) Macedonian perfective: Jac на-пишав стихотворба вчера. I past-write poem yesterday ‘I wrote a poem yesterday.’
(2-3b) Russian perfective: Я на-писала стихотворение вчера. I past-write poem yesterday ‘I wrote a poem yesterday.’
(2-3c) Bulgarian perfective: Аз на-писах стихотворение вчера. I past-write poem yesterday ‘I wrote a poem yesterday.’
(2-3d) Albanian perfective: Unë shkro-va një poemë dje. I write-past one poem yesterday ‘I wrote a poem yesterday.’
(2-3e) Serbian perfective: Јa сам на-писао пoeму jуче. I be-past past-write poem yesterday ‘I wrote a poem yesterday.’
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(2-3f) Spanish perfective: Yo escribí un poema ayer. ‘I wrote a poem yesterday.’
(2-3g) French perfective: J'ai ecris un poème hier. ‘I wrote a poem yesterday.’
(2-3h) Macedonian imperfective: Jac пишув-ав стихотворба вчера. I write-IMPRF. poem yesterday ‘I was writing a poem yesterday.’
(2-3i) Russian imperfective: Я писа-ла стихотворение вчера. I write-IMPRF. poem yesterday ‘I was writing a poem yesterday.’
(2-3j) Bulgarian imperfective: Аз пише-х стихотворение вчера. I write-IMPRF. poem yesterday ‘I was writing a poem yesterday.’
(2-3k) Albanian imperfective12: Unë ish-a duke shkr-uar një poemë dje. I be-IMPRF. PROG. write-participle one poem yesterday ‘I was writing a poem yesterday’.
(2-3l) Serbian imperfective: Ja сам писа-ла пoeму јуче. I be-past write- IMPRF. poem yesterday ‘I was writing a poem yesterday.’
(2-3m) Spanish imperfective: Yo estuve escribiendo un poema ayer. ‘I was writing a poem yesterday.’
(2-3n) French imperfective: J'écrivais un poème hier. ‘I was writing a poem yesterday.’
When we analyze the structure of the perfective and the imperfective of these seven languages, we can see that Macedonian, Russian, Spanish, Bulgarian and Albanian use different means in the perfective to express the perfectivity of the action. Macedonian, Russian and Bulgarian use
12 The imperfective aspect in Albanian can be also denoted with the imperfect tense (cf. section 6.1.).
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the prefix на- to express perfectivity in addition to the conjugation suffixes indicating person and number, while in Spanish and Albanian there is only a conjugation suffix. In addition, Serbian expresses the perfective aspect by using the auxiliary сам ‘to be’ and the prefix на- to express a finished action. French likewise uses a helping verb in order to achieve the same effect.
In the perfective examples, it can be observed in contrast that Macedonian, Russian and Bulgarian mark finished actions by using morphemes. Moreover, imperfectivity in all three languages is similarly marked by a suffix. On the other hand, Serbian, Albanian and Spanish use the auxiliary verb to be with the aim of express imperfectivity. Only Macedonian and Bulgarian use minimal morphological means (inflections) to express the perfective aspect in comparison to the other languages presented above (Spanish, Albanian, Serbian, French, and English). The perfective and imperfective are further described in the Chapter 3 (cf. section 3.2.1.1.) for English and Chapter 5 (cf. section 5.2.1.) for Albanian by building on the concepts outlined in the current section.
2.4.1.4. Progressive
The progressive as part of the imperfective aspect has its own section in this chapter where its different realizations and uses are defined, since this will facilitate defining the progressive aspect separately and in comparison to the progressive in Albanian (cf. section 5.2.2.).
The progressive is a morphological aspect that is used to “express progressive meaning, i. e. to focus on the middle of the situation or on some (punctual or durative) part of the middle of the situation” (Declerck et al., 2006: 32). Moreover, the progressive is used to “indicate a dynamic action in the process of happening” (Downing and Locke, 2006: 373). It can be realized not only morphologically, but also lexically and semantically. All three ways of realization are defined and illustrated in this section.
The first realization, morphological realization of progressiveness, in English is realized through suffixation by adding -ing to the main verb, as in the sentence: I was writing a report. This is similar in Macedonian and Albanian (the languages that the participants in my study speak), since they are languages that use suffixation in order to express progressive or repeated actions in the past. For the first person singular in Macedonian the morphological realization
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is the suffix -aв as in: Jас пишував извештај ‘I was writing a report’, while for the first person singular in Albanian it would be the suffix -ja: Unë shkroja një raport13 ‘I was writing a report’.
The lexical realization of progressiveness is the second realization which is provided by Palmer (1988) who when explaining aspect, focuses on the progressive and its indication of duration in association with temporal indicators. As Palmer (1988: 55) clarifies, “[t]he duration that is associated with the progressive is clearly indicated by collocation with such adverbials as all morning, for a long time, continually: I was reading all morning”. Here the progressive aspect is realized morphologically, but the exact duration is established lexically with the temporal expression. This is also evident in the translated example from Albanian:
(2-4) Ai ish-te duke lex-uar gjith mëngjes. He is-IMPRF. PROG. read-participle all morning ‘He was reading all morning.’
In this sentence, the particle duke (cf. section 5.2.2.2.) indicates progressiveness, but gjith mëngjes ‘all morning’ tells us the exact duration of the action.
Furthermore, Palmer (1988: 56-58) states that the progressive is used in five different ways:
with adjectivals and adverbials denoting reduction; with adverbials where the progressive affects when an action actually took place; to indicate incompletedness of the action; to show the so called ‘broken activity’, meaning that the progressive action could be taking place at the moment before the moment of speaking, with the likelihood of continuing after the moment of speaking; in combination with the perfect focusing on the duration of an action for a certain period of time.
Firstly, adjectivals can indicate whether the action that the verb carries increases or intensifies, like in the following example: It's getting bigger and bigger (Palmer, 1988: 56) [original contraction]. Secondly, sentences like: When I saw him, he was running away versus When I
13 The verb shkroja in the sentence: Unë shkroja një raport, can be also translated as: ‘used to write’ since the imperfect tense in Albanian can express both progressiveness and habituality (cf. section 6.1.).
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saw him, he ran away use the same adverbial but differ in the presence of progressiveness and have different meanings (Palmer, 1988: 57). In the first sentence, the running away happened or has started before the seeing of it, indicating that there is parallel development of the two actions. In the second sentence, the running away happened after the seeing or might have even been caused by the seeing. Thirdly, I was painting the table this morning clearly denotes an action is not finished when this sentence is compared to I painted the table this morning (Palmer, 1988: 57). Fourthly, I'm writing a book might mean that this action was ‘broken’ by the moment of speaking or, as Palmer (1988: 58) explains, it could also mean that this person is in the process of writing this book. Fifth, He’s been working for a long time is a sentence that displays all three features: the progressive and the perfect and an adverbial, which all help to indicate that this action is momentary and could have been repeated over a certain period of time (Palmer, 1988: 55).
Palmer (1988: 68) also mentions two additional functions of the progressive aspect: one with limited duration and the other with sporadic or periodic repetition. The example given depicting a progressive habitual situation with a restricted period is: He’s going to work by bus, a sentence that indicates that this is a temporary situation. On the other hand: She’s always breaking things is an example of the progressive use, which indicates a repeated action with no indication of stopping the habit of breaking things (Palmer, 1988: 69).
Even though it was established that the progressive is used to denote duration, there is a way of displaying duration without progressiveness which is provided by Comrie (1976: 33). He argues this by explaining the difference between progressiveness and imperfectivity. The imperfective can be habitual without being progressive, like in the sentence: She used to visit her parents. Habitual aspect can have iterative meaning used for the description of a situation that repeated itself, but also for situations that have no iterative meaning or actions that did not happen repeatedly in the past (Comrie, 1976: 27). This type of aspect is described in more detail in the following section.
2.4.1.5. Habitual
This section outlines how the habitual can be aspectual, modal or even function as a tense, and demonstrates that it can be achieved with adverbs. It further addresses the criteria that need to be fulfilled in order for an action to be habitual, and I argue that the habitual is one of the
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ambiguous meanings of the Imperfect, and the habitual is an aspect that can be combined with other aspects.
For an action to be considered as habitual it needs to fulfill certain criteria, for instance, it should “describe a situation which is characteristic of an extended period of time, so extended in fact that the situation referred to is viewed not as an incidental property of the moment but, precisely, as a characteristic feature of a whole period” (Comrie, 1976: 27-28). What this means exactly Comrie (1976: 28) explains with the following example: Sally used to throw stones at my window in the morning. Here the throwing of the stones must be an action that happened repeatedly over a period of time for the aspect to be habitual. If she threw the stones just a few times (as opposed to regularly and over a period of time), then this sentence could not be habitual.
Comrie (1985: 40) states that habituality can be aspectual (“it refers to the internal temporal contour of a situation”) and modal (“since it involves induction from limited observations about the actual world to a generalisation about possible worlds”). Comrie (1985: 40) also discusses alternative means of realization of the habitual by saying that “one could expect habituality to be expressed by means of a tense, since it involves location of a situation across a large slice of time” which is the case in Albanian. In this language KOHA E PAKRYER or imperfect, is used to denote habitual or repeated actions (cf. section 6.1.).
Habituality can be modal, since modal verbs like: will, would and used to are “fully grammaticalized expressions of habitual aspect” and also can and could are also sometimes used to express habitual actions like in the two examples: John can be very tired when he comes home from work and When I was young, winters could be much colder (Declerck et al., 2006: 34). Declerck et al. (2006: 34) explain that there is a difference in use when the semi-auxiliary used to and the auxiliary would are used in English. Both auxiliaries can “create the idea of a past habit involving repeated actualizations of a dynamic situation”, as in the example: He {would often come / used to come} and talk to her when he had finished working (Declerck et al., 2006: 34). For instance, when the action describes a “past habit which does not involve dynamic subsituations”, like in the sentence: As a child, Edith {used to be / *would be} afraid of mice, would is not a suitable alternative (Declerck et al., 2006: 34).
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Additional means for expressing habitual actions in English include repetitive adverbs like habitually, usually and normally, as in example: John {habitually / mostly / usually} skips breakfast because he gets up too late (Declerck et al., 2006: 35). Since this is not a time restricted habit, this type of habitual is called ‘permanent habit’. In the cases when there is a time restriction to the habit, i.e. it is temporary, then the progressive form can be used: She’s sleeping on the veranda while this hot weather lasts, which is referred to as a ‘temporary habit’ (Declerck et al., 2006: 35). Declerck et al. (2006: 35) mention here that the repetitiveness of the sleeping on the veranda is implied due to common-sense reasoning and not the progressive form itself. Since English does not have the iterative aspect, in this particular language repetition adverbials like repeatedly and over and over and frequency adverbials like sometimes and often can be used, as in this example: The murderer repeatedly coshed his victim on the head (Declerck et al., 2006: 36).
Comrie (1976: 31) says that the habitual aspect can be combined with other aspects in certain languages (Russian and Bulgarian). The example sentence in Bulgarian: stom pukneše (Pfv. Imperfect) zorata, izkarvax ovcite navan translates to English as: ‘as soon as dawn broke, I used to drive the sheep out’. Comrie (1976: 32) says that pukneše encodes both the perfective and imperfective, whereas in the other part of the sentence izkarvax denotes the habitual action. This combination of aspects is also possible in Albanian and is exemplified in sections 5.2.3. and 6.1.
In a perfective-imperfective comparison there is an ambiguity as to whether the imperfective denotes a habitual or a progressive action (Kroeger, 2005: 155, in agreement with Comrie, 1976). This is exemplified by the following Spanish verbs, where the second example is the one that can be translated as habitual or progressive in English: leyó in English is translated as ‘read’ (past) while leía can be translated as ‘was reading’ or ‘used to read’ (habitual past). The same ambiguity issue is present in Albanian where an action in the imperfect tense with an imperfective aspect can be translated into progressive or habitual in English. An example of this is the following sentence (2-5):
(2-5) Sara vizato-nte lule. Sara draw- IMPRF. flowers ‘Sara was drawing/used to draw flowers.’
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The disambiguation of the imperfect tense in Albanian depends on the context and is further explained in section 6.1.. What this implies is that habituality is clearer and unambiguously realized in English, which is discussed in section (cf. section 3.2.1.4.).
2.4.1.6. Perfect
A general definition of the perfect and the types of perfect, its function and use, are the main points discussed in this section. This section also serves as a building ground for the perfect which is then further defined in Chapter 3 (cf. section 3.2.1.5.) for the English language and in Chapter 5 (cf. section 5.2.4.) for the Albanian language.
To begin with, the perfect aspect has the unique feature that it “tells us nothing directly about the situation in itself, but rather relates some state to a preceding situation” (Comrie, 1976: 52). This type of aspect is different from other aspect types since it represents a “relation between two time-points, on the one hand the time of the state resulting from a prior situation, and on the other, the time of that prior situation” (Comrie, 1976: 52) and the time-points that the perfect relates are “a state or event to a relevance time (R)” (Downing and Locke, 2006: 361). This means that if one considers the sentence I have eaten, the perfect aspect presents the relation between the present and the past (Comrie, 1976: 52). In other words, the time-point from the past is the actual time when the eating took place, while the present point of time is the result, which implies fullness or inability to eat again.
The current relevance of the perfect aspect can be illustrated with the following two examples (by Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999: 162):
(2-6a) I have already eaten.
(2-6b) I already ate.14
While the meal could have been eaten at the same time in both examples, the difference lies in the fact that example 2-6b “does not signal any assumption of the current relevance” (Celce-
14 It needs to be pointed out here that I already ate is more acceptable in American English than in British English.
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Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999: 163). By saying I already ate this facts that the ‘eating’ has taken place and that it has nothing to do with the current moment.
The perfect aspect can also have several different types according to Comrie (1976: 59), namely, experiential and resultative (which can also be found in Albanian, section 6.3.). Comrie (1976: 59) argues that the experiential perfect and the perfect of result have a clear difference.
(2-7a) Bill has been to America. (experiential perfect)
(2-7b) Bill has gone to America. (perfect of result)
Here it is implied that in the sentence where the verb go is used (cf. example 2-7b) denotes that Bill is in America at the moment of speaking, while in the sentence where the verb be is used (cf. example 2-7a), it is not clear whether he is there now or not, however, it definitely implies that he has gone there at some point in the past.
The perfect as aspect or as part of tense-aspect combinations in English is explained in section 3.2.1.5., along with the different tense-aspect combinations that have the perfect aspect in English (cf. sections 4.3.; 4.4. and 4.5.). The form and use of the perfect in Albanian and a comparison of the perfect in the two languages (English and Albanian), outlining whether the similarities or differences pose a pedagogical concern, are introduced in section 5.2.4. and further discussed in sections: 6.3., 6.4., 6.5. and 6.6..
The discussion above of the perfect aspect concludes the section on grammatical aspect, which leads to the discussion of the second type of aspect: the lexical aspect.
2.4.2. Lexical aspect
Lexical aspect, or Aktionsart, reveals information about types of verbs and telicity, and provides insight into the function of some parts of grammatical aspect. In other words, “[l]exical aspect proves to be an invaluable tool for understanding the functioning of the Progressive and the Perfect aspects” (Downing and Locke, 2006: 370). Situation types, telicity and the interaction of lexical aspect with grammatical aspect will be examined here.
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Lexical aspect distinguishes different situation types whose classification varies in terminology. This means that, while Vendler’s (1967) classifies them as ‘states’, ‘activities’, ‘accomplishments’ and ‘achievements’, Lyons (1977) uses the following terms: ‘states’, ‘actions’, ‘processes’ and ‘events’. The different situation types are explained and exemplified in detail in section 3.2.2. for the English language.
One of the distinctions that can be made among the different situation types are the tense-aspect combinations they can be used with. For instance, as Gabriele (2008: 374) points out, accomplishments and activities can be progressive and used in progressive tense-aspect combinations, while states and achievements can be used with non-progressive tense-aspect combinations. It can thus be established that there is an interaction between the lexical and grammatical aspect for some languages (like English and Japanese, according to Gabriele, 2008).
When discussing lexical aspect, the semantic difference between telic and atelic aspect is crucial. Ryle (1949) specifies that while telic verbs indicate a presumed ending point pertinent to the action of the verb in a given utterance, atelic verbs do not have an inherent point of completion. Therefore, accomplishments and achievements are telic since there is an implied finishing interval in time, while states and activities are atelic since they do not specify an ending point. However, it can be pointed out that the distinction between telic and atelic is not that straightforward, since:
one and the same event of running can be described by running (i.e. by an atelic predicate, or by running a mile (i.e. a telic, or delimited, predicate). Hence the distinction between telicity and atelicity should not be one in the nature of the object described, but in the description applied to the object. (Krifka, 1998: 207)
This is of particular relevance to this study since telicity is an important feature that can have pedagogical advantages, because it can be used to define the difference between Present Perfect and Present Perfect Progressive. They have painted indicates achievement and completedness of an action, while They have been painting does not indicate an endpoint. This shows that the atelic second example can be considered as reason for the house looking nice, stressing the duration of the action rather than its endpoint.
The role of lexical aspect in interaction with grammatical aspect is seen as the “expression of inherent characteristics, such as (non)staticness, (non)durativeness, etc., of a kind of situation
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as it is linguistically represented by a verb phrase that has not yet been marked for progressive or nonprogressive aspect” (Declerck et. al., 2006: 49). In other words, lexical aspect or the situation type, for instance ‘state’, determines whether the grammatical aspect of the action in which this state has been used can be progressive or not. An instance of this is that “most stative processes don’t usually accept the progressive or the imperative” [original contraction] (Downing and Locke, 2006: 123). This means that it would be incorrect to use a stative verb like seem with a progressive aspect as in example 2-8 (Downing and Locke, 2006: 123):
(2-8) *Pete is seeming kind.
The reason for the incompatibility of the situation types with the progressive is due to the dynamic nature of the progressive aspect, while stative verbs do not have dynamic aspect (Downing and Locke, 2006: 373). The fact is, however, that there are stative verbs that can function in the progressive form, like in example 2-9 (Downing and Locke, 2006: 373):
(2-9) I’m seeing the doctor tomorrow. [original italics]
Nonetheless, the stative verb see here is thought to mean something else; seeing a doctor would mean consulting and visiting a doctor (Downing and Locke, 2006: 373). Additionally, this sentence does not have a progressive connotation, since the progressive is a ‘temporary state’ (Downing and Locke, 2006: 373), while seeing a doctor is a repeated action that might happen on several occasions.
2.5. Concluding remarks
As a conclusion for this chapter it can be said that the distinction between tense and time is a fairly straightforward matter with almost unanimous consensus among grammarians and linguists. The clarification of the difference between tense and time was a necessary prerequisite for a more in-depth investigation of the category of tense later in this study.
The second issue discussed in this chapter, tense versus aspect is a more challenging one, since there are many different views and approaches to these categories in terms of their similarity, not to mention numerous definitions and theories of what a tense or aspect actually is. However, since grammarians and linguists have established that the categories tense and aspect approach
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the action carried by the verb from the outside versus the inside, this offers grounds for drawing the conclusion that tense and aspect are in fact different categories and have different roles in grammar.
Consequently, since tense and aspect can clearly be defined and differentiated as two diverse categories, in this study they are allayed as separate concepts in the setting of all three teaching methods of the experiment. Separating the two has a linguistic and pedagogical advantage since it can help the teaching and learning processes, which will be elaborated in detail in section 8.2.2. of Chapter 8.
Admittedly, lexical aspect also plays an important role in the current research, since the participants in this study have been taught aspect grammatically and lexically. Moreover, the lexical aspect is one that is used more in speech, since learners who are not very proficient tend to use the lexical aspect to replace the grammatical one when grammatical aspect escapes them at the moment of speaking. Lexical aspect, grammatical aspect and the category of tense are defined and illustrated through examples for the English language in Chapter 3.
3. Tense and aspect in English
Books, and the way the material is presented in different types of book (theoretical, reference, self-study, practice, pedagogical, descriptive; cf. Chapter 7), were mentioned in section 1.4. as a factor that might cause challenges in both the learning and teaching processes of tense and aspect. After reviewing different texts (theoretical and linguistic), two issues emerged: firstly, disagreement about tense and aspect in linguistics texts, and secondly, the varying descriptions of the English tense-aspect system in linguistic and pedagogical texts (cf. sections 7.1. and 7.2.). The aim of the literature review in this chapter is to examine the lack of consensus concerning the above-mentioned issues and to shed light on tense and aspect issues from a linguistic perspective. I build upon the literature under review to construct a coherent explanation of tense and aspect in English. This is undertaken so that once a unified picture of the tense-aspect system in English is provided, this can be compared to the system in Albanian (cf. Chapter 6).
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The description of the tense-aspect system in English has led to an intricate discussion that involves a number of potentially debatable issues, among which are:
the separability of tense and aspect (cf. section 2.2.); the criteria of what constitutes a tense; the portrayal of tense and aspect in linguistics texts (cf. sections 3.1. and 3.2.) and the exact number of absolute and relative tenses, including the existence of the future tense (cf. section 3.1.); the inconsistent terminology used to refer to tense-aspect combinations in English (namely, the treatment of tense-aspect combinations as tenses rather than combinations); excluding discussion of research findings from teaching texts.
Conclusions concerning the first issue of the separability of tense and aspect, which has already been addressed above (cf. section 2.2.), are briefly restated here, while the other issues outlined in the list above (what constitutes a tense, the number of tenses, and absolute and relative tenses in English) are addressed in section 3.1..
Tense and aspect can be treated as different categories (cf. section 2.2.) since tense is used to clarify the time frame in which an action takes place, while the category of aspect discloses information about the action’s ‘completedness’. This position will be adopted in this chapter since aspect in English does not show when an action happened, but rather indicates whether that action is completed or ongoing (Dypedahl et al., 2006: 89). Hence, tense and aspect are discussed separately in sections 3.1. and 3.2..
3.1. Tense in English from a linguistic point of view
Now that it has been established that tense is different and separate from aspect (cf. section 2.2.), and after the various definitions and tense theories have been outlined (cf. section 2.3.), the absolute-relative distinction, the exact number of tenses and the misconception about tense- aspect combination terminology can be discussed from a linguistic point of view as they are found in the English language.
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The English tense-aspect system has provided ample material for debates among grammarians and linguists on the exact number of tenses both in English and in language in general. On one side of the debate, the view of some scholars is that the tense-aspect system consists of only present and past tense based on the exact number of absolute tenses, hence the exclusion of the future tense from the group of absolute tenses (Seely, 2007; Alexander, 1988; Cygan, 1972; Huddleston and Pullum et al., 2002; Salkie, 2010). Statements like the following one: “English has only two tenses, present and past” (Seely, 2007: 77) imply that the future tense “is not a tense at all” (Cygan, 1972: 9). Actions that describe future intentions are rather referred to as ‘futuristic forms’ (Michaelis, 2006: 18) or “grammatical realities of the English verb” indicating that they are means of expressing future actions or plans; since they are versions of the verb rather than a tense (Crystal, 2003: 196). According to another group of scholars, the future tense is considered part of this system, which would mean that there are three absolute tenses in the English tense-aspect system (Declerck et al., 2006; Salkie, 2010).
Definitions of what constitutes a tense can serve as indications for determining whether the English tense-aspect system consists of two or three tenses. Depending on whether the future is considered a tense-aspect combination or not, or an absolute or relative tense, this would influence the exact number of absolute and relative tenses. The claims deciding this are morphological in nature (for instance: verb inflection, modality, and free or bound morphemes), or semantic in nature, in other words, revolving around the uncertainty of an action happening and the inability of an action to be linked to a specific time reference. For instance, Bybee (1992: 223), in her definition of how tense is realized in language (cf. section 2.3.), lists three ways in which a tense can be expressed and one of these ways is by means of using an auxiliary. By default, this would indicate that if it is possible to use auxiliaries to form a tense then the future tense is an actual tense.
The absolute tenses are deictic in nature with the present moment or the time of speaking as the deictic center (Binnick, 1991: 423). By definition, an absolute tense is “a tense which includes as part of its meaning the present moment as deictic centre” (Comrie, 1985: 36). The relative tenses or compound tense-aspect combinations are anaphoric with a deictic center mostly relative to another point in time rather than the present moment (Binnick, 1991: 423; Lyons, 1977: 689), since the relative tense is “one which is interpreted relative to a reference point provided by the context” (Comrie, 1985: 58). On this basis, Comrie (1985) makes it clear
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that there are three absolute tenses: past, present and future. These three tenses are considered to be absolute tenses since these tenses, unlike the relative tenses, do not need to be linked to a reference point in the context. Furthermore, Comrie (1985: 56) argues that the time that a relative tense can refer to is a particular time provided by the context in which this relative tense occurs:
[t]he notion of absolute-relative tense may be illustrated by examining the pluperfect in English. The meaning of the pluperfect is that there is a reference point in the past, and that the situation in question is located prior to that reference point, i. e. the pluperfect can be thought of as ‘past in the past’ [original emphasis] […] as in when John had left, Mary emerged from the cupboard, where the Past Tense of the main clause defines a reference point in the past (namely, the time of Mary's emerging from the cupboard), and John's leaving is located prior to this [original emphasis]. (Comrie, 1985: 65)
What can be drawn as a conclusion is that relative tenses require a time reference or another action that will point out what reference point this relative tense is relative to, and will therefore only be linked indirectly to a reference point in time or the current moment. This means that the English language has three absolute tenses: past, present and future.
In terms of misconceptions involving terminology in texts, the existence of names of English tense forms such as the Present Progressive Tense and Past Progressive Tense has been criticized on the basis that “[t]here are no progressive tenses - progressivity has to do with aspect, not tense” (Declerck et al., 2006: 99). In fact, “so-called English ‘tense forms’ combine a tense component and an aspect component” [original emphasis] (Klein, 1995: 147). Precisely because of this, the interaction of tense and aspect in my study will be referred to as tense forms or tense-aspect combinations, with the intention of acknowledging the combination of the two categories, while keeping in mind that they are in fact separate categories. Further differences between linguistic and pedagogical text are described in Chapter 7.
3.2. Aspect in English from a linguistic point of view
In sections 2.2. and 2.4. aspect was defined and treated as a separate category from the category of tense, and it was established that there are different types of aspect with different realizations and purposes (2.4.1.-2.4.2.).
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In this section (3.2.) and the following sections (3.2.1.-3.2.2.), aspect and the different types of aspect are discussed and exemplified for the English language. Findings from corpus15 studies investigating the use of the different functions of aspect in English are also presented in order to illustrate the current use of some aspects, and to show how verbs determine the tense-aspect combination in a given utterance. The introduction of the meaning and form of aspect in English is followed by a discussion of grammatical aspect and its types (cf. sections 3.2.1. and sections 3.2.1.1.-3.2.1.5.), and finally lexical aspect (cf. section 3.2.2.) in English, which rounds up this chapter.
Aspect, which is used to illustrate “different ways of viewing the internal constitution of an actualizing situation”, can be grammatical (based on morphological marking) and lexical (based on lexical means) according to Declerck et al. (2006: 28). Grammatical aspect, based on ‘completedness’ of the action can be perfective or imperfective and, based on the duration of the action, it can be non-progressive and progressive. Since in English the non-progressive and non-perfect do not have a particular inflection that differentiates them from progressive and perfect, the progressive and the perfect have received more attention in research. The distinction between the progressive and non-progressive (cf. section 3.2.1.2.) and perfect and non-perfect (cf. section 3.2.1.5.) is illustrated in pairs in order to show their difference in meaning, form and use, followed by an examination of the research that has been done on aspectual forms signaled by inflections.
The different types of grammatical aspect in the English language along with their form, meaning and use are outlined in the following sections.
3.2.1. Grammatical aspect
Aspect in the English language can be “expressed by different markers on the verb (i. e. suffixes, auxiliaries or a combination of the two, as in the English progressive form)” (Declerck et al., 2006: 28). This shows that there are more ways than one to differentiate among internal structures of verbal actions/states in English, since both grammatical markings and/or helping verbs can be used. These suffixes and auxiliaries or a combination of both can be seen in the following types of aspect in English: perfect progressive (have been reading), perfect non-
15 The reason for including corpus studies’ findings is because of the need to acknowledge the changes in use and form of certain tense-aspect combinations in all registers and dialects.
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progressive (have read), non-perfect progressive (is reading) and non-perfect non-progressive (read) (Leech, 1971: 14-29). Here have and is are auxiliary verbs that help in the portrayal of the internal situation of the action, while -ing is a morphological marker indicating duration.
The following sections discuss the imperfective-perfective opposition in English (3.2.1.1.), progressive (3.2.1.2.), progressive in research (3.2.1.3.), habitual (3.2.1.4.), and the perfect aspect (3.2.1.5.).
3.2.1.1. Imperfective and perfective in comparison
The perfective, which is defined as a “situation [which] is presented as a complete whole, as if viewed externally, with sharp boundaries”, differs from the imperfective aspect in which “the situation is viewed as an internal stage, without boundaries and is conceptualized as ongoing and incomplete; the beginning and end are not included in this viewpoint - we see only the internal part” (Downing and Locke, 2006: 370). Whether this opposition is realized morphologically in the languages of interest for my study is illustrated through examples in the current section.
Unlike in some languages (Macedonian, Russian, Bulgarian, Albanian, and Serbian in section 2.4.1.3.), where the perfective-imperfective opposition is inflectional, the English language is “indeterminate between a perfective and an imperfective interpretation” (Downing and Locke, 2006: 370). The following two example sentences in English demonstrate how in English, unlike in Spanish, there is no distinction between an action that happened once He stopped and spoke to me in English (Spanish habló), and a repeated action, as in He spoke English with a Welsh accent (Spanish hablaba) (Downing and Locke, 2006: 370). Downing and Locke (2006) also indicate that the only way the perfectivity or imperfectivity in the Simple Past in English can be determined is from the context, due to the lack of morphological marking of perfective vs. imperfective aspect. I was reading a book yesterday, as a sentence in Simple Past, could therefore be considered as perfective-imperfective indeterminate, unless there is more context that could turn the progressive aspect into a perfective one (cf. example 3-1) (Downing and Locke, 2006: 370).
(3-1) I was reading a book yesterday evening and finished it before midnight. [my example]
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In this case, even though progressive is used, the action is perfective. The same can be accomplished with the perfective sentence if the right context is provided (cf. example 3-2).
(3-2) I read a chapter of a book yesterday and will start writing a review of it as soon as I finish reading it.
Here what looks like the perfective aspect is actually an incomplete action, since the book has not been completely read yet, in cases when presumably the entire books needs to be read. All in all, a sentence that has a progressive aspect can denote perfectivity according to Downing and Locke (2006), and there is a possibility of a vice-versa effect. The vice-versa effect, where an action which seems perfective, that is, finished, can be seen for example in 3-2, where the verb read seems to have the non-progressive aspect and it seems to denote a finished or perfective action. However, the context that is provided shows that the reading of the book is not finished; rather this action is likely to continue, and is therefore unfinished. As part of the imperfective aspect, the progressive (3.2.1.2.) and the habitual (3.2.1.4.) are addressed next.
3.2.1.2. Progressive
The non-progressive and the progressive types of aspect have a clear semantic, form and use difference. The progressive aspect can be used for “dynamic action in the process of happening” and the non-progressive by default is used for non-dynamic actions (Downing and Locke, 2006: 373). Furthermore, in the progressive aspect, as opposed to the non-progressive, the: “[a]ttention is focused on some internal stage of the process, which cognitively, is viewed as something directly observed, unfolding before our eyes” (Downing and Locke, 2006: 373). This action that develops ‘before our eyes’ can be used for continuous actions relative to another point in time, which can be concrete or not (Downing and Locke, 2006: 375). In other words, some progressive actions could have continued up to a certain point in the past; however, this action could overlap with the time of speaking while the action itself describes an action taking place now or ending now. Downing and Locke (2006: 372) define and exemplify the non-progressive and the progressive by referring to them as: “two clearly grammaticalised aspectual distinctions: the Progressive, as in was locking vs. the non- progressive in locked”. The non-progressive has a ‘non-progressive form’ and ‘non- progressive meaning’, while the progressive has a ‘progressive form’ and ‘progressive meaning’ (Declerck et al., 2006: 29).
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What follows here is an analysis of how the non-progressive and the progressive interact with verbs and the meaning of a given utterance. The semantic feature of a verb can also influence and modify the meaning of a whole sentence depending on the verb that is used. This means that the progressive aspect changes the meaning of the sentences below depending on the type of the verb:
(3-3a) Nora lives with her parents.
(3-3b) Nora is living with her parents.
While the stative verb live in the first sentence (3-3a) implies that this is a longer action that could last for some time, the second sentence (3-3b), which has the progressive aspect, denotes that this action of living with the parents is limited or temporary. These two examples illustrate how aspect can have an effect on the duration of the verbal action or on the scope of duration of the action in the sentence as a whole.
In situations where the verb is intransitive, aspect still makes a tremendous difference to the meaning. This can be observed in the following examples:
(3-4a) ?The glass fell, but I caught it.
(3-4b) The glass was falling, but I caught it.
In the first example (3-4a), one could argue that the catching could not have happened after the glass fell, since the actions appear in a chronological order: the glass fell first, after which the person caught it, which is illogical. In the second sentence (3-4b), with the progressive aspect in the present, the falling of the glass was an ongoing action lasting long enough for the action of catching the glass to interrupt it. This example shows that the progressive aspect does affect the whole sentence on a semantic level. Finally, both examples with the stative verb live and the intransitive verb fall, indicate that their meaning or the meaning of the entire sentence can be changed in the presence or absence of the progressive aspect.
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3.2.1.3. Progressive in research
The progressive aspect has been researched more than any other part of the English tense- aspect system. As Quirk et al. (1985: 202) point out, “[s]ince the use of the progressive aspect has been undergoing grammatical extension for the past few hundred years, it is likely that its use is still changing at the present day”, and therefore the reasons for this change have been investigated. Additionally, the wide interest in the progressive is also due to its unknown origin, its ongoing development of different meanings, and its growing usage (Leech et al., 2009). In the following paragraphs, three studies are reviewed that mainly investigate the reasons for the growing use of the progressive in different corpora, registers and dialects. An investigation of the distribution of the use, form and meaning of the progressive aspect in both written and spoken language in Academic, News and Fiction registers, has been carried out in corpora of both English as a first language and English as a second or official language (Collins, 2008: International Corpus of English (ICE) collection; the Santa Barbara Corpus (SBC) and the Freiburg-Brown Corpus ‘Frown’). The registers investigated in the Brown (Brown University Corpus), LOB (Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen Corpus), F-LOB (Freiburg-Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen Corpus) and Frown (Freiburg-Brown) were: Press, General Prose, Learned and Function (Leech et al., 2009).
The frequency of progressive forms in formal written and spoken texts was investigated in American (AmE) and British English (BrE) in written newspaper text in the Brown, LOB, F- LOB and Frown corpora during the period of investigation 1961-1991/1992 and has been found to increase over time in usage in the language as a whole (Mair and Hundt, 1995; and Leech et al., 2009). Spoken and written registers for BrE in the ICE-GB (International Corpus of English-Great Britain for the period of 1990-1992) and the DCPSE (the Diachronic Corpus of Present-Day Spoken English for the period of 1960-1990) were also investigated for the frequency of the progressive (Leech et al., 2009). The findings of these three studies and the reason for these are discussed in what follows.
The increase in the progressives is seen most prominently in Press and General Prose for both BrE and AmE (Leech et al., 2009), and the specific order of frequency of the progressives in written genres in both BrE and AmE, among other dialects is as follows: Fiction > News > Academic (Collins, 2008). Collins (2008: 231) also found that the progressive forms used in
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his study were active and passive versions of the following forms: Present (e.g. is giving), Present Perfect (e.g. has been giving), Past (e.g. was giving), Past Perfect (e.g. had been giving), modality (e.g. might be giving), to-infinitive (e.g. to be giving), and perfect to-infinitive (e.g. to have been giving). 86.6% of the tokens in the different corpora were forms of the progressive in the present and past rather than other progressive forms (Collins, 2008: 231).
It has been observed that the progressives are 50% more frequent in spoken English than in written English (Collins, 2008). For instance, the Present Progressive was found to be more frequent in spoken English than in written English (62.7% in speech; 35.4% in writing), and the Past Progressive was more present in writing than speech (45.7% in writing; 26.3% in speech). Spoken informal registers contain more instances of the progressive around a 45% increase (Mair and Hundt, 1995) mostly of the present progressive (Leech et al., 2009), along with telephone calls (for BrE in ICE-GB and DCPSE; Leech et al., 2009) than are found in written registers.
Leech et al. (2009) found statistical significance in the increasing frequency of use of the progressive in both written BrE and AmE for the present tense, progressive passive and in BrE for the progressives with modal auxiliaries, and found that the reasons for the increase in the use of the progressive can be attributed to the grammaticalization and colloquialization (Leech et al., 2009), regional change (for Australian and New Zealand English) and stylistic grounds (Collins, 2008). Additional reasons that have been found to justify the increase of use of the progressive are due to textlinguistic and stylistic reasons, due to the colloquialization of written English, and in cases when the progressive is used instead of the simple present form (Mair and Hundt, 1995: 118).
Now that the progressive as a type of the imperfective aspect in English has been addressed, along with the findings from corpus studies, the following section address an additional type of the imperfective, the habitual.
3.2.1.4. Habitual
Another type of imperfective aspect in English is the habitual type of aspect which “involves repetition and is characteristic of the referent of the subject for an extended period of time” (Declerck et al., 2006: 52). It is realized with the lexical auxiliary used to + infinitive and
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implies that the action is ‘not any longer’ happening or valid (Downing and Locke, 2006: 377). This habit can be temporary or permanent, as can be observed in the example sentences: William is afraid of the dark (permanent habit) and John walks to work, but Bill takes the bus (permanent habits) (Declerck et al., 2006: 52). The habitual in English can be used with the Simple Present, Simple Past, Present Perfect and Future, however, the form of interest for my study is the habitual in the Simple Past.
In section 2.4.1.5., it was pointed out that in some languages (Spanish and Albanian) the imperfective aspect is ambiguous when translated into English. While in Albanian context is required in order to determine whether the imperfect action is progressive or habitual (further explained in section 6.1.), in English this distinction is much clearer.
In English, the habitual aspect can be combined with the non-progressive and the progressive (Comrie, 1976), as in the example: I used to be playing the piano. When the habitual is combined with the non-progressive (as opposed to the progressive), then this implies a difference in meaning (Comrie, 1976: 30). This difference can be seen in the sentence: When I visited John, he used to recite his latest poems, where reciting is an action that started at the time of the visit. On the other hand, when the habitual is combined with the progressive, as in the example: When I visited John, he used to be reciting his latest poems, the reciting was in progress when the visit happened (Comrie, 1976: 30). The use of used to, in the habitual aspect in English, “avoids the temporal indeterminacy of the Simple Past (e.g. visited = on one occasion or on many occasions) by making clear the habitual (Downing and Locke, 2006: 377). This means that in the examples She visited us is a sentence that may have a perfective or imperfective aspect, while She used to visit us can only have an imperfective aspect (Downing and Locke, 2006: 377).
Kroeger (2005: 153) explains the correlation between lexical and grammatical aspect by saying that events can have a ‘habitual interpretation’ or can be interpreted as a habit that is being repeated at particular times, as in the example: Mary kisses the bishop (every Saturday). While states cannot have a habitual interpretation, since the state is valid for a specific point in time rather than repeated points in time, as in the example: This room is too warm, it is not implied that the room is too warm all the time (Kroeger, 2005: 153).
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Now that the definition and use of the habitual has been outlined, the last type of the grammatical aspect in English can be addressed in the following section.
3.2.1.5. Perfect
The perfect aspect can “locate a situation within a period of time beginning in the past and extending forward to include the present” (Huddleston and Pullum, 2005: 158). The semantic difference between the perfect and the non-perfect can be illustrated with the following two sentences: Kim is ill and Kim has been ill (Huddleston and Pullum, 2005: 158). While in the first, Kim is ill at the moment of speaking, in the second sentence the illness has lasted for a particular period of time and it continues up to the moment of speaking.
The perfect aspect is “viewed from a particular perspective, namely from the perspective of the time when a result yielded by, or the relevance of, an anterior situation expressed by the perfect form is perceptible” (Declerck et al., 2006: 37). The results or relevance of the following sentence can be various, as in the sentence: I have worked a lot today. This sentence has a perfect aspect as its results can imply that the person who was working is now tired, or that this person is trying to avoid invitations or any further action. The relevance of this sentence to the moment of speaking could alternatively mean that the emphasis is being put on all the work that has been done, or it indicates that an action has been finished. The tense-aspect combinations in English that have the perfect aspect are described in sections: 4.3., 4.4. and 4.5..
Having introduced the different types of grammatical aspect in English, what follows is the description of the lexical aspect in English and the specific situation types.
3.2.2. Lexical aspect in English
Lexical aspect in the English language reveals information about “the way the lexical material in the verb phrase determines one or more inherent characteristics of a kind of situation” (Declerck et al., 2006: 29). “[T]he way in which the situation unfolds in time, its internal constitution-does it consist of one unchanging state, for example, or does it consist of various different phases” is the ground on which the different types of situations are determined for lexical aspect (Declerck et al., 2006: 45). These situation types have different names in Lyons
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(1977) and Vendler (1967) (cf. section 2.4.2.). The more recent terminology (‘states’, ‘actions’, ‘processes’ and ‘events’ by Lyons, 1977), will be used and set out in the following paragraphs.
The ‘stative’ or ‘states’ type of situation is described as a “situation which is conceived of as existing […] and as homogeneous […] throughout its duration” (Declerck et al., 2006: 66). This situation can be non-static or dynamic, exemplified with the following sentences respectively: Bill was a teacher, and Bill will write a novel (Declerck et al., 2006: 67). On the other hand, ‘actions’ or ‘activities’ as a dynamic situation type “actualize under the control of an agent (e. g. John dug a hole)” (Declerck et al., 2006: 67). In this example, John is the agent and the doer of the action, and the action is a dynamic action since the act of digging requires physical movement.
The second situation type that is dynamic are the ‘events’ or ‘achievements’ which describe an action that “is not controlled by an agent but just happens (e. g. bursting, exploding, falling off a ladder, snowing)” (Declerck et al., 2006: 67). Here the agent of this dynamic action could be inanimate, since it might be a result of a physical or chemical reaction.
‘Processes’ or ‘accomplishments’ are the third type of situation types like “changing, getting dark, diminishing […] [which] is also dynamic and nonagentive” (Declerck et al., 2006: 67). These actions are considered “durative and involving incremental change that implies a scale of some sort [which indicates] that each stage of a process is similar to the preceding stage, except that it usually represents a higher or lower value on a scale” (Declerck et al., 2006: 67).
From this section, it follows that English has grammatical (marked with suffixes and auxiliaries) and lexical aspect. The grammatical aspect can be progressive, non-progressive, perfect and non-perfect aspect, while the lexical aspect consists of verbal situations that represent states, activities, accomplishments, and achievements. Now that it has been clarified what tense and aspect and their types in English are, along with the standpoints that will be applied in the current study regarding these two categories, the tense-aspect combinations that are relevant for the current study are defined and exemplified in Chapter 4.
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4. A descriptive account of the focal English tense-aspect target combinations
Chapter 4 gives a descriptive and argumentative account of the tense-aspect combinations taught in the three different instructional methods (Traditional, LdL and Five-Stage; cf. Chapter 8) as part of the experiment. Here, the target tense-aspect combinations (Simple Past, Present Perfect, Present Perfect Progressive, Past Perfect and Past Perfect Progressive) are examined and the reasons for choosing them are justified.
4.1. Simple Past
This section defines the Simple Past in the English language and offers definitions of its structure, use and meaning. The section shows that this tense can be combined with different aspects, and it also presents the arguments for labeling this tense as absolute or relative, with which this section concludes.
The Simple Past has been defined as a tense denoting an action that happened before now, which in English can be used for:
a finished action that happened in the past: Sam phoned a moment ago (Alexander, 1988: 168) and for an action that is not connected to the moment of speaking (Downing and Locke, 2006: 358); an action that describes past habits: I smoked forty cigarettes a day till I gave up (Alexander, 1988: 169); an action where a time reference is omitted or irrelevant, also called ‘immediate past’: Did the telephone ring? (Alexander, 1988: 169); an action that is a polite inquiry, request or a favor: I wondered if you could give me a lift (Alexander, 1988: 169; Downing and Locke, 2006); an action that is a hypothetical situation, for instance ‘closed conditionals’: I often wish I were somewhere else (Downing and Locke, 2006: 358-9); actions that are reported speech or thoughts: She said she prefers/ preferred vanilla ice cream (Downing and Locke, 2006: 359);
The Simple Past in English does not inflectionally mark the aspectual difference of perfective versus imperfective like other languages do, for instance as happens in Albanian, the native
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language of the participants in my study (cf. section 5.2.1.). Downing and Locke (2006: 370) indicate this difference by saying that the “Past Tense in English is indeterminate between a perfective and an imperfective interpretation. This distinction is captured inferentially by speakers according to the relevance of one meaning or other within a context, but is not grammaticalised”. Whether inferring rather than morphologically marking this difference will cause problems for L1 Albanian learners of English is evident in Chapter 12.
4.2. Past Progressive
The progressive version of the Simple Past is well-described by pedagogical and reference books (Declerck et al., 2006; Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999; Alexander, 1990; Hewings, 2005; Eastwood, 1999; Walker and Elsworth, 2000). Before the different ways to use the Past Progressive are examined, Declerck et al.’s (2006: 99) caution about the possible confusion that can arise when the Simple Past is progressive and non-progressive, is addressed.
Declerck et al. (2006) insist that the difference between walked and was walking is a difference of aspect and not of tense. Therefore, they claim that the Past Progressive should not be called a ‘progressive tense’ but rather the ‘Past Progressive’, “which refer[s] to a verb form encoding both tense and aspect” (Declerck et al., 2006: 99) [original emphasis]. Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999: 117-8), on the other hand, use clearer terminology with which to refer to the Past Progressive, and clearly indicate that it is a combination of tense and aspect. They refer to it as a ‘tense-progressive combination’, which shows that it is not simply a tense or an aspect, but rather a combination of both. The Past Progressive can be used in many different ways, namely:
for a progressive action in the past (He was walking to school at 8:30 this morning; Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999: 117); to express parallel or simultaneous actions or events in the past (Karen was washing her hair when the phone rang; Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999: 117); to show repetitive ongoing action in the past (Jake was coughing all night long; Celce- Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999: 117); for repeated actions denoted with always (When I worked here, I was always making mistakes; Alexander, 1990: 128);
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to indicate social distancing (I was hoping you could lend me $10; Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999: 118); for plans in the past (We were meeting at 8 o’clock and I was already late; Side and Wellman, 1999); to emphasize repeated actions that lasted for while in the past (To lose weight before the race, I wasn’t eating any sweets or biscuits for weeks [original contraction]; Hewings, 2005: 8); to describe a scenery in the past (The sun was shining; Eastwood, 1999: 22); to replace the Simple Past (Walker and Elsworth, 2000; see below).
This last listed use, in which the Past Progressive can replace the Simple Past in a “Past Tense narrative to describe the background history or environment”, can be seen in the example It was a typical summer afternoon: the sun was beating down, the cars were creeping slowly (Walker and Elsworth, 2000: 16). In other words, in a Simple Past narrative, when the Simple Past is required, the Past Progressive can replace it.
When a decision needs to be made as to whether to use the Simple Past or the Past Progressive or both for a certain situation there are two more ways that can help make a clear difference between the two, namely, the length of the action and with the help of when and while. For instance, Eastwood (1999: 22) explains that the Simple Past is used for the shorter action while the Past Progressive is reserved for the longer one: As we were driving down the hill, a strange object appeared in the sky. Here driving is the longer action, which is why it is progressive, while appeared is the shorter action and hence is in the Simple Past. If the actions are short and happened one after the other, then the Simple Past is used: When we saw the spaceship, we stopped the car (Eastwood, 1999: 22). Simple Past and the Past Progressive can be differentiated when they are used with the help of when and while. DeCapua (2008) claims that while is used before the Past Progressive whereas, when usually precedes the Simple Past as in example: We were eating when Joyce called (DeCapua, 2008: 178).
4.3. Present Perfect
This section defines the meaning and use of the Present Perfect as a tense-aspect combination in English; it compares its form, use and function to the Simple Past, and outlines some pedagogical concerns about teaching the Present Perfect.
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Since “[p]ast time reference represents one of the notorious areas of English grammar, and the Present Perfect […] in particular seems to represent an elusive category”, defining the use and function of the Present Perfect is not straightforward (Werner, 2013: 10). The reason for this, or otherwise the consequence of this, is that the Present Perfect has been categorized as different things by different grammarians and linguists. Among the labels applied are aspect, tense, phase and status (Werner, 2013: 10). Some even say that this tense-aspect combination “interacts with tense as aspect, but it is conceptually different from both” (Kortmann, 1991: 18), which indicates that the Present Perfect is not simply a tense or an aspect, but rather a blend of the two categories.
The Present Perfect has three implied meanings: ‘recency’, ‘resulting state’ and ‘completion’ (Downing and Locke, 2006: 365). Ward (1963) and Alexander (1988) discuss two more potential meanings of the Present Perfect, one of which is used for actions that happened in the past (disregarding the time when the action took place), and the other one is used for actions that might continue in the future. All five potential meanings of the Present Perfect are discussed and exemplified in the following paragraphs.
The first way to use the Present Perfect is to indicate ‘recency’ by putting the focus on recent events and their impact on the present or even the future (The Prime Minister has resigned) (Downing and Locke, 2006: 365). The recency of an action could be linked to the current moment, but it could also be connected to a result of this action with effect in the present. This is exemplified with the second use of the Present Perfect (resulting state). To describe the second use of the Present Perfect, Comrie (1976: 52) claims that “the Present Perfect […] is only one of the possible tenses of the perfect aspect, the one that expresses a relation between present state and past situation”. This means that the Present Perfect can, for instance, establish a connection between the current moment and a given action in the past. This connection can also be referred to as ‘resulting state’, which is an action with an evident outcome in the present (I’ve baked a cake) (Downing and Locke, 2006: 365) [original contraction]. I’ve baked a cake could be the cause for the kitchen being messy or the reason that a cake is on the table.
The third use of the Present Perfect is referred to as ‘completion’; describing an action which has come to an end (Hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes) [my emphasis] (Downing and Locke, 2006: 365). Though it seems that Hundreds of people were evacuated
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from their homes [original emphasis] is also possible, Downing and Locke (2006: 361) and Comrie (1985: 78) explain a clear difference between the Present Perfect and other past tenses:
the time frame of the Present Perfect is stretched to the moment of speaking, while for the Past Perfect it is prolonged until a moment in the past (Downing and Locke, 2006: 361); the Present Perfect is relevant to the present moment and is ‘psychologically connected’ to the current moment, while the Past Perfect is disconnected from the current moment (Downing and Locke, 2006: 361-362); the moment of the Present Perfect event is indefinite, while the event of the Simple Past is definite and specific (Downing and Locke, 2006: 361);
The ‘completion’ use of the Present Perfect is very similar to the ‘finished’ use of this tense- aspect combination, which is discussed next. This fourth use of the Present Perfect involves action that has taken place in the past and is now finished, which is also called the ‘finished’ use:
[t]he "Finished" use of the Present Perfect shows that an action happened and finished at some time in the past but it says nothing at all to indicate when. All it shows is that the action happened (or began to happen and finished happening) at some time before the moment of speaking in the present. (Ward, 1963: 47)
The following examples have been used to further explain the contrast between the Present Perfect and the Simple Past by Ward (1963: 47):
(4-1a) *I visited the Parthenon.
(4-1b) I have visited the Parthenon.
Here Ward (1963) shows one use of the Present Perfect that ought to be used with past events and that need not stress the time at which the action took place. This would then mean that if one wants to specify the frequency or number of visits one would need to use a temporal expression, like, for example: twice. This then leads to the argument that temporal expressions are also important for the English tense-aspect system and the use or lack thereof can influence the tense that needs to be used in a particular sentence. For instance, in the sentence: I have been to Greece twice, the point in time when the subject has been to this place is irrelevant,
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rather what counts is the fact that this action has happened and it has taken place more than once.
There is a fifth use of the Present Perfect, which is for events that started in the past with a duration that surpasses the present moment and may proceed into the future. An example of this would be: I have been a teacher for eight years (Alexander, 1988: 172). Here, the Present Perfect stresses the duration of an action and implies that this same action is very likely to be true at the moment of speaking and may also continue in the future. This use of the Present Perfect stresses the length of being a teacher, which, if no further context is provided, is true for both the present and the future.
4.4. Past Perfect
The Past Perfect is defined by Comrie (1976), Downing and Locke (2006) and Alexander (1988) mainly as an action preceding a past action. The Past Perfect is compared and contrasted to the pluperfect16 and the accompanying adverbs are discussed by Salkie (1989), who further examines the role of this tense in descriptive grammars.
Comrie (1976: 53) describes the Past Perfect as a tense “expressing a relation between a past state and an even earlier situation”, while Downing and Locke (2006: 366) view the Past Perfect as the only tense form for conveying actions located further in the past. Downing and Locke (2006: 367) state that the Past Perfect “refers to a time previous to a time signaled somewhere else in the context” and is therefore used to “establish the temporal links between events”. In addition, Alexander (1988: 174) explains that the Past Perfect is used to refer to actions that occurred in the distant past.
There are different ways to express actions in further back in the past, as is demonstrated by Downing and Locke (2006) and Alexander (1988). The Past Perfect can be used for:
a past event which has a clear time relation: We had heard nothing from Tony before he returned, can be replaced by the Simple Past: We heard nothing from Tony before he returned; Downing and Locke, 2006: 366);
16 The Pluperfect, even though not relevant for the English language, is still briefly compared to the Past Perfect in this study to establish the grounds for comparing the counterparts of the Past Perfect and the Pluperfect in Albanian (cf. sections 6.4. and 6.5.)
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a past Present Perfect action where the Past Perfect “functions simply as the past form of the Present Perfect” (Alexander, 1988: 175), for example: She had lived in the north since she changed her job / She has lived in the north since she changed her job (Downing and Locke, 2006: 367); to show the sequence of past events, by merely stating which one occurred before or after another. The example used here is: The patient had died when the doctor arrived. The same effect is possible if the sentences are reversed: The doctor arrived quickly, but the patient had already died (Alexander, 1988: 174); for an ‘unreal’ past: If I had known he was in trouble, I would have helped him (Downing and Locke, 2006: 367); “to describe things we hoped or wished to do but didn’t”, as in the example: I had hoped to send him a telegram to congratulate him on his marriage, but I didn't manage it [original contractions] (Alexander, 1988: 175).
Furthermore, Alexander (1988: 175) differentiates between an “obligatory” and a “non- obligatory” use of this tense. The necessity of the Past Perfect in some sentences comes from the sequence of events, in other words, the Past Perfect is not mandatory in a sentence like After I finished, I went home, while in the sentence When I arrived, Anne had left compared to When I arrived, Anne left, it is compulsory, since Anne’s leaving could have been simultaneous; in the former sentence however it is clear that Anne’s leaving happened before the arrival of the speaker. In this case, the Past Perfect is obligatory for the sake of precision and particularity.
The next section discusses the progressive version of the Past Perfect in comparison to the Present Perfect Progressive.
4.5. Present Perfect Progressive and Past Perfect Progressive
In order to describe the Present Perfect Progressive and Past Perfect Progressive they are here compared to each other and to their non-progressive versions.
The Present Perfect Progressive and Past Perfect Progressive are “dynamic action[s] in the process of happening”, although nonetheless have different end points (Downing and Locke, 2006: 373). A progressive action could have been progressive up to a point in the past (which
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is true for the Past Perfect Progressive), as opposed to an action starting in the past and progressing to the moment of speaking (which applies to Present Perfect Progressive). The Present Perfect Progressive and Past Perfect Progressive can be used to denote:
duration of actions: She is very tired. She's been typing letters all day (where all day is the current day) and She was very tired. She had been typing letters all day (where all day is a day in the past) [original contraction] (Alexander, 1988: 176); repetitive actions: Jim has been phoning Jenny every night for the past week and Jenny was annoyed Jim had been phoning her every night for a whole week (Alexander, 1988: 176); actions that lead to a conclusion based on some proof: Your eyes are red. You've been crying and Her eyes were red. It was obvious she had been crying [original contraction] (Alexander, 1988: 176);
This means that the Present Perfect Progressive and Past Perfect Progressive clearly denote continuousness but nevertheless still differ when used to describe:
a continuous state that carries on up to the moment of speaking (in the case of the Present Perfect Progressive): I have been wanting to meet him for ages (Downing and Locke, 2006: 376); actions that combine “the anteriority of the Past Perfect with the features of the Progressive” (in the case of the Past Perfect Progressive): He had been seeing her quite a lot at that time (Downing and Locke, 2006: 377).
What this shows is that the Present Perfect Progressive and Past Perfect Progressive differ in that the Present Perfect Progressive can be used for an action that continues to the moment of speaking, while the Past Perfect Progressive is used for an action that continued up to a moment in the past.
The way in which the Present Perfect Progressive and Past Perfect Progressive differ from their non-progressive versions is outlined below. The context and the type of verb can reveal information about whether the action is still happening or whether it has finished (Alexander, 1988: 176-177). The examples used to differentiate between the Present Perfect and the Present Perfect Progressive are the following:
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(4-2a) I've been painting this room. [original contraction]
(4-2b) I've painted this room. [original contraction]
While the initial sentence (4-2a) is imperfective, example 4-2b is a completed action. On a pragmatic level, the two sentences seem to denote different things and put the stress on different aspects of the action. Sentence 4-2a not only stresses the duration and incompletedness of the action, but also the fact that this has been a lengthy action. On the other hand, the painting in example 4-2b is a complete action and merely states a fact rather an action, one which has been completed at some indefinite point in the past and whose consequences (the paint on the walls) are still to be seen at the moment of speaking.
Alexander (1988: 177) illustrates the same effect for the Past Perfect Simple and the Past Perfect Progressive with his examples below:
(4-3a) When I got home, I found that Jill had been painting her room.
(4-3b) When I got home, I found that Jill had painted her room.
While in the first sentence (4-3a) Jill’s painting the room could have come as a surprise to the observer or is merely a statement that stresses that she has been doing this action for a longer period of time; the second sentence (4-3b) puts the stress on the fact that the speaker could see that the painting has been completed by Jill before the speaker’s arrival home.
Now that tense and aspect in English (cf. Chapter 3) and the target tense-aspect combinations (cf. Chapter 4) have been defined, and now that it has been decided which side of the argument this study will adopt (in the case of the treatment of tense and aspect as separate categories), the linguistic description of tense-aspect in Albanian (cf. Chapter 5) can be addressed, followed by the comparison of the English and Albanian systems (cf. Chapter 6). In these two chapters (Chapters 5 and 6) the differences and the possible pedagogical advantages and disadvantages based on the similarities or differences of the two systems, are pointed out.
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5. Tense and aspect in Albanian
The sections of this chapter describe the categories of tense (cf. section 5.1.) and aspect (cf. section 5.2.) in Albanian. It deals with several issues about the Albanian tense-aspect system in different types of books and research studies. The issues addressed in this chapter include: the unclear and partial description of the progressive aspect in existing grammar, reference and course books in Albanian; and the joined description of tense and aspect as one category of the verb. Hence, this chapter attempts to shed light on the tense-aspect system in Albanian by providing a comprehensive description of this system.
Most of the literature consulted about tense and aspect in Albanian is written in Albanian language (Demiraj, 2002; Hamiti and Hamiti, 2010; Fekollari et al., 2009; Gega and Nesimi, 2001; Agalliu et al., 2002). Grammar books by Ҫamaj (1984) and Newmark et al. (1982) and a few research studies (Borshi, 2011; Gurra, 2014; Joseph, 2011; Pinari, 2014; Agolli, 2013; Xhaferraj and Hasa, 2014; Cane, 2016) are rare exceptions that are written in English. In order to provide a clear picture of what tense and aspect in Albanian are, cumulative information had to be gathered from various grammar and reference books (Agalliu et al., 1995; Agalliu, 1982; Newmark et al., 1982; Ҫamaj, 1984, Demiraj, 2002; Duchet, 1995; Buchholz and Fiedler, 1987; Çeliku, 2013), pedagogical books (Hamiti and Hamiti, 2010; Fekollari et al., 2009; Gega and Nesimi, 2001) and research studies (Borshi, 2011, Gurra, 2014; Joseph, 2011; Pinari, 2014; Agolli, 2013; Xhaferraj and Hasa, 2014; Cane, 2016).
5.1. Tense in Albanian from a linguistic point of view
Tense is defined by Demiraj (2002: 312-3) as a category of the verb with three absolute (E
PAKRYERA imperfect, E KRYERA E THJESHTË simple past and E KRYERA present perfect) and 2 relative tense forms (MË SË E KRYERA past perfect and E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR pluperfect).
Fekollari et al. (2009: 49) (even though a pedagogical course book used in primary schools) offer an expedient categorization of the Albanian tenses in terms of their complexity and group them into: KOHËT E THJESHTA ‘simple tenses’ and KOHËT E PËRBËRA ‘compound tenses’. The simple tenses (E TASHMJA present simple; E PAKRYERA past progressive; E KRYERA E THJESHTË simple past) are formed by one single verb form (shkoj ‘go’, shkoja ‘was going’, shkova ‘went’, respectively), while the compound tenses (E KRYERA present perfect; MË SË E KRYERA past
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perfect; E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR pluperfect) are formed with an auxiliary verb added to the simple tenses (e.g. kam lexuar ‘have read’, kisha lexuar ‘had read’; pata lexuar ‘had read’, respectively).
According to Demiraj (2002: 312) and Beci (2005: 121-2) the Albanian language has three groups of tense forms namely the future, the present and the past tense group. The latter, which is the target group of tense forms in my study, is called koha e shkuar ‘past time’ or ‘past tense’, and it includes the following tense forms: E PAKRYERA imperfect; E KRYERA E THJESHTË simple past; E KRYERA present perfect. MË SË E KRYERA past perfect and E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR pluperfect (Agalliu et al., 1976; 1995; 2002) can be added here to the group of past tense forms in order to get a more complete set of all the past combinations.
The following figure (cf. Figure 5-1) depicts the past time group of tense-aspect combinations in Albanian. The order in which the illustration is organized depends on the ‘pastness’ of the tense and the temporal sequence. It can be noticed in Figure 5-1 that was working and had worked occur twice in the English version, this is so because progressiveness in Albanian can be achieved with or without the particle po17 (punoja ‘was working’ imperfect and po punoja ‘was working’ past progressive) while had worked (which is also present twice in the figure) in one case is pluperfect (pata punuar ‘had worked’) and in the other case it is past perfect (kisha punuar ‘had worked’).
17 Cf. section 5.2.2.1. for a description of the role and use of the progressive particle po.
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Figure 5-1: Absolute and relative tenses in Albanian by Demiraj (2002: 315) (on the left) and an adaptation in English (on the right)
The target tense-aspect combinations in this study exemplified in Figure 5-1, are compared to their English equivalents or near equivalents in Table 5-1.
Table 5-1: Target tense-aspect terminology and the English equivalents
Target tense-aspect combination in Albanian Target tense-aspect Type combinations equivalents in English E KRYERA E THJESHTË simple past Synthetic E PAKRYERA past progressive Synthetic E KRYERA present perfect Analytic MË SE E KRYERA past perfect Analytic E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR past perfect Analytic
Table 5-1 indicates that E PAKRYERA (imperfect) and E KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past) are synthetic tenses, while E KRYERA (present perfect), MË SE E KRYERA (past perfect) and E
KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) are analytic tense forms in the Albanian language (Ҫamaj, 1984: 126). The analytical form of the verb is periphrastic and uses the auxiliary verbs jam ‘to be’ or kam ‘have’ for the target tense forms in question (Ҫamaj, 1984: 130)18.
In order to see how tense interacts with aspect, a correlation of the two categories in Albanian provided by Newmark et al. (1982: 22) is illustrated in Table 5-2:
18 These are exemplified and discussed in more detail in Chapter 6 (cf. sections 6.1. to 6.6.), and in the same chapter the similarities and differences between the Albanian and English counterparts are outlined along with some pedagogical concerns.
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Table 5-2: Tense, aspect and time in Albanian by Newmark et al. (1982: 22) TENSE ASPECT TIME Com(mon) Pres(ent) Perf(ect) Past Prog(ressive) Fut(ure) Inch(oative) Def(inite) Imperf(ect)
This table or rather the classification of aspect and time is one of the major issues addressed in this chapter, further elaborated in section 5.2..
5.2. Aspect in Albanian from a linguistic point of view
In agreement with Borshi (2011) who considers aspect to be a verbal category that is underestimated and under-discussed in Albanian grammars, this chapter offers a complete depiction of the category of aspect in the Albanian language which can only be established if all the information from different texts is taken into consideration. The accumulated information in this chapter shows that the Albanian language does in fact have the category of aspect which is marked with: inflections, particles, and temporal markers. What follows here are my comparisons and observations based on the grammar, reference, course books and research studies mentioned at the outset of Chapter 5.
According to Xhaferraj and Hasa (2014: 110) “the aspect of the verb is not treated as an inherent grammatical category” in the Albanian language. Rather, as already illustrated in the Table 5- 2 (cf. section 5.1.), time and aspect seem to operate within the frame of tense in the Albanian language. Newmark et al. (1982: 22) elaborate on the position of aspect in Albanian and claim that for convenience reasons “[t]ime and aspect are conventionally treated together as TENSE” [original emphasis]. This portrayal of tense, aspect and time, could be one of the reasons that have led to the merging of tense and aspect and referring to the combination of the two as tense.
It follows that in the Albanian language, it is common to consider the category of aspect as a sub-category of tense, rather than as two separate categories. Nonetheless, Newmark et al. (1982) throughout their book approach aspect and tense separately at times and offer a separate description of the category of aspect. Perhaps the tendency for some grammarians and
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researchers to state that tense and aspect in Albanian are the same ought not to be called a misconception but rather a result of convenience, since joining the two categories facilitates description. Nonetheless, this tendency creates problems and challenges when learning and teaching tense and aspect, since it might cause difficulties for L1 Albanian learners of English.
The aim of the current section is to show that the Albanian language does in fact have the category of aspect which is described here along with the different types of aspect. This view, of the separateness of the two categories will be applied in the current study for both languages (English and Albanian). In order to define aspect in Albanian, information needed to be collected from different sources since not all authors cover all elements of this category. Aspect in Albanian is realized with “particles, by the existence of an Imperfect tense, and by the periphrastic tenses with the auxiliary ‘have’” [original emphasis] (Duchet, 1995: 253). Pinari (2014: 658) states that Albanian has “aspectual meanings by which we understand the features of continuity, duration, intensity, completion, repetition of action”. These aspectual meanings are listed (by Ҫamaj, 1984: 151) as: perfect, imperfective, habitual and actual (cf. Table 5-3) which can be marked inflectionally and periphrastically.
Table 5-3: The combinability of tense and aspect in Albanian by Ҫamaj (1984: 151) *actual aspect is determined aspect (cf. section 5.2.3.)
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Table 5-3 clearly separates the categories of tense and aspect and depicts their combinability. Furthermore, Newmark et al. (1982: 36) say that the category of aspect shows the “manner of development of the action designated by the verb” as described in Table 5-4.
Table 5-4: Aspectual differences of tense forms in Albanian (Newmark et al., 1982: 36)
imperfect: “general, habitual, repeated action, progressive” Newmark et al. (1982: 36) past definite: “particular action carried out at a given moment in the past” Newmark et al. (1982: 36) present perfect: “general or particular action that is prior to the present moment” Newmark et al. (1982: 36) past perfect and pluperfect : “particular action that is prior to a past moment” Newmark et al. (1982: 36)
The aspectual differences of the tense-aspect combinations in Albanian in Table 5-4 resemble their English counterparts (which is further discussed in Chapter 6). In Albanian “the principal distinction in the aspect of the language is based on the contrast of completed and uncompleted action” (Newmark et al., 1982: 36), in other words aspect in the Albanian language distinguishes between finished and unfinished actions. While unfinished actions are the ones that repeat, at last for a certain period of time, or in other words are habitual, the finished actions happen before another action in the past, or before the present moment. This principal distinction of these types of actions (perfective vs. imperfective and habitual vs. actual, perfect vs. progressive aspect) in Albanian are outlined in the following sections (5.2.1. - 5.2.4.).
5.2.1. Imperfective and perfective in comparison
In section 2.4.1.3., it was established that the perfective takes an outside overall approach to the action, while the imperfective aspect carries information about the beginning and end of an action, which can also be irrelevant (Comrie, 1976: 4). In the Albanian language two of the absolute tense forms (KOHA E TASHME present simple and E PAKRYERA imperfect) can have the imperfective aspect while only one can have the perfective aspect (E KRYERA E THJESHTË aorist or definite past) (cf. Table 5-3). When KOHA E TASHME (present simple) has the imperfective aspect then this translates into a present progressive equivalent in English. When E PAKRYERA (imperfect) has the imperfective aspect, this in English is equivalent to the past progressive tense-aspect combination or the habitual past.
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In section 3.2.1.1., it was discussed that there is no perfective-imperfective opposition that can be inflectionally realized in English (Downing and Locke, 2006: 370). Unlike English, Albanian can have both aspects in the same tense form, namely the simple past. When the simple past has the perfective aspect it is referred to as E KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past; cf. section 6.2.), and when it has the imperfective aspect it is called E PAKRYERA (imperfect; cf. section 6.1.). The inflectional difference between the two can be seen in examples 5-1a and 5- 1b, where -va is an inflection for the perfective, and -ja is the morphological realization for the imperfective (both suffixes are for the first person singular).
(5-1a) Unë pastro-va pardje. I clean-past the day before yesterday ‘I cleaned the day before yesterday.’
(5-1b) Unë pastro-ja pardje. I clean-IMPRF. the day before yesterday ‘I was cleaning the day before yesterday.’
These examples (5-1a and 5-1b) confirm that in comparison to the Simple Past in English, (cf. section 4.1.) the simple past in Albanian morphologically marks the perfective-imperfective distinction. A more elaborate account of the perfective-imperfective distinction by using E
KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past) and E PAKRYERA (imperfect or past progressive) both analytical and non-analytical forms, with and without particles (po19 and duke20) is offered with the following examples (5-2a to 5-2d).
E KRYERA E THJESHTË versus Simple Past (5-2a) Unë këndo-va. I sing-past ‘I sang.’
E PAKRYERA (without particles) versus Past Progressive (5-2b) Unë këndo-ja21. I sing-IMPRF. ‘I was singing.’
19 Cf. section 5.2.2.1. for a description of the role and use of the progressive particle po. 20 Cf. section 5.2.2.2. for a description of the role and use of the progressive particle duke. 21 This sentence can also have a habitual meaning and can be translated as: ‘I used to sing’ or ‘I would sing’ depending on the context; (cf. section 6.1. for more information on the habitual past).
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E PAKRYERA (with the progressive particle po) versus Past Progressive (5-2c) Unë po këndo-ja. I PROG. sing-IMPRF. ‘I was singing.’
E PAKRYERA (analytical from - with the progressive particle duke) versus Past Progressive (5-2d) Unë ish-a duke kënd-uar. I be-IMPRF. PROG. sing-participle ‘I was singing.’
Ҫamaj (1984: 148) argues that in Albanian there is also the possibility of ‘double aspect correlation’ of the perfective and the imperfective aspect. This can be seen in example 5-3, where the imperfect tense (E PAKRYERA) which is also imperfective, is expressed in the first part of the sentence, followed by the simple past (E KRYERA E THJESHTË) which is perfective (Ҫamaj, 1984: 148):
(5-3) Ndërsa mjeku fli-nte […], pacienti vdi-q. While the doctor sleep-IMPRF. the patient die-past ‘While the doctor was sleeping, the patient died.’
The combination of the two opposite types of aspect can be done in the same sentence with two actions and two different tense forms. The action of sleeping in example 5-3 is of the imperfect tense and the imperfective aspect, which means that the action was progressive at some point in the past. While the action of dying which is of the simple past tense and the perfective aspect, happened during the action of sleeping. Similar interactions are possible in English, hence, the ‘double aspect correlation’ in Albanian will represent a pedagogical advantage. Since the imperfect in Albanian can be habitual, progressive and iterative, the progressive is elaborated on in sections 5.2.2. and 5.2.2.1.-5.2.2.3., the habitual is compared to the actual or determined aspect in Albanian in 5.2.3. and the use and meaning of the iterative or repetitive aspect are represented with the third use of E PAKRYERA in section 6.1..
5.2.2. Progressive
Progressive aspect or ‘progressive event frame’ (Cane, 2016: 129) in Albanian can be established with inflectional or periphrastic means, namely, it can be formed with auxiliary verbs, emphatic particles (po and duke; Dahl, 2000: 524) in combination with the present
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participle of the main verb or it can be signaled with adverbs. According to Cane (2016: 129) there are two progressive time frames: progressive particle + tense, for instance: [po + present/imperfect] and the participle [is/was/has been/will be + participle]. The first progressive form is realized with the particle po (or as he refers to it: ‘formant’) and inflected main verb (po kërkoja ‘was looking for’). This form in Albanian is formed with the auxiliary verb jam ‘to be’, particle duke and the participle verb form (jam duke kërkuar ‘am looking for’) also referred to as the ‘analytical form’ (Demiraj, 1964: 245).
Progressiveness can be established with tenses as well, for instance E PAKRYERA (imperfect) which can also be used for habitual actions (cf. section 6.1.). With E PAKRYERA (a tense which is used to indicate an action which is continuous and lasts beyond a specific moment in the past) progressiveness can be achieved inflectionally and without any particles (Agalliu et al., 2002: 308). All these different ways of expressing progressiveness in Albanian (periphrastic and inflectional) are addressed in this section by first exemplifying the inflectional form followed by the analytical form.
The inflectional way of marking the progressive aspect in the Albanian language is constructed with the suffixes of the imperfect tense: -ja, -je, -te or -nte, -nim, -nit and -nin added to regular or irregular main verbs (Agalliu et al., 1995: 287). An example of how E PAKRYERA (imperfect) can be used to describe a progressive action that was in progress at some point in the past can be seen in sentence 5-4a.
(5-4a) Unë puno-ja dje. I work-IMPRF. yesterday ‘I was working yesterday.’
The periphrastic marking of progressiveness requires the emphatic particle po and an inflected verb (cf. example 5-4a) while the analytical form uses the particle duke, the auxiliary verb jam ‘to be’ in the imperfect tense, and the present participle verb form (cf. example 5-4c).
(5-4b) Unë po22 puno-ja dje. I PROG. work-IMPRF. yesterday ‘I was working yesterday.’
22 Examples (5-4b) and (5-4c) might seem to indicate that the use and function of po and duke is interchangeable, however, as it is analyzed in section 5.2.2.2., these forms differ.
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(5-4c) Unë ish-a duke22 pun-uar dje. I be-IMPRF. PROG. work-participle yesterday ‘I was working yesterday.’
When we consider the examples (5-4a), (5-4b) and (5-4c), though different in their morphological realization, they translate identically in English. If more context was provided, then slight differences could be detected among the three examples (cf. section 5.2.2.2. for a more thorough differentiation of the particles). Example 5-4a which does not have a particle can also denote a habitual action if this action was repeated over some period in the past (instead of dje ‘yesterday’). The “momentary action in progress” expressed with the particle po in example 5-4b seems to indicate temporary progressiveness with the sole focus on the progressive action (Newmark et al., 1982: 36). While in example 5-4c, where duke is used for an “action already in progress” (Newmark et al., 1982: 36), this in an action that was already in progress and this is the form that is usually used when an action in progress was interrupted by another action (cf. example 5-5):
(5-5) Unë ish-a duke pun-uar kur erdh-i mysafiri. I be-IMPRF. PROG. work-participle when arrive-past the quest ‘I was working when the guest arrived.’
In example 5-5, the action of working started and is interrupted by the arrival of the guest.
In fact, the progressive particles used for expressing progressiveness are so frequent that Ҫamaj (1984: 149-150) even exemplifies particles that are used in the different dialects (Arbëresh and Geg) of the Albanian language (cf. Table 5-5).
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Table 5-5: Progressive particles across dialects in Albanian (Ҫamaj, 1984: 149-150)
Jam Jesh Kah Kah Tue (Arbëresh (Arbëresh (northern Geg (northern Geg (other non- dialect) dialect) dialect) dialect) standard dialects) Jam e qell Jesh e qelljna Jam kah sjell Isha kah sjelli Isha tue hangër = isha duke hëngër Standard Standard Standard Standard Standard Albanian Albanian Albanian Albanian Albanian (Jam duke (Isha duke (Jam duke (Isha duke (Isha duke sjellur) sjellur) sjellur) sjellur) ngrënë) ‘I am bringing’ ‘I was brining’ ‘I am bringing’ ‘I was bringing’ ‘I was eating’ (present) (imperfect) (present) (imperfect) (imperfect)
In some dialects the particle duke can be replaced with non-standard version of the progressive particle according to Ҫamaj (1984: 150). In Table 5-5, jam, jesh, kah and tue, function as dialectal variants of the standard Albanian duke progressive particle.
So far in this chapter it has been established that the progressive in Albanian can be marked morphologically and periphrastically. The next table (cf. Table 5-6) illustrates the different means of expressing progressiveness in standard and vernacular Albanian by different authors. This table shows that not all authors offer an elaborate account of progressiveness in their texts.
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Table 5-6: Periphrastic and inflectional progressive realizations by different authors
authors Agalliu et al. Newmark et al. Ҫamaj (1984) Demiraj (2002) (1976; 1995; (1979; 1982) progressive 2002) realizations progressive √ √ √ √ particle: PO progressive √ √ √ particle: DUKE suffix: -JA, -JE, √ √ √ √ -TE or -NTE, -NIM, -NIT, NIN suffix: -EJ √ √ (passive) verb to be: √ JAM (present) and JESH (imperfect) (Arbëresh dialect) progressive √ particle: KAH (Geg dialect) progressive √ particle: TUE (dialect)
Table 5-6 illustrates the different amount of attention that the category of aspect or to be more specific progressiveness has received by different authors. Hence, a cumulative collection of information and data was necessary in order to fully grasp the meaning and use of the category of aspect and progressiveness in particular.
Progressive aspect in Albanian can also be expressed with adverbs since “the temporal meaning of anteriority, posteriority, or simultaneity becomes clear by the lexical meaning of the predicates and the correlation of tenses” (Totoni, 2000 in Agolli, 2013: 407). When an action is happening at a definite specific time, for instance the current moment, then the particle po is not required to indicate progressiveness in the case when the action is in KOHA E TASHME (present simple). For instance, if the phrase: në këtë moment ‘at the moment’ is used, then the particles po can be left out (cf. example 5-6 by Agalliu, 1982: 64):
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(5-6) [Ai] lexo-n23 e pi duhan [në këtë moment]. He read-present and drink-present tobacco in this moment ‘He is reading and smoking at the moment.’
The second adverb that can be used to denote progressiveness and therefore does not require progressive particles (po or duke) is the adverb sapo ‘just’ (Agalliu, 1982: 64):
(5-7)24 Tani sapo25 vi-nte nga një fshat i Tiranës[…]. Now just come-IMPRF. from one village CL. Tirana ‘He just came/was just coming from a village from Tirana.’
When the formal expression of progressiveness is compared in English and Albanian, it can be seen that there are more similarities than dissimilarities between the two languages. According to grammar books of English (cf. Chapters 3 and 4), progressiveness in English is realized by the auxiliary verb to be and the -ing suffix attached to the verb. In Albanian, progressiveness is realized by using the particles po and the suffix -ja which conjugates according to person and number in present and past progressive or duke combined with the present participle of the main verb. The following two sections, describe the role of po (cf. section 5.2.2.1.) and duke (cf. section 5.2.2.2.) in more detail.
5.2.2.1. The role of the particle po
This section outlines the role, use and frequency of the particle po in the progressive aspect in Albanian. According to Borshi (2011:74) “the status of the progressive po is not yet clearly established” as well as “the nature of the po particle causes problems and scholars writing on this subject cannot decide on its clear definition”. The clearest picture of what is aspect in Albanian, is offered by Ҫamaj (1984) and Borshi (2011) who make a clear distinction between the categories and describe most of the ways of realizing the progressive aspect in Albanian. Furthermore, Ҫamaj (1984) even describes progressive particles among dialects of the Albanian language (cf. Table 5-6).
23 In modern Albanian, when a progressive action needs to be expressed, then the particle po is used in order to achieve this. So sentence 5-6 would more likely look like this: ‘Ai po lexon e pi duhan në këtë moment’. 24 More likely versions of example 5-7 would be the following two: ‘Tani sapo erdhi nga një fshat i Tiranës’ or ‘Tani sapo vinte nga një fshat i Tiranës’. While a more likely translation of these would be: ‘He has just returned/was just returning from a village in Tirana’. 25 In this sentence sapo can also can also occur as sa po, according to Agalliu (1982: 64).
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Two of the few authors who describe the role of the particle po in Albanian is Joseph26 (2011: 29) and Agalliu (1982), who offer more insight on the emphatic particle po in the Albanian language and notes that “no other language shows a (more or less) free preverbal form that marks aspect and specifically a type of imperfectivity (in the sense of signaling an on-going event), that is, progressivity”. Joseph’s (2011) investigation shows that this particle is present in both major dialects of the Albanian language (Tosk and Geg).
The following examples (cf. sentences 5-8a and 5-8b) offer an illustration of the role of the particle po in the progressive aspect in Albanian. As can be observed below, first, the progressive aspect in example 5-8a is realized with suffixation, which in this case is the suffix -ja for the first person singular. This sentence does not have a temporal reference however, if we were to add one then it specifies the time of the action. For instance, if we add the adverb yesterday (cf. example 5-8b) then we know that the learning happened yesterday as opposed to an action that has been going on for an undefined period of time (cf. example 5-8a). Second, the progressive aspect can be formed with the progressive particle po and the suffix -ja as can be seen (cf. example 5-8b). Third, progressiveness can be signaled with adverbs (cf. example 5-8c).
(5-8a) Unë mëso-ja. I learn-IMPRF. ‘I was learning.’
(5-8b) Unë po mëso-ja dje. I PROG. learn-IMPRF. yesterday ‘I was learning yesterday.’
(5-8c) Unë mëso-j27 në këtë moment. I learn-present in the moment ‘I am learning at the moment.’
26 Studies like these which focus on solely one part of the Albanian aspect provide grounds for collecting information that help establish aspect in Albanian. 27 This example was designed following Agalliu’s (1982: 64) instructions on progressiveness; cf. example 5-6. Nonetheless, in modern Albanian, when a progressive action needs to be expressed, the particle po is used in order to achieve this. So sentence (5-8c) would look like this: ‘Unë po mësoj në këtë moment’.
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In example 5-8a the learning could have happened at any given point of time or even during a long period, but if we add a time expression it would identify exactly when the learning took place as can be observed in example 5-8b. Furthermore, example 5-8a could be a habitual action that was repeated rather than a progressive action depending on the context, whereas example 5-8b is definitely progressive because of the particle po. In other words, while the learning in 5-8a could have lasted for a considerable amount of time in the past, the learning in example 5-8b was progressive at some point in the past. This suggests that the action in 5- 8a refers to a wider temporal spectrum while example 5-8b is more recent and eventually shorter, due to the use of the particle po. Ҫamaj (1984: 150) established the role of this particle by saying that when the particle po is used, (in the combination of E PAKRYERA or imperfect, cf. example 5-8b), then the particle makes the action progressive and adds an additional semantic element28. Example 5-8c shows that the particle po can be omitted in the case when an adverb is used (në këtë moment ‘at the moment’) while the progressiveness of the sentence remains.
The particle po has two more alternative uses: as a confirmation and intensifier. In example 5- 9 the particle po is used to indicate that an action (eating) has been verified and truthful due to the evidence at hand which is why the particle po translates as the progressive aspect and as the word really (Ҫamaj, 1984: 150):
(5-9) Shko-va dhe e pa-sh se po ha-nte bukë. go-past and CL. see-past that PROG. eat-IMPRF. bread ‘I went and saw that he/she/it was [really] eating bread.’
The second role of the particle po is as an intensifier (Duchet, 1995: 264). This gives the particle po two functions, for instance when “combined with the Present or the Imperfect takes on the aspectual meaning of progressive […] but combined with the Aorist takes on the modal value of the potential, in the protasis of a correlative statement.” According to Duchet (1995: 264) when the particle po is combined with E KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past) then it “posits an assertion which is not validated, but which serves as a basis for argumentation”. This means that the particle po which can function as an intensifier (Duchet, 1995: 264) when it precedes
E KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past) it is used to show an invalidated action. An example where
28 Cf. table 5-7 for a complete overview of the possible meanings and uses of the particle po.
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the particle po stresses or emphasizes a certain action without indicating progressiveness is offered by Ҫamaj (1984: 149; cf. example 5-10).
(5-10)29 As po di-ni, as po do-ni […]. Neither PROG. know-present neither PROG. want-present ‘You certainly do not know, you certainly do not want.’30
In modern Albanian, Agalliu et al. (2002: 309) and Borshi (2011) stress that the particle po is less frequent in E PAKRYERA (imperfect) than in KOHA E TASHME (present simple). This means that example 5-11a which is imperfect is less frequent than example 5-11b which is present simple:
(5-11a) Ajo po lexo-nte dje. She PROG. read-IMPRF. yesterday ‘She was reading yesterday.’
(5-11b) Ajo po lexo-n tani. She PROG. read-present now ‘She is reading now.’
All the different functions and ways to use the particle po along with further functions with example sentences, are revisited and outlined in Table 5-7:
29 In modern Albanian, this kind of use of the particle po is less common. 30 An alternative translation to example 5-10 would be: ‘You neither know, nor do you want.’
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Table 5-7: The different functions of the progressive emphatic particle po confirmation Shkova dhe e pash se po hante bukë (Ҫamaj, 1984: 150) / ‘I went and saw that he/she/it was [really] eating bread’ progressive particle Po udhëtoj për në fshat / ‘I am travelling to the village (at the moment)’ intensifier or emphasizer As po dini, as po doni […] (Ҫamaj, 1984: 149) / ‘You certainly do not know, you certainly do not want’ conjunction in if-conditional Mbledhjen tjetër, po të doni, e bejmë në shtëpinë time sentences (Buchholz and Fiedler, 1987: 166) / ‘If you like, we can have the next meeting at my house’ for ‘coincidence of action’ Po them disa fjalë për këtë çështjë (Buchholz and statements Fiedler, 1987: 168) / ‘I am (hereby) saying a few words about this issue’ for future actions Unë po nisem pasnesër (Buchholz and Fiedler, 1987: 168) / ‘I will travel the day after tomorrow’
As this table indicates, the uses and roles of the particle po in Albanian are numerous. Hence, it can be used for progressiveness, coincidental actions and future actions and it can function as an intensifier, conjunction and confirmation.
Now that the role of the particle po has been elaborated, the role and use of the particle duke along with the differences and similarities between the two particles (po and duke) is described in the next section.
5.2.2.2. The role of the particle duke in comparison to po
The section analyzes the uses and meanings of the particle duke and constructions with duke in Albanian. This section also outlines the major dissimilarities between the two periphrastic structures po and duke in Albanian. The first distinction as Newmark et al. (1979: 104) argues is that po particle is used “before a present or imperfect form of a verb” and it cannot be used with “preterite, the pluperfect or the future tense” (Borshi, 2011: 76). While the duke particle can be used before the participle form of the verb together with the present or imperfect form of the auxiliary verb kam ‘have’. While both po and duke can be used in progressive forms, unlike the particle po, duke can be used in gerundive forms as well (cf. examples 5-14a and 5- 14b in the current section).
The second difference in the use of po and duke depends on the development of the action in a given utterance. For instance, if the progressive needs to be used to denote an “action already
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in progress” then the progressive particle duke will be used (cf. example 5-12b) (Newmark et al., 1982: 36). If the action is already in progress then other actions could happen during this action, interrupt the progressive action or happen parallel to it. On the other hand, when the sole focus is on the progressiveness of the action and it merely stresses that the action is or was progressive at a certain point, then the particle po is used. Hence, the particle po is used for a “momentary action in progress” (Newmark et al., 1982: 36) like in the example 5-12a.
Examples 5-12a and 5-12b also differ in the form of the main verb and the use of helping verb. While in example 5-12a the present form of the verb is used, in example 5-12b the present form of the auxiliary verb and the present participle of the main verb are used. In example 5-12a the constriction with the particle po “expresses imperfectivity, where the process in continuation has not yet been completed” (Borshi, 2011: 76), while the action in example 5-12b is already in progress.
(5-12a) Unë po puno-j. I PROG. work-present ‘I am working.’
(5-12b) Unë ja-m duke pun-uar. I be-present PROG. work-participle ‘I am working.’
Po and duke alike can be used for progressive actions in the past. The particle po is followed by the imperfect form of the main verb (cf. example 5-12c), while duke is combined with the imperfect form of the verb to be and the participle verb form (cf. example 5-12d).
(5-12c) Unë po puno-ja. I PROG. work-IMPRF. ‘I was working.’
(5-12d) Unë ish-a duke pun-uar. I be-IMPRF. PROG. work-participle ‘I was working.’
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Ҫamaj (1984: 136) and Newmark et al. (1982) claim that the particle duke unlike po can also be used to form a present gerundive (duke qenë ‘being’) (cf. example 5-13a) and a past gerundive (duke pasë ‘having had’) (cf. example 5-13b).
(5-13a) Meta pretendon shumë në Korçë, madje ambiciet e tij për të pasur këtë bashki janë shprehur në mënyra të ndryshme dhe nga interesimi i madh i tij duke qenë prezent shumë herë në Korçë. (Gazeta Shqiptare, 2006.12.08, 2006) ‘Meta is so pretentious towards Korcha, that his ambitions for gaining this municipality have been expressed in many different ways as well as by his great interest in being present in Korcha many times.’
(5-13b) Duke nxjerrë mësime nga librat që i kushtoheshin rënies së perandorive të mëdha dhe duke pasë përjetuar vetë në Stamboll rënien e Perandorisë Osmane, ai ndjente keqardhje të thellë që jeta e tij dhe e familjes së tij kishin përkuar me kohën e fashizmit, pastaj me atë të stalinizmit. (Luan Starova, Koha e dhive, 1993) ‘While learning from history books about the fall of the great empires and having had experienced the fall of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul, he felt deep regret that his and his family’s lives had coincided with the time of fascism, and after on with that of Stalinism.’
These examples clearly show that duke can be used for actions that are or have been progressive.
Duke can be used as part of the structure of the non-finite gerundive affirmative form31 (cf. example 5-14a, obtained from the Albanian National Corpus-ANC32, and example 5-14b; (Gazeta Shqiptare, 2006.12.29, 2006)).
(5-14a) Armir Stergu ka qenë duke pun-uar arën e vet Armir Stergu have-present be-past PROG. work-participle the land CL. his me një traktor. with one tractor ‘Armir Stergu has been working on his land with a tractor.’
31 Cf. section 6.6. for more information on the non-finite gerundive affirmative form. 32 The Albanian National Corpus (ANC) comprises about 16.7 million tokens of fiction and journalistic genre (Press, Fiction, Non-fiction and Oral) relating texts (original and translated) with a morphological markup supported by the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences program “Corpus linguistics”.
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(5-14b) Unë kish-a qenë duke pun-uar. I have-IMPRF. be-past PROG. work-participle ‘I had been working.’ (my example)
The different ways to use po and duke in order to express progressiveness are summarized in Table 5-8.
Table 5-8: The difference in use of the progressive emphatic particles po and duke in the Albanian language *examples similar to sentences in the Albanian National Corpus particle PO DUKE “momentary action in progress” “action already in progress” use (Newmark et al., 1982: 36) (Newmark et al., 1982: 36) form Po + present or imperfect verb Jam (present or imperfect) + duke + participle present Po punoj Jam duke punuar example Po punoja Isha duke punuar example / Kam qenë duke punuar* example / Kisha qenë duke punuar*
What follows here is an account on po and duke and the way they have been described and used to express progressiveness in Albanian in different research studies that compare progressiveness in Albanian and English.
5.2.2.3. Po and duke in previous research
This section describes the research (by Gurra, 2014; Borshi, 2011; Cane, 2016; and Cane 2017) on progressiveness in Albanian, along with their purpose and approach to the category of aspect and the particles po and duke.
The particle or the formant po, according Cane (2016: 129), is part of the progressive time frame po + present/imperfect. Even though Albanian grammarians do not regard this progressive time frame with the particle po as a progressive tense, Cane (2017) argues that po + present/imperfect “is a well-established structure, already entrenched in the frame of tenses, thus established as a regular tense”. Both Cane (2017) and Borshi (2011: 75) argue that “the
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role of the progressive forms is apparently not yet very well integrated in the grammar of this language”.
We saw that duke (cf. section 5.2.2.2.) can be paired with the present participle to denote progressiveness in the present or the imperfect tense (cf. examples 5-12b and 5-12d). Duke can also be part of non-finite gerundive forms (cf. examples 5-13a and 5-13b). For instance, duke can also be part of the non-finite form called përcjellore pohore ‘gerundive affirmative’ form: duke punuar ‘working’, which consists of the particle duke and the participle form of the verb (cf. examples 5-14a and 5-14b). When përcjellorja pohore is paired with the verb jam ‘to be’ which precedes the form, then this becomes a temporal frame. Jam + përcjellore pohore ‘am + gerundive affirmative’ is a temporal frame compound in which “përcjellore remains a solid component and does not merge into a tense, like in English” (Cane, 2017). It can nonetheless be used to denote progressiveness.
Borshi (2011) claims that progressiveness in Albanian grammars, is not explicitly considered as a significant category of the verb, but is rather expressed by using adverbs. Hence, in her study she investigates and shows that there is a progressive aspect in Albanian and lists the different realization of progressiveness by looking at translated novels (from English into Albanian and vice versa). It was found that progressiveness in Albanian in not only realized with adverbs but also particles (po and duke; cf. sections 5.2.2.1. and 5.2.2.2.). The particle po was found to be more frequent than the particle duke and was more frequently translated into English.
In her study she also found out that there is a higher tendency to translate po-constructions from Albanian into the progressive in English, while the same was not noticed when English progressive forms were translated into Albanian. The reason for this Borshi (2011: 84) says is due to the “wider range of the English progressive uses, the ambiguous status of the po- construction as a grammatical means and the peculiarities of the translation process”. The findings of this study underscore the use and relevance of the particles as a crucial part of the progressive aspect in the Albanian language (hence their role is discussed in sections 5.2.2.1.- 5.2.2.3.).
Further investigation of progressiveness, specifically on the Albanian present perfect and past perfect tense-aspect combination equivalents to English, was carried out by Gurra (2014). Her
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study presents the Albanian tense-aspect system in direct contrast with the English counterparts as a contribution to linguistics and prescriptive grammars, as she explains. She mainly focuses on the progressive aspect even though she refers to it as a tense rather than an aspect which is what Borshi (2011) already established in her study as a tendency33 but not a rule.
Gurra (2014), like Borshi (2011), also focuses on progressiveness in her study and uses new terminology to refer to tense-aspect combinations English. Gurra (2014: 162-3) offers terminological equivalents of the Present Perfect Progressive and Past Perfect Progressive tense-aspect combinations in English as E KRYERA ME ASPEKTIN E VAZHDIMËSISË and MË SË E
KRYERA ME ASPEKTIN E VAZHDIMËSISË. Nonetheless, the translation that Gurra (2014) offers of the Present Perfect Progressive/Past Perfect Progressive in English resembles the present perfect simple/past perfect simple tense-aspect combination in Albanian in both form and use (cf. example 5-15a and 5-15b, respectively).
(5-15a) I have been observing. Unë ka-m vëzhg-uar. I have-present observe-participle
(5-15b) I had been collecting. Unë kish-a / pat-a mbledh-ur I have-IMPRF. / have-past collect-participle
The sentence in example 5-15a makes use of the verb kam ‘to be’ in the present form in addition to the present participle form of the main verb. However, it can be noticed that there is no clear marking of the progressive aspect itself neither by particles nor by adverbs in these sentences (cf. sentences 5-15a and 5-15b). Likewise, Ҫamaj (1984: 152) translates a past perfect simple sentence from Albanian as past perfect progressive equivalent in form in English (cf. example 5-16):
33 In Albanian there is a tendency to treat aspect as a subcategory of tense, rather than as a category on its own (cf. section 5.2.). Borshi (2011) contradicts this treatment of aspect by showing that in the Albanian language aspect can function separately from tense and that po and duke are used as indicators of the progressive aspect.
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(5-16) Luka para se të vi-nte në qytet kish-te jet-uar në Luka before that to come-past in town have-IMPRF. live-participle in fshat. village ‘Before Luka came to the city, he had been living in a village.’
What these examples (cf. examples 5-15a, 5-15b and 5-16) show is that the perfect aspect cannot be paired with the progressive aspect in Albanian and therefore does not make use of any progressive particles. The reason for this is that the perfect tense-aspect combinations in Albanian are close in function to the Simple Past [cf. example 5-26 in section 5.2.4.] which is why “Albanians have been using perfect interchangeably for the past” (Cane, 2016: 129).
5.2.3. Habitual vs. actual
The habitual was already discussed in sections 2.4.1.5. and 3.2.1.4. where it was said that it is used for actions that were repeated in the past. The current section elaborates on the habitual in Albanian and its unique features in this language. Hewson and Bubenik (1997: 112) explain how the Albanian language is the only Balkan language that has the actual-habitual opposition. The habitual in Albanian can be seen as a counterpart of the Present Simple in English (cf. sentence 5-22a) while the actual can be constructed with the particle po (cf. sentence 5-22b) or the particle duke (tue or kah for other dialects34) combined with the verb to be and the participle verb form (cf. sentence 5-22c by Hewson and Bubenik, 1997: 112-113).
(5-22a) Ha bukë. eat-present bread ‘I eat bread.’
(5-22b) Po ha bukë. PROG. eat-present bread ‘I am eating bread (right now).’
34 Cf. Table 5-6.
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(5-22c) Ja-m duke ngrën-ë bukë. be-present PROG. eat-participle bread ‘I am eating bread (right now).’
The opposition of the habitual and the actual aspect is said to be similar to the progressive-non- progressive opposition in English (Hewson and Bubenik, 1997: 112-113) however, a closer opposition to the one of the habitual-actual is the undetermined-determined one. This means that the habitual is used to express non-determined actions while the actual is used for determined ones. The difference between the habitual and the actual in Albanian can be seen in the imperfective example of the present (cf. sentence 5-22a) and imperfect tense (cf. sentence 5-22b) (by Ҫamaj, 1984: 148-9). In example 5-22a the action of eating bread is “undetermined or generalized” while in example 5-22b the action of eating in this example is determined which is why the aspect is actual (Ҫamaj, 1984: 148). While ha bukë in example 5-22a has the present tense and the habitual aspect, po ha bukë in example 5-22b has the actual aspect. In the first sentence eating bread is a general action not tied to a moment in time, which makes it indefinite, while eating in the second example is happening right now and therefore has an actual aspect, since the exact time of the action can be easily determined (Ҫamaj, 1984: 149). This same opposition is demonstrated with the imperfect in examples 5-22d and 5-22e (Ҫamaj, 1984: 150).
(5-22d) Ha-ja bukë. eat-IMPRF. bread ‘I ate bread.’
(5-22e) Po ha-ja bukë. PROG. eat-IMPRF. bread ‘I was eating bread.’
The tense in the sentence 5-22d is imperfect while the aspect is not determined since we do not know when exactly in the past this action took place. The aspect is habitual since the eating could have happened repeatedly in the past. While the tense in example 5-22e is also imperfect, the aspect here is actual, since the particle po indicates that this is an action that was progressive at some point in the past. Due to the fact that the action can be determined in time this sentence
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has an actual aspect (Ҫamaj, 1984: 150). A further aspectual opposition of the habitual in Albanian is possible, namely, with the progressive aspect (cf. example 5-23a):
(5-23a) Macja ha-nte mish. Cat eat-IMPRF. meat ‘The cat was eating meat.’ or ‘The cat used to eat meat.’
Whether the cat was eating, used to eat or would eat meat every time the cat was seen, can only be determined from the context. The aspect in the sentence 5-23a is imperfect. It is realized morphologically and can denote a repetitive or progressive action in the past. This means that the lack of the po construction can change the meaning of the sentence as it can also change the aspectual connotation of the sentence (cf. example 23b).
(5-23b) Macja po ha-nte mish. Cat PROG. eat-IMPRF. meat ‘The cat was eating meat.’
In example 5-23b the cat could have been seen while eating meat, which means that eating was a progressive action in the past without any indication of its start, end or repetitiveness.
5.2.4. Perfect
The perfect was defined as an aspect that links an action in the past to a moment in the present in sections 2.4.1.6. and 3.2.1.5.. Likewise, the perfect in Albanian relates past actions to the current moment or to another moment in the past. For instance, Newmark et al. (1979: 106) claims that the perfect in Albanian can be used for actions that were “completed in the past that is relevant to the present (present perfect) or to a particular time in the past (past perfect)”. Unlike the perfect in English which can link actions, Ҫamaj (1984: 152) points out that in Albanian there is a tense form that does not relate actions to one another, since it is “independent in terms of aspect”, namely, the pluperfect (elaborated in section 6.5.).
The perfect tense form in Albanian is formed with the auxiliary verbs kam ‘have’ in active voice or jam ‘to be’ in passive and the participle form of the main verb. The verb kam ‘have’ is in the present for E KRYERA (present perfect) (cf. section 6.3.) in the imperfect (kisha ‘had’) for MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect) (cf. section 6.4.) and in the past form (pata ‘had’) for E
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KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) (cf. section 6.5.). Examples of all three perfects in Albanian are illustrated below (Newmark et al., 1982: 102).
(5-24a) Unë ka-m la-rë. I have-present wash-participle ‘I have washed.’
(5-24b) Unë kish-a la-rë. I have-IMPRF. wash-participle ‘I had washed.’
(5-24c) Unë pat-a la-rë. I have-past wash-participle ‘I had washed.’
Demiraj (2002: 313) also adds that of the two the more frequently used one is MË SË E KRYERA
(past perfect) (cf. sections 6.4. and 6.5.) and that the perfect tense forms in Albanian MË SË E
KRYERA (past perfect) and E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) are used interchangeably due to their synonymous use.
E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) when paired with E KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past) in Albanian, merely orders past actions in a chronological order (cf. example 5-25 by Ҫamaj,
1984: 152). In the example below, E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) described an action that happened before E KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past).
(5-25) Luka mbasi ia pat dal-ë qëllimit, e the-u besën. Luka after CL. have-past exit-participle the goal CL. break-past the promise ‘Luka, after he had attained the goal, he broke his word of honor.’
Pat dalë ‘had attained the goal’ and theu besën ‘broke the word’, in sentence 5-25, are actions that are not dependent or connected to each other through aspect, rather these are perfective actions that merely happened one after the other, so their connection is temporal rather than aspectual (Ҫamaj, 1984: 152).
Of the three perfects in Albanian, Demiraj (2002: 313) defines that E KRYERA (present perfect) cannot easily be differentiated from E KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past) hence the perfect tense form tends to replace the past tense one. The difference between E KRYERA (present perfect)
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and E KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past) in Albanian is thought to be difficult since both denote an action that happened before the time of speaking with the only difference that E KRYERA (present perfect) in Albanian links the past with the present. Demiraj (2002: 313) uses the difficulty of differentiating between E KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past) and E KRYERA (present perfect) in Albanian as a reason for the tendency to replace E KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past) with E KRYERA (present perfect) by both grammarians and speakers of the language.
One example of this replacement can be observed in example 5-26 where the meaning of the perfect in Albanian can be influenced by adverbs. In this case, the present perfect has the meaning of a simple past due to the way in which the action developed. This can be seen in example 5-26 where ka prerë ‘has cut’ is a present perfect form but in meaning and in translation it is a past tense form (Ҫamaj, 1984: 151).
(5-26) Dallëndysha ia ka pre-rë fluturimthi me gërshere The swallow CL. have-present cut-participle swiftly with scissors shlligës gjuhën. the viper tongue ‘The swallow, on the wing (i.e. swiftly), cut off the viper’s tongue with scissors.’
The adverbial form fluturimthi ‘while flying’ of the verb fluturoj ‘fly’ in the sentence 5-26 indicates that the action of cutting is a quick and sudden and it happened in an instant. Usually an action like this one would require E KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past) nonetheless, due to the tendency to replace the simple past with the present perfect, the form of the sentence 5-26 remains present perfect, but the meaning and translation in English are in simple past (Ҫamaj, 1984: 151).
Cane (2016) claims that there are two reasons for the interchangeable use the perfect for the past in the Albanian language which are “the presence of imperfect, as well as factors relating to usage or speakers”.
The perfect tense forms are described in more detail by outlining and exemplifying their use and form in comparison to the English counterparts along with some pedagogical concerns in Chapter 6 (cf. sections 6.3. to 6.5.).
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5.3. Concluding remarks and concerns for the learner
Despite the unclear distinction or lack of any difference between the categories of tense and aspect in Albanian, once several texts are considered and analyzed, the picture of tense and aspect in Albanian becomes clearer. In other words, tense, which is realized morphologically, is the category of the verb that locates actions in time, while aspect, which is realized with particles, suffixes, auxiliary verbs and adverbs, reveals information about the ‘completedness’ and ‘ongoingness’ of the action. These are the definitions that could be derived after consulting different texts (Newmark et al.; 1982; Ҫamaj, 1984; Agalliu et al., 2002; Demiraj 2002; Borshi, 2011; Joseph, 2011; Cane, 2016, 2017) which are the views applied throughout my study.
What can be observed from the previous sections, is that aspect in the Albanian language just like in the English language is marked morphologically. However, in the Albanian language this can also be achieved with particles (po and duke) and imperfect inflections. Since there is not much mention of the category of aspect in morphology, and also, since the studies involving both languages (English and Albanian) are so few, there is a need for research which compares and contrasts the tense-aspect systems of Albanian and English. The current study has the intention to define tense and aspect and their forms in Albanian and compare these to their English counterparts (cf. Chapter 6). The findings of such research will provide insight into pedagogical challenges and solutions and potential L1 interference causes in addition to how these can be addressed for L1 Albanian learners of English. Once these elements have been identified, I investigate which is the best teaching-learning theory to apply, and which are the most applicable approaches and methods for teaching the English tense-aspect system to L1 Albanian speakers (cf. Chapter 8).
6. Contrasting the focal tense-aspect combinations in Albanian and English
After establishing what tense and aspect in Albanian are (cf. Chapter 5), the target tense-aspect combinations in English (already discussed in Chapter 4) and their counterparts in Albanian, can be compared in this chapter. The possible combinations (limiting them to only the ones of interest in this study) are discussed in terms of meaning, form and use by pointing out their similarities and differences in the two languages (English and Albanian), and the pedagogical
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advantages and disadvantages these resemblances and alterations might pose. It is specifically pointed out what challenges learners with Albanian L1 might face when acquiring certain tense-aspect combinations in English.
The tense-aspect combinations of interest to this study include the following: E PAKRYERA
(imperfect), E KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past), E KRYERA (present perfect), MË SË E KRYERA
(past perfect) and E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect).
6.1. E PAKRYERA (imperfect) vs. Habitual Past and Past Progressive
The imperfect or E PAKRYERA in Albanian is used for incomplete, undetermined actions and it “convey[s] the meaning of specific states like the Present, but in the context of a discourse or narrative in the past” (Duchet, 1995:258). According to Agalliu et al. (2002: 306-316), E
PAKRYERA can be habitual and can also be used for actions that were progressive35 in the past without stressing the moment when these actions started or finished (Agalliu et al., 2002: 308).
E PAKRYERA can be used for “general, habitual, or repeated action, or an action in progress at a particular time in the past” (Newmark et al., 1982: 36).
Table 5-3 (cf. section 5.2. in Chapter 5) clearly indicated that there are two different kinds of E
PAKRYERA. E PAKRYERA can a) be habitual, as in the example Haja ‘I ate’, whereas E PAKRYERA type b) is actual or active, and can be seen in this example: Po haja ‘I was eating’, where the particle po is needed in order to indicate progressiveness (Ҫamaj, 1984: 150). In the following paragraphs and in Table 6-1 below, five different uses of E PAKRYERA are analyzed and exemplified.
The first way to use E PAKRYERA is for actions that are definite and were progressive at a particular moment in the past (Agalliu et al., 2002: 308).
(6-1) Qeni po shqye-nte gazetën. The dog PROG. tear-IMPRF. the newspaper ‘The dog was tearing the newspaper.’
35 The fact that E PAKRYERA can be used to achieve progressiveness in Albanian is the reason why this Albanian tense form is relevant for this chapter and hence described in this section.
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The same use of E PAKRYERA can be expressed with the particle duke, the imperfect from of the verb jam ‘to be’, plus the participle form of the main verb (Agalliu et al., 2002: 308-9):
(6-2) Ish-te duke shqy-er armikun[…]. Be-IMPRF. PROG. tear-participle the enemy ‘He was tearing apart the enemy.’
As can be seen from the examples (6-1 and 6-2), this use of the E PAKRYERA denotes progressiveness, which in the English language can be done with the Present Progressive tense- aspect combination.
The second use of E PAKRYERA translates into the Past Progressive in English with the same form and use and therefore raises no pedagogical concerns. Nonetheless, the obvious difference in expressing progressiveness in English and Albanian (cf. section 5.2.2.) is that there are no particles in English and the conjugation of the main verb for person and number is lacking. Since the progressive in the Albanian language seems to be more challenging than the equivalent in English, this could mean that when Albanian learners acquire aspect in English this kind of construct should not pose problem unless they erroneously look for a way to use a particle in the English counterparts, which from previous teaching experience has never been an issue.
The second way to use E PAKRYERA is for an indefinite, frequently repeated action in the past in a short time frame (Agalliu et al., 2002: 309). Agalliu et al. (1995: 287) list the suffixes used for all verbs for the imperfect (person/number endings): -ja, -je, -te/-nte, -nim, -nit and -nin. The suffix -te, which is used for the third person singular, can be seen in example 6-3 by Agalliu et al. (1995: 309):
(6-3) Herë pas herë e kthe-nte kokën[...]. Time after time CL. turn-IMPRF. the head ‘Time after time he was turning his head.’
When an action is repeated several times then expressions like herë pas herë ‘time after time’ can be used as illustrated above. The ways in which this translates into English is by using expressions such as: ‘over and over’, ‘more and more’, ‘here and there’ (Kroeger, 2005: 157), as seen in example 6-3.
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E PAKRYERA can be used in dependent clauses, which is the third use of the imperfect in Albanian (Agalliu et al., 2002: 309). In English this can have differently formulated translations:
(6-4) Kudo që shko-nte populli e pris-te me gëzim[…]. Wherever go-IMPRF. people CL. wait/expect-IMPRF. with joy ‘Wherever he went, people welcomed him joyfully.’ ‘Wherever he went, people would/used to welcome him joyfully.’
This use of the imperfect in Albanian, which is clearly habitual, can only be achieved in English with “the auxiliaries will and would (to express repetition of a situation as forming a present or past habit) and the semi-auxiliary used to (referring to a past habit)” (Declerck et. al., 2006: 37). Though the form of this fourth use is the same as the second and third use, here the context provides the information about the habituality of the action. This difference in meaning and use of the E PAKRYERA could potentially be a pedagogical concern for L1 Albanian learners of English when expressing progressiveness and habituality because they may attempt to use the same or similar inflectional form in English that they have in their native language.
E PAKRYERA is also applicable in the case when an indefinite action was progressive either over a longer or shorter period of time in the past (Agalliu et al., 2002: 309-10), which is its fourth use:
(6-5) Veglat me të cilat puno-hej toka ish-in The tools with CL. which work-IMPRF.PASS. land were-IMPRF. parmenda. plows ‘The tools, with which the land was being harrowed, were plows.’
The literal translation of punohej is ‘was being worked’, which is the past progressive passive from of the verb punoj ‘work’, an action that was progressive at some point in the past with its own suffixes.
This fourth use of E PAKRYERA (which can also be seen in the translation of the example sentence 6-5) translates similarly in English and is less likely to cause negative transfer for L1 Albanian learners of English.
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E PAKRYERA has also a fifth use, when it can be used as a present tense in the past. It is used for actions that were uttered in the past in the present tense form. This is what happens when direct speech is turned into indirect speech (Agaillu et al., 2002: 310):
(6-6) Pashai i tha se nuk do-nte të ha-nte. Pasha CL. tell-past that not want-IMPRF. CL. eat-IMPRF. ‘Pasha told her that he did not want to eat.’
(6-7) Kronikani shkrua-nte se këto ish-in male të larta, The chronicler write-IMPRF. that these be-IMPRF. mountains CL. tall ku as sorrat nuk fluturo-nin dot. where neither the crows not fly-IMPRF. never ‘The chronicle wrote/would write that these are those tall mountains where the rows never flew/fly.’
Here E PAKRYERA is neither progressive nor repetitive; it merely states an action or event that took place once. This use of E PAKRYERA could become a pedagogical concern if the L1 Albanian learners use the Habitual Past or the Past Progressive instead of the Simple Past in indirect or reported speech.
All uses of E PAKRYERA are recaptured and restated in Table 6-1.
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Table 6-1: Types and use of the imperfect for progressive and habitual purposes in Albanian (Agalliu et al., 2002: 306-311)
type tense/aspect use auxiliary particle suffix main verb example combination verb in present form for the first person singular definite imperfect or for a / po -te/ hyj po hy- past definite -nte nte progressive action that to be duke / shqyej ishte was (present) duke progressive shqy-er in the past indefinite imperfect or for an / / -te/ kthej kthe-nte past indefinite -nte progressive frequently repeated action in the past in a short time frame indefinite imperfect or for a / / -te/ shkoj shko- past conditional -nte nte progressive action in a dependent clause indefinite past for a long / / -hej punoj puno- progressive or short, hej (imperfect indefinite passive) action that was progressive in the past definite imperfect or for a / / -te/ don do-nte past definite -nte progressive action that was present in the past
As can be noticed in Table 6-1, E PAKRYERA in Albanian is inflectional, which is why it is considered a tense. A similar phenomenon is observed in other Indo-European languages where the morphological markers or rather “[t]he fusion of the morphological markers of aspect and other categories in such forms as the Aorist and Imperfect” (Comrie, 1976: 97) is held to be responsible for the treatment of the imperfect as a tense form. This leads to the conclusion that
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E PAKRYERA is a tense in Albanian that can be used as a means of expressing: pastness, habituality and progressiveness.
6.2. E KRYERA E THJESHTË (Aorist) vs. Simple Past
E KRYERA E THJESHTË in Albanian is a perfective, determined past tense form which “posits a predication, and in the context of a narrative, it refers to certainty, because the narrator vouches for the occurrence of the predicate” (Duchet, 1995: 264).
It can be used in five different ways, the first of which is for actions that have been completed in the past and actions which have finished before the moment of speaking (Newmark et al., 1982: 69; Agalliu et al., 2002: 310; Hamiti and Hamiti, 2010: 84; Fekollari et al., 2009: 59).
The second way to use E KRYERA E THJESHTË is without temporal expressions in order to stress relevance to the current moment or a resultative action. The third use of E KRYERA E THJESHTË in Albanian has a mbarëkohor ‘timeless’ reference (Agalliu et al., 1995; Newmark et al.,1982;
Fekollari et al., 2009). The fourth use of the of E KRYERA E THJESHTË implies an action that will happen in the future but which has a past form of the verb (Fekollari et al., 2009 and Agalliu et al., 2002). Here E KRYERA E THJESHTË can be used for actions in progress or actions that have not started yet, and conditional situations (Agalliu et al., 2002: 311). The fifth use of E KRYERA
E THJESHTË (simple past) is to replace E KRYERA (present perfect) (Agalliu et al., 2002: 312), which means that it can be used for actions that have a connection to the moment of speaking or whose result is visible in the present.
The morphological formation of this Albanian tense form is realized by suffixation, which is different depending on the last sound of the verb, which results in different verb endings (Beci, 2005: 129; Agalliu et al., 2002: 289). Agalliu et al. (1995: 288-9) and Beci (2005: 129) explain that the endings of the verb in the past tense for verbs that end with a vowel for the verb vra- ‘kill’ are: -va, -ve, -i/-u, -m(ë), -t(ë) -n(ë): vra-va, vra-ve, vra-u, vra-më, vra-të, vra-në. If the verb ends with a consonant then these are the endings: -a, -e, -i/-u, -ëm, -ët, -ën, like in the verb hap ‘open’: hap-a, hap-e, hap-i, hap-ëm, hap-ët, hap-ën.
These five uses of E KRYERA E THJESHTË are illustrated with examples in the following lines and are contrasted with Simple Past in English. Example 6-8 is an illustration of the first use
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of this tense with a time reference, where the action has finished before the moment of speaking:
(6-8) Ai dje trego-i një tregim. He yesterday tell-past one story ‘He told a story yesterday.’
The action of telling a story finished yesterday in example 6-8, which is clearly specified by the inflection -i and the adverb dje ‘yesterday’, both indicating that this action, which might have started yesterday, definitely finished in the past.
When the first use of E KRYERA E THJESHTË (an action that finished before the current moment) is contrasted to the counterpart in English it can be noticed that there are several similarities.
Both E KRYERA E THJESHTË in Albanian and the Simple Past in English can be used to show an action that has been completed before the current moment. As can be seen from example sentence 6-8, both the Albanian and English languages use morphological markings in order to form the Simple Past. Additionally, it can be observed that the inflections on the main verb in Albanian are person, number and tense specific.
The next example shows the second use of E KRYERA E THJESHTË when it is used without a time reference; in some cases, it can indicate an event that happened in the past with current relevance.
(6-9) Unë zbulo-va një zgjidhje. I discover-past one solution ‘I have discovered a solution.’
In example 6-9, it can be seen that the inflection -va is a past suffix for the first person, which makes it an inflection of only this tense (E KRYERA E THJESHTË). The inflection in example 6-8 is also one of the past tense for the third person singular -i. Therefore, there is no morphological difference between examples 6-9 and 6-8 except for the adverb dje ‘yesterday’ in sentence 6- 8.
If the utterance does not reveal information about exactly when the action happened (due to its irrelevance or due to the fact that the context that this sentence occurs in is followed by a result in the present), then the equivalent in English will need to be in Present Perfect Tense. Example
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6-9 thus shows that E KRYERA E THJESHTË can be used to indicate a connection to the current moment or for an action where the event time is not of importance, whereas this cannot be done with the Simple Past in English. The pedagogical implications for Albanian L1 learners here is that these learners could have the tendency to express actions with unstated time, actions that continue up to the present or recently completed actions of an utterance with the Simple Past rather than the Present Perfect in English.
The third use of E KRYERA E THJESHTË in Albanian, mentioned by Agalliu et al. (1995), Newmark et al. (1982) and Fekollari et al. (2009), denotes an action that has no reference to a specific time, namely a mbarëkohor or ‘timeless’ reference. Agalliu et al. (1995: 310) state that a mbarëkohor reference is used for statements and proverbs of general and timeless value.
Newmark et al. (1982: 70) elaborate on the mbarëkohor reference of E KRYERA E THJESHTË in Albanian and indicate that it is used to express ‘thoughts with a timeless value’:
(6-10) Nuk u lodh-e sot, do të mundohesh mot. Not REFL.PASS.participle tire-past today, will try-SUBJ. next year ‘If you do not labor ("got tired") today, you will toil next year.’
The mbarëkohorë reference of E KRYERA E THJESHTË in Albanian can emphasize the action rather than the time when the action took place or the ‘completedness’ of the action, which in English can be achieved with the Past Progressive or Present Perfect. Agalliu et al. (2002: 311) explain that the mbarëkohorë reference can be used for an action that has not yet started, or for an action that is in progress, or that for a fact will take place and will be completed soon; hence a verb that denotes a finished action is used.
The mbarëkohorë use of E KRYERA E THJESHTË in Albanian does not have a direct equivalent in English. When a timeless reference needs to be used in English, then the passive voice is employed (in the case when the action is more important than the time of the event); alternatively, the Present Perfect can be used along with adverbs like ‘lately’ and ‘these days’ to achieve a similar effect. That is, when the event time is not relevant in English, the Present Perfect can be used rather than the Simple Past in order to achieve the timeless reference or the mbarëkohorë use of the Albanian E KRYERA E THJESHTË. Alternatively, the passive voice is more frequently used in English to put the emphasis on the action rather than on the exact time of the action. A pedagogical concern is that L1 Albanian learners of English might feel inclined
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to use the Simple Past in English in order to express a timeless reference (since this is possible in their mother tongue), which would lead to the incorrect use of the Simple Past in English, since it would be used to replace the Present Perfect or passive voice.
Fekollari et al. (2009) and Agalliu et al. (2002: 310-11) say that the fourth use of E KRYERA E
THJESHTË, denotes future and perfect actions as exemplified by Fekollari et al. (2009: 59) below:
(6-11) Ja ta lexo-j edhe këtë faqe dhe erdh-a. Here CL. read-present and this page and come-past ‘Let me finish reading this page and I will come.’
Erdha ‘came’ is a perfective action or a finished action when one looks at the form of the verb, while the form of the verb denotes an action in the past but is used for an action that will be finished in the future. In English, a similar effect can be achieved with the Present Simple, Present Progressive or Future; the closest translation to the sentence in Albanian could be this: ‘I am with you as soon as I have read this page’, ‘I am going to be with you as soon as I have read this page’ or ‘Let me finish this page and I’ll be with you’. These differences may cause confusion for the L1 Albanian learners of English who might try to use the English Simple Past for a timeless or future reference.
E KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past) can be used instead of E KRYERA (present perfect) (Agalliu et al., 2002: 312) in the cases when it describes an action that is resultative or connected to the present. Sentence 6-12 exemplifies the fifth way to use this tense form in Albanian (Agalliu et al., 2002: 312):
(6-12) Më tha-në [=kan-ë thën-ë] se ke-ni kërk-uar një CL. tell-past [=have-present tell-participle] that have-have seek-participle one mësues. teacher ‘They told [=have told] me that you have been looking for a teacher.’
If the meaning of the past and present perfect forms of the verb tell is synonymous in Albanian (cf. example 6-12), this is not so in English. If the sentence were to be translated using the present perfect verb construction of the verb tell, unlike if the past form of the verb were used,
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the Present Perfect in English would imply that what happens next could be a result of this action. For instance, in the example above it could be implied that the person came as soon as he36 heard about the job, or even applied for the teaching position as a result of the fact that he had been told about it. Consequently, if resultative or actions connected to the present are substituted with the Simple Past in English by L1 Albanian learners of English, this will be a pedagogical disadvantage.
As mentioned in section 3.2.1.1., the Simple Past in English does not morphologically differentiate between finished actions and ongoing actions since it lacks the perfective- imperfective opposition suffixation that other languages have (Downing and Locke, 2006), like for instance the Albanian language. Nonetheless, this lack of inflections in English is not expected to interfere with the acquisition process of learners in the current study (L1 Albanian learners of English), despite of the presence of this distinction in the native language of the participants of this study. In order to achieve a near perfective-imperfective distinction the Simple Past in opposition to the Past Progressive can be used. From a pedagogical perspective, the lack of inflectional perfective-imperfective marking in the Simple Past in English should not pose a problem when L1 Albanian learners study this tense. When the L1 Albanian learner is to produce an equivalent of E PAKRYERA (imperfect, with or without particles), they can do this with the English Past Progressive, while for the versions of E KRYERA E THJESHTË the Simple Past can function as an equivalent.
One of the reasons why E KRYERA E THJESHTË is compared to the Simple Past in English is because of the challenges that might arise when the Simple Past is compared to the Past Perfect. Despite of the simple form and straightforward use of Simple Past, this tense can become a challenging one when compared and contrasted with the Present Perfect and when used in the same sentence with the Past Perfect. Moreover, learners tend to use E KRYERA E THJESHTË with Present Perfect and Past Perfect time references particularly in the spoken language. Instances of this mismatch of tense-aspect combination and adverb are illustrated below, drawn from the spoken pre-test of my study (cf. section 11.5.2.):
36 The word mësues ‘teacher’ in Albanian is used to refer to a male teacher.
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(6-13) *I didn’t read the book, yet.37
(6-14) *I have never went to India.
This co-occurrence goes against what the learners are taught at SEEU and is therefore considered as erroneous combination of tense and adverbs.
To sum up, the simple past in English and Albanian are both realized with the past form of the verb with the difference being that the verbs in Albanian conjugate for each person and number. The simple past can be used in both languages to denote an action that happened in the near past or has finished in the past; nonetheless, this tense in Albanian has additional uses that cannot be achieved with the simple past in English which could interfere with the English version of the tense.
6.3. E KRYERA vs. Present Perfect
E KRYERA or present perfect in Albanian, which is a perfective, undetermined tense form, is used “when reference is made to the speaker's experience or to an element present in the situation resulting from the process of the verb” (Duchet, 1995:265). This tense form can be formed with the helping verb kam ‘have’ or jam ‘be’ preceding the participle verb form (Demiraj, 2002: 337) and has four different uses. Similar to its use in English, it can be used to describe actions that are still in progress at the current moment, it can be used for finished actions connected to the present, it can refer to the future, and it can replace E KRYERA E
THJESHTË (simple past) in Albanian.
E KRYERA describes an action that has finished in the past (Agalliu et al., 2002) which is also an action that “includes both the past and the moment of speaking” and so is also a tense form that has “some connection with the present moment although it began in the past” (Newmark et al., 1982: 71). E KRYERA can be used “when an action begun in the past [and] is still continuing at the moment of speaking” (Newmark et al., 1982: 72). An example of how this tense form may have a connection to the moment of speaking, which may continue up to the
37 This is not an acceptable combination in British English, hence not acceptable for the students taught at SEEU where British books are used.
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current moment, is presented in the example below (cf. example 6-15 by Agalliu et al., 2002: 313):
(6-15) Duhet ta di-sh se ka tre vjet që na ka Need CL. know-SUBJ. that have-present three years that CL. have-present moleps-ur mola shpirtin. infect-participle moth the soul ‘You need to know that it has been three years that the moth has infected our souls.’
This use of E KRYERA implies that the person who has been suffering for three years continues suffering even at the moment of speaking. In this example, like in English, the stress is on an action that has started in the past, has lasted for a while, is relevant to the current moment and may continue in the future. Both these uses of E KRYERA can be observed in English as well.
The previous example (6-15) illustrates that, like the Present Perfect in English, the Albanian
E KRYERA is formed by using the auxiliary verb kam ‘have’ in the present form and the participle of the main verb. E KRYERA (present perfect) in Albanian, as in English, can be used for an action that started in the past and may or may not have a relevance to the current moment. From a pedagogical point of view, the implication that can be drawn from the similarity in use and form between the present perfect tense-aspect combinations in English and Albanian is that the acquisition of the Present Perfect in English should not pose a problem for the participants in the experiment of this study. However, the third and the fourth use of E KRYERA in Albanian described in the paragraphs that follow are very distinct from the use of the Present Perfect in English.
Newmark et al. (1982), Agalliu et al. (2002), Beci (2005) and Fekollari et al. (2009) explain that E KRYERA in the Albanian language can also refer to actions in the future. Newmark et al. (1982: 73) argue that this tense can be “used like a future, when the speaker represents as an accomplished fact an action which has not yet begun”. An example of how E KRYERA is used to denote future is illustrated below (Beci, 2005: 131):
(6-16) Po m’i gjet-e këto ilace, më ke shpët-uar. If CL. find-past these medicine, CL. have-present save-participle ‘If you find/found me the medicine, you will have saved me.’
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The same effect can be achieved in English; however here we need to use the Future Perfect which, unlike the Albanian tense form, makes use of the verb will and is therefore a Future Perfect Tense rather than a Present Perfect Tense used for the future.
The third use of E KRYERA (present perfect) is mentioned by Fekollari et al. (2009) and Agalliu et al. (2002), denotes and replaces simple past actions. This way of using E KRYERA, according to Fekollari et al. (2009) and Beci (2005: 130), is similar to E KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past) and in fact has the meaning of E KRYERA E THJESHTË in Albanian:
(6-17) Lasgush Poradeci ka lind-ur me 1899. Lasgush Poradeci have-present bear-participle with 1899 ‘Lasgush Poradeci was born in 1899.’
While in English for actions like the one in 6-17 the Simple Past would be the only option, in
Albanian the use of E KRYERA (present perfect) stretches beyond its primary use. This could falsely lead L1 Albanian learners of English to use the Present Perfect for Simple Past actions, which could become a pedagogical disadvantage. On the other hand, there clearly are strong parallels between the present perfect forms of both languages illustrated below with the experiential perfect and the perfect of result which were previously discussed according to Comrie (1976: 59) (cf. section 2.4.1.2.). His elaboration of aspect is done by illustrating that in the experiential perfect the doer of the action could have been involved in an action at any given point between the past and the present moment, while the perfect of result clearly states that the result of the action is relevant to the moment of speaking. Comrie’s sentences in English (1976: 59) would have the following equivalents in Albanian:
(6-18a) Bill ka qenë në Amerikë. (experiential perfect in Albanian) Bill have-present be-past in America ‘Bill has been to America.’
(6-18b) Bill ka shk-uar në Amerikë. (perfect of result in Albanian) Bill have-present go-participle in America ‘Bill has gone to America.’
Like English, Albanian also has the experiential perfect, the perfect of result and the possibility to express an action that may be linked to the current moment, or an action that may be in progress up to the moment of speaking. The differences between Present Perfect in English and
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E KRYERA (present perfect) in Albanian is that E KRYERA can refer to actions in the future, replace the Simple Past and be used with Simple Past adverbs in the Albanian language, which is not the case in English.
With regard to the difficulty of the acquisition of the English Present Perfect in general, DeCapua (2008: 187) points out that the possible problems might include substitution of “the simple past, the simple present, or the present progressive for the present perfect”. The author explains that this might happen because the Simple Past, the Present, or the Present Progressive might be preferred by the ESL/EFL learners instead of the Present Perfect due to sequence and a continuousness that could make more sense to the learners. This would be an instance of underuse of the Present Perfect due to its substation with more convenient and probably easier (in the learner’s eye) temporal verb constructions.
The substitution of the Simple Present for the Present Perfect that DeCapua (2008) mentions is a possibility for the L1 Albanian learners in my study, since in Albanian there is a way to express a Present Perfect action with the Present Simple. For instance, in Albanian E TASHMJA (present simple) can be used to achieve what in English is done with the Present Perfect tense- aspect combination, since E TASHMJA can express an action that started in the past and continues until the moment of speaking (Agalliu et al., 2002: 308).
(6-19) Ke-mi tri net që nuk fle-jmë. Have-present three nights that not sleep-present ‘We have not slept for three nights.’
When L1 Albanian learners apply this rule to the English language this will result in the use of the Present Simple to achieve the effect of the Present Perfect due to L1 transfer.
The use of the Present Perfect, which is also called ‘continuation-up-to-the-present- moment’, is also thought to pose a challenge for the learner: [i]t is at this point that the student of English sometimes throws up his hands in despair. If the same tense is used, he says, to produce two entirely different, two entirely opposing, meanings, how can one ever be expected to understand which is which? If 'Helen has been in England' means that she is not there now, while 'Helen has been in England for about six months' means that she is there still, how can one possibly understand which meaning is intended-since the tenses are exactly the same? (Ward 1963: 53)
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This might challenge the discernment of a beginner student who is studying the Present Perfect in English, while a more advanced EFL student or future linguist might be able to see the difference between the two sentences by not only making use of the time expression in their discernment, but also by taking into account that the lack of a temporal expression in the second sentence means that the action is more important than the time frame in which the action took place. Finally, the concern that Ward (1963) expresses for the learner is legitimate and brings to our attention that the Present Perfect and the entire English tense-aspect system are not straightforward and easy to learn. On the contrary, the English tense-aspect system is challenging due to the ambiguity of the tense-aspect combinations and the exceptions that certain tenses have, in addition to the extended use and reference of the tense forms, for instance when the Present Simple can be used to denote future, among others.
6.4. MË SË E KRYERA vs. Past Perfect
MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect) in Albanian is used for past actions that were completed before another action in the past, and which may or may not be connected to that action in the past. It can also be used as a conditional perfect (Newmark et al., 1982: 75). In both cases, the meaning depends on the context. Morphologically MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect) is formed by using the imperfect form of the helping verbs jam ‘to be’ and kam ‘have’ (kisha ‘had’ or isha ‘was’) preceding the participle form of the main verb (Agalliu et al., 2002). The following sentence exemplifies a situation in which the finished action is linked to another action in the past (Agalliu et al., 2002: 314):
(6-20) Vetëm të nesërmen Dini mendo-i i qetë për ato që kish-in Only CL. tomorrow Dini think-past CL. quiet for those that have-IMPRF. ndodh-ur. happen-participle ‘Only the next day Dini quietly thought about those things that had happened.’
The use of this tense, in which the action has neither connection to a specific time in the past nor the moment of speaking since it is “disconnected from that particular moment in the past” (Newmark et al., 1982: 73), is exemplified in the next sentence by Agalliu et al. (2002: 314):
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(6-21) Dini provo-i të kujto-nte se si dikur kish-te hip-ur në Dini try-past to remember-IMPRF. that how sometime have-IMPRF. climb-participle on një carace. one hackberry tree ‘Dini tried to remember how he once had climbed a hackberry tree.’
The way in which the first action in sentence 6-20 is connected to the second action in the past
(as opposed to example 6-21 where MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect) is not connected to the other action in the past), is usually ascertained from the context (Agalliu et al., 2002: 314). In sentence 6-20, MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect) functions like a perfect action, and in example 6-
21 this tense form has the feature of E KRYERA E THJESHTË (simple past) (Newmark et al., 1982: 74). While in 6-20 the aspect of the action is perfect, since the past action of thinking is connected to the happening of things, in sentence 6-21 remembering is not connected to the climbing and both actions are past. This means that Dini was thinking about the past because of the things that have happened, and that he realized what happened only the next day. It could also mean that Dini, who was thinking about the past and about the things that have happened, might take some action now, as a result of the thinking.
MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect) can have a third use, in that it can function as a conditional perfect in spoken Albanian (Newmark et al., 1982: 75):
(6-22) Të mos të kish-a në vatër time, të kish-a vra-rë. To not CL. have IMPRF. in hearth my CL. have-IMPRF. kill-participle ‘Were you not living in my home, I would have killed you.’
Newmark et al. (1982: 75) clarify that MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect), when used to express a conditional, is more frequently used in spoken language. In order to express the same conditional in English, the modal verb would needs to be used, which would then mean that the original use and function of MË SË E KRYERA in example 6-22 would be lost.
This section also shows that the way MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect) is used and formed in Albanian and its equivalent in English is the same. In both languages this tense-aspect combination may or may not have a connection to a moment in the past. As can be seen from the previous examples (6-20 and 6-21), even the English translations almost mirror the examples of MË SË E KRYERA in Albanian. The pedagogical implication for this tense form is
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that the L1 Albanian learners of English should not have trouble acquiring and producing Past Perfect in English since it is very similar in form and use in both languages.
6.5. E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (Pluperfect) vs. Past Perfect
E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) in Albanian can be used for an action that took place before another action in the past and for future conditional actions. E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR in Albanian is formed by adding the past form of the helping verb pata ‘had’ or qeshë ‘was’ before the participle form of the main verb.
The meaning of this tense form is very similar to MË SË E KRYERA or past perfect explicated above (cf. section 6.4.), in that it is a tense form that specifies “an action completed before a particular point in the past” (Newmark et al., 1982: 75). Because of the almost synonymous function of this tense form and MË SË E KRYERA, in standard contemporary Albanian the pluperfect is used less frequently (Agalliu et al., 2002, 1995, 1976; Newmark et al., 1982; Gega and Nesimi, 2001; Fekollari et al.; 2009: 59). In the modern Albanian language MË SË E KRYERA
(past perfect) replaces E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect), which is a clear example of language change in Albanian (Agalliu et al., 2002: 315). However, if the two tense forms were to be used in the same sentence, the action expressed in E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) would have happened before the action expressed in MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect). In addition, Demiraj’s (2002: 315) figure 5-1 (cf. section 5.1.) of the past tenses on the time axis also confirms that E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) is an action that differs from MË SË E KRYERA
(past perfect) in that it happens or can happen before MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect). Agalliu et al. (2002: 315) illustrate the combination of E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) and MË SË E
KRYERA (past perfect) in example 6-23, where patë marrë ‘had taken’ (in the pluperfect), would have happened before kishte hedhur ‘had thrown’ (in the past perfect):
(6-23) Në fillim pat-ë marr-ë një tog me baltë, pastaj In beginning have-past take-participle one heap with mud after e kish-te hedh-ur atë mbi një skelet të hekurt. CL. have-IMPRF. throw-participle it above one skeleton CL. iron ‘He initially had taken a heap of mud then threw it on the iron skeleton.’
Newmark et al. (1982: 75) say about sentence 6-23 that the action that happened first is not only indicated by the order of the actions in the sentence but also by the helping verb patë
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‘had’, which indicates that this action happened before the one with the helping verb kishte ‘had’. What follows is that patë marr ‘had taken’ happened before kishte hedhur ‘had thrown’ due to the morphological form rather than because of the order of the actions in the sentence. Additional indicators of the order of actions are the time markers në fillim ‘in the beginning’ and pastaj ‘after’, which also state which action happened first. In order to illustrate the difference on the time scale that can be achieved with MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect) and E
KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect), I have provided a few examples that support Newmark et al.’s (1982) view of the dissimilarity of the two tense-aspect combinations in Albanian.
(6-24a) Unë kish-a nis-ur në punë, por e pat-a harr-uar. I have-IMPRF. start-participle to work but CL. have-past forget-participle librin në shtëpi. the book at home ‘I was on my way/started to go to work, but I had forgotten the book at home.’
In this example, kisha nisur ‘had started to go’ or ‘had left’ is in MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect), while pata harruar ‘had forgotten’ is in E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect). What is achieved here with the combination of MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect) and E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) can be achieved in English with the Past Perfect and the Simple Past. A similar version of the Albanian example sentence (cf. example 6-24a) in English would be:
(6-24b) I left for work, but I had forgotten the book at home.
If the Simple Past is used and the order of actions is based on the order of the events in the sentence, then the same sentence in English would be as follows:
(6-24c) ?I forgot the book and left for work.
In a sentence like this in English, the order of the actions in the sentence denotes the chronological order in which the actions took place, unless the Simple Past is combined with the Past Perfect, in which case the action in Past Perfect happened first like in example 6-24a.
The second use of E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) is in future conditionals. It is used for actions that have been completed before another action in the past like in the conditional sentence (6-25 by Beci, 2005: 131):
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(6-25) Po e pat-e bë-rë edhe ketë të mire qof-sh i bekuar. If CL. have-past do-participle and this CL. good be-SUBJ. CL. blessed ‘If you did this good deed as well, may you be blessed.’38
However, when one considers the above example it can be seen that E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) is actually used for the promise of a future conditional action. The same meaning can be achieved in English, but by using the Simple Past, or in other cases the Future Perfect tense form, rather than the Past Perfect. The direct translation of example 6-25, has a different meaning in English when compared to the intended meaning. If we say in English *‘If you had done me this good as well, may you be blessed’ compared to ‘If you did this good as well, you will be blessed’, it can be noticed that the first sentence, which is the direct translation from Albanian, has a different meaning from the second sentence, which carries the intended message of example 6-25. In other words, if we say the first sentence, then the timeframe or the need for the favor to be done has passed and nothing can be done about it now, while in the second sentence, there is still the possibility for the favor to be done, since it sounds like a conditional request.
Having mentioned earlier that E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) and MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect) are thought to be similar in meaning, but different in frequency, and that one of them can replace the other, it is also noteworthy that E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR is more present in written than in spoken Albanian and it has a lower frequency than MË SË E KRYERA (Fekollari et al., 2009; and Agalliu et al., 2002: 316). When considering the actual frequency use of the two past perfects in present-day Albanian, since E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) is not used very often and tends to be replaced by MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect), this tense form should not pose serious problems for L1 Albanian learners of English. Nevertheless, upon closer inspection however, it has been illustrated in this section that there is one difference between the two tenses, namely that E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) happens before MË SË
E KRYERA (past perfect).
In order to express a sentence in English where one action happened before another, the Past Perfect in combination with the Simple Past has to be used in order to indicate that an action preceded another action or a combination of two actions using the Past Tense where the
38 An alternative translation to sentence 6-25 could be: ‘If you have also done this good deed may you be blessed’.
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chronological order will indicate which action took place first. Alternatively, time markers can achieve the same effect in English in combination with the Simple Past.
The pedagogical implication that follows when E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) is considered, is that L1 Albanian learners of English might use two past perfect actions in
English in order to achieve the effect that they can achieve by combining E KRYERA E
TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) and before MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect) in Albanian. Another concern is that if they rely on the fact that tense forms in Albanian signal chronological order of actions regardless of the order of the actions in a given sentence, this might interfere with the use of tense forms in English. Even though the meaning and uses of the Past Perfect seem to be straightforward and easy to explain and exemplify, this tense form in combination with the Simple Past has been a challenge for the students studying at SEEU. More so, this tense- aspect combination in general is difficult to use and spontaneously produce in speech due to its lower frequency than the other tense forms, and tends to be substituted by the Simple Past (in American English; Gorrell, 1995). Because of the challenges that this tense form causes, the Past Perfect will be one of the tense-aspect combinations that will be used in the experiment in the current study.
6.6. Present Perfect Progressive and Past Perfect Progressive counterparts in Albanian
As already established (cf. sections 5.2.2.; 5.2.2.1. and 5.2.2.2.), Agalliu et al. (2002), Borshi (2011), Newmark et al. (1982) among others, demonstrate that the progressive in Albanian can be realized with particles (po and duke) or suffixes in combination with auxiliary verbs. Nonetheless, the particle po unlike the particle duke can be used with the present and imperfect tense while they are “incompatible with the preterite, the pluperfect or the future tense” (Borshi, 2011: 76). None of the texts consulted on Albanian tense and aspect mention that the present perfect and the past perfect can be progressive in the Albanian language. Gurra’s (2014) study is the only source where MË SË E KRYERA ME ASPEKTIN E VAZHDIMËSISË (past perfect progressive) and E KRYERA ME ASPEKTIN E VAZHDIMËSISË (present perfect progressive) are mentioned as terminological equivalents. This is also the only study that compares these tense- aspect combinations in English and Albanian using near equivalent examples that correspond the present perfect and past perfect rather than progressive versions (cf. section 5.2.2.3.). It needs to be mentioned that Gurra (2014) offers the present perfect simple as a counterpart for
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E KRYERA ME ASPEKTIN E VAZHDIMËSISË (present perfect progressive) and past perfect simple for MË SË E KRYERA ME ASPEKTIN E VAZHDIMËSISË (past perfect progressive).
This leads to the conclusion that there is no Present Perfect Progressive or Past Perfect Progressive equivalent in form in the Albanian language. In other words, “[a]lbanian grammarians accept no continuous tenses in the tense framework, although it has been long debated. The tense category is generally regarded as a function-assigning main, with rules governing the appropriate use” (Cane, 2016: 129). Instead, the Albanian language uses temporal forms and compounds to express progressiveness. The form jam duke + pjesore (‘am’ progressive particle + ‘participle’) where the verb jam ‘to be’ can change according to tense is placed before the gerundive affirmative form of the verb as an answer to tense forms in English that have a progressive aspect and use -ing in the main verb (for instance: Present Progressive, Past Continuous, Present Perfect Progressive, Past Perfect Progressive; Dralo, 2016: 158-9).
In section 5.2.2., the temporal frame compound jam + përcjellore pohore or ‘am + gerundive affirmative’ was mentioned and it was explained that this can be used to denote progressiveness. This temporal frame compound is identical with jam duke + pjesore since the përcjellore pohore entails duke + pjesore ‘progressive particle + participle’.
An example of this can be seen in example 6-26:
(6-26) Për momentin ja-m duke push-uar. ([Koha.mk], Koha (via Koha.mk), 2011.06.10, 2011) For the moment be-present PROG. rest-participle ‘I am resting/pausing for the time being.’
In this example (6-26), the way the temporal frame compound jam + përcjellore pohore is formed resembles its English counterpart with the exception of the duke particle.
Çeliku (2013: 239) explains that “[p]ërcjellorja pohore është ajo trajtë e përcjellores që shpreh një veprim dytësor shoqërues pranë një veprimi kryesor, me të cilin kryhet zakonisht në të njëjtën kohë” which means that the përcjellore pohore or non-finite [the affirmative gerundive form is a non-finite form that expresses a secondary action which accompanies the primary action, which takes place at the same time]. This can be seen in example 6-27 (obtained from the ANC32 (Ismail Kadare, Muzgu i perëndive të stepës, 1978)):
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(6-27) Ish-a duke dal-ë nga leksioni i fundit, kur më tha-në be-IMPRF. PROG. exit-participle from the lesson CL. last when CL. say-past se kish-a një letër në portineri. that have-IMPRF. one letter in gate/porter’s lodge ‘I was getting out of the last lecture when they told me that I had a letter at the gate/porter’s lodge.’
In example 6-27 it can be seen that duke dalë ‘getting out’ is a secondary action which accompanies the primary action of isha ‘was’ which is how we know that the action happened in the past, while isha duke dalë ‘was getting out’ is a progressive action that was interrupted buy më thanë ‘they told me’.
The ANC32 has also additional examples of the jam + përcjellore pohore time frames. For instance (cf. example 6-28a from Zëri, 2013.11.13, 2013; cf. example 6-28b an adapted example):
(6-28a) [Ata] ka-në qenë duke vjedh-ur vota për kandidatin. [They] have-present be-past PROG. steal-participle votes for the candidate ‘They have been stealing votes for the candidate.’
(6-28b)39 [Ata] kish-in qenë duke vjedh-ur vota për kandidatin. [They] have-IMPRF. be-past PROG. steal-participle votes for the candidate ‘They had been stealing votes for the candidate.’
Here the compound has the present of the verb kanë ‘have’ the past form of the verb qenë ‘was’ the particle duke and the present participle form of the main verb vjedhur ‘stealing’. When this compound is compared to how the Present Prefect Progressive in English is formed (‘They have been stealing for two years’) some similarities in word order and form can be noticed since kanë = ‘have’, qenë = ‘was’, vjedhur = ‘stealing’. However, it needs to be pointed out that this is still a non-finite form in combination with auxiliary verbs and it does not represent a progressive tense form.
39 The Albanian sentence in example 6-28b translates as a Past Perfect Progressive counterpart in English and it mirrors example 6-28a which translates as a Present Perfect Progressive counterpart in English. Example 6-28b is illustrated here with the purpose of demonstrating how the jam + përcjellore pohore compound can be used to denote progressiveness in the past.
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The above mentioned sentence in Present Prefect Progressive in English would be translated in Albanian as:
(6-29a) They have been stealing for two years. Ka dy vjetë që po vjedhin.
(6-29b) Ka dy vjetë që po vjedh-in. Have-present two years that PROG. steal-present ‘It has been two years that they are stealing.’ or ‘They have been stealing for two years.’
During the pilot project48 (carried out before the current study) the tendency was higher that a Present Prefect Progressive sentence in English would be translated as a jam + përcjellore pohore compound (cf. example 6-28a) rather than the translation offered in the example above (6-29a), which can be seen as a pedagogical advantage. That is to say, if the students prefer to provide word-for-word translations of the English Present Prefect Progressive, then the jam + përcjellore pohore time frame compound will be beneficial for Albanian learners of English as a foreign language due to its similarity in form.
As can be seen from the examples in the current section, the temporal frame compound jam + përcjellore pohore can be used to stress the length of an action that lasted for some time, or an action that started in the past which may last up to the current moment or have a result in the present. In terms of its meaning, it can be used to stress the length of an action that lasted for some time, or an action that started in the past that may last to the current moment or have a result in the present. It can be used with the purpose of putting emphasis on duration, for an action that might still be continuing, or an action that has visible outcomes at the current moment.
6.7. Concluding remarks
What can be concluded from the comparison of the target tense-aspect forms for this study in both languages (English and Albanian) is that there are more similarities than differences of the target counterparts which will ideally be pedagogically beneficial. This chapter also shows that grammar books and the few research studies dedicated to the description of the tense- aspect system of the Albanian language or its comparison with English, do not all clearly state
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the use of aspect, progressiveness and progressive particles, which makes it difficult to get a clear picture of the tense-aspect system in Albanian. As has been mentioned above, what helped to make the inferences and the conclusions about the emphatic particles (duke and po) and the constructions they occur in to show progressiveness, could only be differentiated after a thorough analysis of the definitions and corpus examples that were provided in grammar, research texts and the ANC32.
A summary of the target tense-aspect combinations discussed is presented in Table 6-2 following the grammar reference part in Evans and Dooley (2008: 158-159). This table indicates the use of the target tense forms in English and is complemented with Albanian equivalents for the English example sentences by the current authors.
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Table 6-2: Text adapted into a table from the grammar reference section by Evans and Dooley (2008: 158-159)
Tense-aspect Use Example sentence in English and combinations Albanian (by Evans and Dooley, 2008: 158-159) [original emphasis] simple past / E KRYERA E THJESHTË (p.159)
“for an action that occurred at a She went to the dentist yesterday. / definite time (stated or implied) in ‘Ajo shkoi te dentisti dje.’ the past” “for actions that happened I got up, had a shower and ate breakfast. immediately after one another in / the past” ‘U ngrita, bëra një dush dhe hëngra mëngjes.’ “for habits or states which are My dad worked as a pilot before he got now finished” married. / ‘Babai im punonte si pilot para se të martohej.’ “for an action that happened over John lived in Manchester from 1962 to a longer period of time” (Comrie, 1982. (Comrie, 1985: 41) / 1985: 41) ‘John jetonte në Mançester nga viti 1962 deri 1982.’ “for an action which began in the Up to this moment this disease was past and goes on until the moment incurable. (Comrie, 1985: 41) / of speaking” (Comrie, 1985: 41) ‘Deri në këtë moment kjo sëmundje ishte e pashërueshme.’ past progressive / E PAKRYERA (p.159)
“for an action which was in We were sleeping when the alarm went progress when another action off. / interrupted it. We use the past ‘Ne po flinim kur ra alarmi.’ continuous for the action in progress (the longer action), and the simple past for the action which interrupted it (shorter action)” “for two or more simultaneous Bill was listening to music while he was actions in the past” doing his homework. / ‘Bill po dëgjonte muzikë ndërsa po bënte detyrat e shtëpisë.’ “for an action which was in At 7 o'clock last night I was watching TV. progress at a stated time in the / ‘Në orën 7 mbrëmë isha duke past. We don't mention when the parë/shikuar televizor.’ action started or finished” [original contraction] “to describe the atmosphere, The dogs were barking and the wind was setting etc. and to give blowing as we were walking through the woods. /
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background information to a ‘Qentë po lehnin dhe era po frynte story” ndërsa ne po ecnim nëpër pyll.’ present perfect / E KRYERA (p.158)
“an action that happened at an Lynn has been to Venice twice. / unstated time in the past. The ‘Lin ka qenë në Venecia dy herë.’ emphasis is on the action, the time when it occurred is unimportant or unknown” (p.158) “an action which started in the I have known Sarah for five years. / past and continues up to the ‘Ka pesë vjet që e njoh Sarën.’ present, especially with stative verbs such as be, have, like, know, etc.” “a recently completed action” I have closed the door. / ‘Unë e kam mbyllur derën.’ or ‘Unë e mbylla derën.’ “personal experiences or She has had a baby. / changes” ‘Ajo ka pasur një fëmijë.’ past perfect / MË SE E KRYERA (p.159)
“for an action which happened Mike had finished working by six o'clock. before another past action or / ‘Mike e kishte mbaruar punën para before a stated time in the past” orës gjashtë.’ “for an action which finished in He had broken his ankle a month ago the past, and whose result was and he still couldn't walk properly. / visible at a later point in the past” ‘Ai kishte thyer kyçin e këmbës një muaj më parë dhe ende nuk mund të ecte mirë.’ “for a general situation in the Everyone had gone home. / past” ‘Të gjithë kishin shkuar në shtëpi.’ [my example] past perfect / E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (p.159)
“for an action which happened Mike had finished working by six o'clock. before another past action or / ‘Mike patë mbaruar punën para orës before a stated time in the past” gjashtë.’ [adapted example] “for an action completed before a I had washed the dishes before he particular point in the past” arrived. / ‘Unë i pata larë enët para se të (Newmark et al., 1982: 75) vinte ai.’ [my example]
What follows in the next chapter is tense and aspect from a pedagogical point of view and the mismatch of the description of this system when compared to the linguistic representation of it in Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
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7. The pedagogical point of view
Tense and aspect so far in this study, have been described by referring to grammar and reference books from a linguistic point of view in general (cf. Chapter 2), in English (cf. Chapter 3) and in Albanian (cf. Chapter 5). These issues are revisited in this chapter, however this time from a pedagogical point of view. Similarly to Chapter 6, where the target tense forms were listed, the current chapter displays the way in which pedagogical books refer to the combinations of tense and aspect in question. Furthermore, there are three main issues discussed in this chapter. Firstly, it shows how other researchers define pedagogy, pedagogical grammars and learning theories. Secondly, it illustrates the different treatment of tense and aspect in pedagogical texts as opposed to linguistic ones (cf. Chapters 2 to 5). Thirdly, this chapter discusses the effect that the different portrayals of tense and aspect can have on the learning of the English tense-aspect system in the classroom.
To begin with, pedagogical grammars are defined as “the types of grammatical analysis and instruction designed for the needs of second language students” (Odlin, 1994: 1). Since the focus in this study is on the instruction of grammar, five schools of grammar are covered in this chapter: traditional prescriptive grammar (which is not used anymore except in manuals and grammar checkers), structuralist applied grammar (almost extinct but still dwells in ESL grammar books), Chomskyan generative grammar (used in research but not in classrooms, furthermore, since UG is innate there is no need for it to be learned), Hallidayan systemic functional grammar (unique but vast and consists of confusing grammatical categories), and modern descriptive grammar (which is non-judgmental, uses real, authentic, plain English, and consists of statements and not rules (Bourke, 2005: 86-94)).
Traditional prescriptive grammar determines what is allowed and what is not allowed in language (Bourke, 2005: 86). Bourke (2005) further claims that the traditional prescriptive grammar does not take into consideration the fact that the language changes and evolves, but rather holds on to forms that have fallen out of usage. Structuralist applied grammar in the other hand, according to Bourke (2005: 87), considers grammar to be “a taxonomy of set structures or patterns, which act as templates for the generation of any number of sentences on the same pattern”. In addition, this school of grammar “has had a significant impact on both syllabus
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design and on teaching methodology”, something that has been negative Bourke (2005: 87) argues, due to its main concern with syntax at the expense of other features.
Chomskyan generative grammar relies on the inborn language and grammatical knowledge that every individual is thought to have. Bourke (2005: 90) explains that there is not only knowledge of the language which is inside (I-language) but there is a language that is external (E- language), which would be language knowledge which can be accessed outside the learner’s mind, for instance through books.
Hallidayan systemic functional grammar focuses on the means of conveying a message in order to meet language requirements for communicative purposes. “Grammar is thus a tool for making meaning” rather than a set of rules or an innate system of patterns (Bourke, 2005: 92). When Hallidayan systemic functional grammar is used for teaching purposes, the communicative element can be applied in real life situations when using the language.
Modern descriptive grammar takes spoken and written corpus data from an everyday natural context of English in use into consideration and focuses on the actual, modern use of the language rather than relying on prescriptive rules (Bourke, 2005: 89). Bourke (2005: 96) clearly favors the modern descriptive approach to teaching grammar in the classroom, and makes the following statement:
[g]rammar for teaching purposes has to go beyond reference grammar and involve learners in ‘grammaring’, i.e., applying their grammar in various contexts of use. Pedagogical grammar is more than unapplied knowledge in the head; it is the ability to exploit one’s grammatical resources in order to make meaning.
This means that the use of grammar in context is more important than simply accumulating vast quantities of grammatical rules. Furthermore, grammar as a resource in language production should be a means for language production and for comprehension. In addition, Bourke (2005) lists the books and the authors that offer a modern corpus-based description and hence enable the teacher to employ modern descriptive approach to teaching grammar, among which are: Collins COBUILD English grammar (1990), Greenbaum and Quirk (1990), Carter, Hughes and McCarthy (2000), Murphy (1997) and Parrott (2000).
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One can hardly categorize the books that deal with English grammar into the category of only grammar books and course books, since there are more types with various purposes that sometimes overlap:
theoretical books: Comrie (1985), Comrie (1976), Dahl (1985); reference books: Quirk (1985), Biber (1999), Pullum et al. (2002), Downing and Locke (2006), Declerck et al. (2006); self-study, practice and classroom teaching books: Alexander (1990), Hewings (2005), Nettle and Hopkins (2003), Azar (2002), Naylor and Murphy (1996); pedagogical grammar and reference: Alexander (1988); descriptive grammar books pointing out learning challenges: Huddleston and Pullum (2005) and DeCapua (2008);
In order to crystallize the difference between theoretical, descriptive and pedagogical books, the aims and objectives of these types of textbooks40 are outlined here:
theoretical grammar books: o discuss a grammatical item by giving inter-linguistic input and comparison; o consider what the specific features of that grammatical item should or could be due to application criteria and/or relying on comparison with other language systems; descriptive books: o portray the English grammatical system in terms of its actual use in written and spoken form; pedagogical grammars are textbooks that: o follow a presentation-practice-production approach for the sake of fulfilling teaching requirements; o elaborate on the grammatical item; o offer insight in how these are used in different contexts and registers; o provide activities to practice and test the learners’ comprehension of a particular grammatical item.
40 All these books can be used to fulfill pedagogical needs, although some are more applicable than others.
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When investigating the approach to tense and aspect in linguistic and pedagogical books, it can be noticed that not only is the approach different (aspect is not a separate category in pedagogical and teaching books), but there are also categorical dissimilarities (tense and aspect are separate categories in linguistics books while in teaching books they are considered together as tense). These issues and additional observations by different authors concerning tense (cf. section 7.1.) and aspect (cf. section 7.2.), their role and function in books from a pedagogical point of view, are elaborated in the next sections.
7.1. Tense in English from a pedagogical point of view
One of the main differences between linguistic and pedagogical books is the exact number of tense forms. For instance, Crystal (2003) and Seely (2007) argue that linguistically speaking, the English tense-aspect system consists of only two absolute tenses, while from a pedagogical point of view up to twelve tenses or rather tense forms are acknowledged, described and exemplified in textbooks by various authors (among which are Hewings, 1999 and 2005; Naylor and Murphy, 1996; Nettle and Hopkins, 2003; Walker and Elsworth, 2000; Swan and Walter, 2001; Azar, 1989; Willis and Wright, 1995; Murphy, 1997; Carter et al., 2000; Swan and Walter, 1997). Most of these books offer a tabular illustration of the different forms of the tense forms namely: Present Simple, Present Progressive, Simple Past, Past Progressive, Present Perfect Simple, Present Perfect Progressive, Past Perfect Simple, Past Perfect Progressive, Future Simple, Future Progressive, Future Perfect Simple, and Future Perfect Progressive. All of them are referred to as tenses with a description of their form and use. However, since both linguistics books and pedagogical books attempt to describe the English tense-aspect system differently, they cannot be both correct, since the first state that there are two or possibly three tenses in English (if future tense is counted), while the books used in classrooms indicate that there are twelve tenses.
Another difference between linguistic and pedagogical books is the treatment of the future tense. For instance, self-study books and text books like the ones by Hewings, (1999 and 2005), Naylor and Murphy, (1996); Nettle and Hopkins, (2003); Walker and Elsworth, (2000); Swan and Walter, (2001), also fail to mention the dispute over the future tense, and certainly do not address the issues concerning the future tense, such as: the consideration of the future tense as uncertain, modal and non-inflectional. The disagreement on whether to include the future tense
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in the English tense aspect system is not addressed in course books at all, rather, the future here is presented as a tense which is definitely part of this system. The fact that a number of researchers exclude this tense from the English language will come as a surprise to beginner linguists, while the EFL learners might not even be aware of the dispute over the future tense, since course books, unlike grammar and some reference books, omit this issue. These teaching books do not dwell on the definition of tense or the criteria of what constitutes a tense, rather they focus on the forms and uses of the tenses, and some of them on the exceptions to the rules. Indeed, the texts used by students introduce all possible tense forms and are very liberal in labeling them as tenses. For this reason, it needs to be pointed out that progressiveness should not be labeled as tense, since it falls into the category of aspect rather than tense (Declerck et al., 2006: 162).
The lack of awareness of theoretical linguistics, as Bourke (2005: 85) states, is not taken into account by instructors and directly affects the work done in a classroom, thus having a consequential influence on the students’ communicative proficiency. He insists that the work of Chomsky and Halliday “may still shed light on pedagogical grammar and provide a rationale for the way one goes about teaching grammar” despite the fact that it might be challenging to adapt them to linguistics in a teaching environment (Bourke, 2005: 85). Instead, teachers who are aware of this deficiency have the option of using supplementary material, although some teachers may not be able to do the same due to curricula, time or personal restrictions and reasons.
One reason for this gap between linguistic and pedagogical tense-aspect description and for the contradictory statements by linguists and grammarians could be that a view of the whole complexity of the situation could cause confusion and frustration for learners of English as a foreign or second language. Even so, the vast number of books and their various purposes (for instance reference, self-study or classroom books), can be overwhelming in itself for EFL learners. An additional disadvantage is the fact that many books do not include corpus findings (Mukherjee, 2006). Books that have been used for reference or pedagogical purposes (at SEEU) include: The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language by Huddleston and Pullum (2002), which is “generatively-oriented”, while the Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language by Quirk et al., (1985), also used, is “descriptive structuralist grammar”, and finally the
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Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English by Biber et al., (1999), which is descriptive in nature (Mukherjee, 2006: 337).
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language and the Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language do not have a corpus data focus (Mukherjee, 2006: 341). However, since there is some survey data “the two grammars may be regarded as ‘corpus aware’ but they are, strictly speaking, not ‘corpus-based’” [original emphasis] (Mukherjee, 2006: 342). The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, on the other hand, is corpus based, since it includes different spoken and written texts and register. Mukherjee (2006: 343) points at advantages of new corpus based reference grammars, which include the following: “(1) the transparency of the database and the analysis, (2) the balance between a language-as-a-whole and a genre-specific description, (3) the openness to constant revision and modification.” The next section illustrates the approach of books (that can be and are used for pedagogical purposes) to the category of aspect.
7.2. Aspect in English from a pedagogical point of view
In the previous section (cf. section 7.1.) the portrayal of tense was identified as one of the shortcomings of books used in instructional settings. Similarly, in this section, the role and mentions of the category of aspect is addressed. The partial description of the category of aspect can affect instruction and therefore the learning of grammar. Hence, “[g]rammar books need to focus on lexical aspect rather than sticking merely to the traditional pedagogy of tense through the grammatical rules” (Rahman, 2015: 134). This means that both lexical and grammatical aspect should be taught in class, since the gaps in grammar books can interfere with the pedagogy of language teaching and language learning and the successful and accurate use of tense and aspect in combination.
An additional issue observed in some books teaching the English tense-aspect system is that “[t]he progressive aspect is thought to be an expression of tense” (Imai, 2008: 24). This same trend is noticed in numerous books that learners of English come in contact with, which include course books, textbooks, self-study books and reference books (Hewings, 1999, Hewings, 2005; Murphy, 1997; Naylor and Murphy, 1996; Nettle and Hopkins, 2003; Carter et. al., 2000; Schoenberg and Maurer, 2006; Schoenberg, 2012; Fuchs et al.; 2012; Fuchs and Bonner 2012; Azar, 1989). The point here is that the category of tense is briefly defined in these types of
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books followed by entire sections on the tense-aspect combinations referred to as tenses, while the category of aspect, which is referred to as tense, is not explicitly mentioned. This leads to the assumption on the part of learners that aspect is part of tense or one of its features. In fact, in these types of books, whole units or modules describe the use, form, application of the tenses with their accompanying time expressions, while on the other hand, there is no mention of the category of aspect (Kortmann, 1991: 14). This not only leads future linguists and learners of English to the assumption that aspect is part of tense, it also poses problems for their future careers as instructors and researchers.
DeCapua’s (2008) descriptive grammar book for teachers (which includes the learning challenges that students might face when learning the tense-aspect system), is one of the rare books for teachers that presents tense and aspect as two different categories. DeCapua (2008: 195) calls conventional tenses ‘so-called’ tenses and claims that they are ‘combinations of time + aspect’ as illustrated in Table 7-1.
Table 7-1: DeCapua’s (2008: 195) 12 “combinations of time + aspect”.
All in all, both pedagogically and linguistically, it is crucial to point out that diverse books pay little or no attention to the category of aspect, as opposed to the category of tense. What is more worrisome, is the fact that these books lead to the conclusion and misconception that aspect is part of tense since progressiveness and perfect actions are referred to as tenses (which is also the case in books describing the Albanian language; cf. section 5.1.). While this is the situation
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with the category of aspect in pedagogical books, in linguistics, on the other hand, aspect is established as a grammatical feature, regardless of whether it is considered similar to tense or as a distinct category (cf. section 2.2.). Hence, learners of English need to be aware of both views in order to fully comprehend the role and function of aspect.
In the next chapter, the Traditional, Five-Stage and LdL teaching methods are described along with their possible advantages and disadvantages.
8. The teaching methods
8.1. Teaching/learning preliminaries
This chapter defines the term method, discusses the importance of teaching methods in general, and outlines the procedure, advantages and disadvantages of the three target teaching methods investigated in the current study (cf. section 8.2.1. for the Traditional Method; cf. section 8.2.2. for the Five-Stage Method; cf. section 8.2.3. for the LdL Method). Furthermore, the views about all three methods are supported on empirical and theoretical grounds by using the literature provided by other researchers who invented these methods, or have applied them in their personal teaching or have reflected on them from empirical experience.
In section 1.1., it was laid out what factors can affect teaching and learning. Since there are so many variables that affect or interrupt the teaching and learning process (the effect of the method on the learning outcomes), it is necessary to take these into consideration. Hence, difficulty in successfully acquiring language, grammar or tense-aspect combinations in class cannot be linked to the teaching method alone.
Since there are so many variables that affect the teaching and learning process, it is definitely worthwhile and necessary to take these into consideration. The difficulty of successfully acquiring language, grammar or tense-aspect combinations in class cannot be pinned to the teaching method alone, due to many other factors affecting or even interrupting the effect of the method on the learning processes and outcomes. Despite these limiting conditions, instruction promotes faster learning and accuracy (Ortega, 2009: 139) (cf. section 10.2.) and instruction practices “enhance the speed of development, because they make the 'acquisitional'
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process shorter” [original emphasis] (Ellis, 1985: 236). Moreover, Long (1983:374) found that instruction can be advantageous in different circumstances, for instance: “1) for children as well as adults, 2) for intermediate and advanced students, not just beginners, 3) on integrative as well as discrete-point tests, and 4) in acquisition-rich as well as acquisition-poor environments”. Because of these positive views, beliefs and evidence about the positive effect of instruction, I have decided to undertake my study despite the factors affecting grammar acquisition that are beyond my control.
While most of the above-mentioned factors that might affect teaching or learning in a negative way are not under the teacher’s or the teaching method’s control, there are some variables that could be controlled for the experiment-teaching environment in my study. The attempt that has been made to account for the extra-instructional factors includes the following points: the students have a similar background in education and exposure to the English language (since they all have been exposed to a similar curriculum in elementary and secondary school); the students have the same ethnic background (since they are all ethnic Albanians born and raised in Macedonia); their first language is Albanian (which controls the L1 influence factor) and they have a similar financial situation (since they all attend a private university). In addition, the students’ needs, learning styles and preferences were attempted to be met by the versatility of the instructional methods, and finally, the teacher factor was neutralized since there was only one teacher involved in the delivery of all three teaching methods.
As already elaborated in section 1.1., given that university education is crucial and costly, it is the teachers’ responsibility to find the best teaching method for conveying language and helping the students to integrate knowledge into speech. Although the teacher can hardly eliminate what happens outside of classroom or personal factors that affect learning focus, the teacher certainly can choose a teaching method and decide which method is the best for a particular instructional setting.
Prabhu (1990: 168) argues that what makes a method the best method is when a method makes it possible for “as much learning as possible [to happen] as quickly as possible”. The method that will help achieve this ideally should offer the learner a variety of input of the same language or grammatical item (for instance the Present Perfect Progressive) and more frequent input opportunities by using different stimuli and reasoning types.
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What follows here is the description and criticism of the teaching methods chosen for my study.
8.2. The teaching methods: structure, purpose, benefits and disadvantages
Before the three methods are presented, this section defines what teaching methods are in general and what their main purpose is. A method is “a set of activities” (Prabhu, 1990: 162) or “a theoretically consistent set of teaching procedures that define best practice in language teaching” and if these practices are applied correctly they will foster “more effective levels of language learning than alternative ways of teaching” which will lead to improvement of the “quality of language teaching” (Richards and Rodgers, 2001: 15).
Methods usually have “a specific instructional design or system based on a particular theory of language and of language learning” and most methods have “detailed specifications of content, roles of teachers and learners, and teaching procedures and techniques” (Richards and Rodgers, 2001: 245). That is, “any language teaching method can be described […] at the levels of approach, design, and procedure” (Richards and Rodgers, 2001: 32). In other words, ‘approach’ refers to the theories of language and language learning, ‘design’ includes the objectives, syllabus, activities, teacher roles, student roles and the role of materials, and lastly, ‘procedure’ embodies the techniques, practices, tactics and strategies used in class (Richards and Rodgers, 2001: 20-32).
Teaching methods as a set of techniques facilitate the teaching process and organize proceedings by usually following a lesson plan. However, since:
[t]he term methods, as currently used in the literature on second and foreign language (L2) teaching, does not refer to what teachers actually do in the classroom; rather, it refers to established methods conceptualized and constructed by experts in the field. (Kumaravadivelu, 2003: 24)
This indicates that the methods that teachers use do not merely describe the actions that the teachers take in the classroom, but rather, teachers follow these methods expecting success and fulfillment of teaching aims and outcomes. Hence, the term ‘method’ describes a tool that teachers use in order to make teaching and learning happen in the classroom (Kumaravadivelu, 2003). One way of approaching existing teaching methods is to divide them into individual methods and address them as such, leaving us with Communicative Methods, Audio-Lingual Method, Grammar-Translation Method, Silent Way, Community Language Learning,
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Suggestopedia, Direct Method, Natural Approach, Oral Approach, Situational Language Teaching, and Total Physical Response. These are not considered as new methods, although each provides different paths to learning and teaching. Kumaravadivelu (2003: 24-25) has a different approach, and rather considers the individual methods as variants of wider methods that are already known. As an alternative to the traditional breaking down of methods into individual methods, Kumaravadivelu, (2003: 29) proposes that the classification of teaching methods ought to divide them into groups that identify their characteristics, aims and purposes:
learner-centered methods; language-centered methods; learning-centered methods.
The learner-centered methods, which focus on how the language can be best used to meet the needs of the learners, “seek to provide opportunities for learners to practice preselected, presequenced grammatical structures and communicative functions (i.e., speech acts such as apologizing, requesting, etc.) through meaning-focused activities” (Kumaravadivelu, 2003: 26). The language-centered methods, which focus on forms and patterns that are grammatical, “seek to provide opportunities for learners to practice preselected, presequenced linguistic structures through form-focused exercises in class” (Kumaravadivelu, 2003: 25). The learning- centered methods are concerned with the processes of naturally learning a language which are thought to happen incidentally. In addition, these methods “seek to provide opportunities for learners to participate in open-ended meaningful interaction through communicative activities or problem-solving tasks in class” (Kumaravadivelu, 2003: 26).
Following Kumaravadivelu’s classification of teaching methods, the three methods used in my study would fall into three categories. For instance, the Traditional Method is language- centered, while the Five-Stage is more learning-centered and the LdL Method is learner- centered. The exact characteristics of each method are explained in the following sections.
8.2.1. The Traditional Method
Traditionally “learning a language means learning to produce appropriate sentences in that language” (Willis, 2003: 16) by “building up a large repertoire of sentences and grammatical patterns and learning to produce these accurately and quickly in the appropriate situation”
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(Richards, 2015: 64). The main aim of the traditional teaching of language is the “mastery of different items of grammar and practice through controlled activities such as memorization of dialogs and drills” (Richards, 2006: 4). Additionally, the formula for advancing knowledge of language is ‘rules’ plus ‘lexis’ which was assumed to be followed by accurate use of the language (Willis, 2003). The learning processes and techniques that the Traditional Method entails are explanations, examples, exercises, memorization, and translation, among others.
Traditional Methods and approaches include the following three: Grammar-Translation, Direct Method and Audio-Lingual (Weideman, 2001: 12). The reasons for this are elaborated in the following lines. Grammar-translation, as a Traditional Method involves “studying a language that approaches the language first through detailed analysis of its grammar rules, followed by application of this knowledge to the task of translating sentences and texts into and out of the target language” (Richards and Rodgers, 2001: 5). “The student’s native language is the medium of instruction” which is used for presentation, explanation, comparison between two languages and of course translation41 (Richards and Rodgers, 2001: 6).
The traditional way of teaching is “teacher oriented, linear, and hierarchical” and it stresses the importance of “memorization of dialogs and drills” (Richards, 2006: 4) “specific rules, and rule articulation” (Kumaravadivelu, 1994: 37). Grammar in this method is taught deductively since the “students are presented with grammar rules and then given opportunities to practice using them” (Richards, 2006: 6). In other words, “language structures are presented by the teacher, then practiced in the form of spoken or written exercises, and then used by the learners in less controlled speaking or writing activities” (Chang, 2011: 13). After the grammar rules are presented “a list of vocabulary items is presented with their translation equivalents.” (Richards and Rodgers, 2001: 6).
The Traditional Method introduces tense forms one by one, starting with Present Simple followed by the Present Progressive and later a comparison of these two tense forms is offered. This is how the rest of the tense forms are introduced as well, in this particular instructional method (Willis, 2003: 94-95). Moreover, the next tense forms will not be introduced before the
41 Even though translation is considered a central part of the traditional teaching methods, the Traditional group in my experiment was taught exclusively in English with occasional translations into their native language. This is because the university (South East European University-SEEU) where the experiment was done, has an English language only instruction policy.
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previous one has been mastered (in the order: Present Simple, Present Progressive, Past Tense, Past Progressive, Present Perfect, Present Perfect Progressive, Past Perfect Simple, Past Perfect Progressive, Future Simple, Future Perfect).
Advantages
Some of the advantages of the Traditional Method is that it is simple and straightforward (Willis, 2003: 99). It also “makes successful contrast between Past Tense and Present Perfect” (Willis, 2003: 95) and it is easy to use for teachers and learners and “helps improve the students’ mastery of the grammatical rules,” Chang (2011: 13). Additional advantages of the traditional instruction method are based on traditional teaching routines in the classroom which the teachers and learners are used to, assuming that routines facilitate learning, or rather teaching. Repetitive procedures and activities like for instance, starting the class by revising the material and ending it with homework might be considered as another positive feature of this method for those (teachers and learners) who like a routine structure to each class. The belief that the awareness of grammatical units might contribute to the learning process or that “knowing basic grammatical terminology does provide students with a tool for thinking about and discussing sentences” can be considered as a further benefit of this teaching method (Lynn, 2010: 171).
Grammar-Translation, which is considered a traditional approach, is also thought to have some positive features. For instance, it can be considered a time-saving strategy realized through translation and the activity of translation can show whether there is acquisition of the grammatical rules taught in class (Boumová; 2008: 15). This approach may help the learners to grasp the new language better by making them more aware of grammatical similarities and differences between the languages which will lead to alternative ways of thinking and approaching a new language (Chellapan, 1982).
Disadvantages
Despite the positive features of the Traditional Method, there is a lot of criticism and much consensus about the shortcomings of the Traditional Method among researchers who have theoretically or empirically investigated this method. The disadvantages that this teaching method might have as an instructional choice are several, among which are: its delivery and its limitedness in terms of context.
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“Traditional grammar teaching showed no measurable benefits” (Wyse, 2001: 420) and is referred to as counterproductive and “a fundamental problem in our education system” (Mulroy, 2004: 52). One reason for this could be because "teaching traditional grammar in isolation is not a very practical art" (Weaver, McNally and Moerman, 2001: 18), since it teaches grammar in isolation and without integration of the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) (Baumova's, 2008). Furthermore, Schwerdt and Wuppermann (2011: 366) say that old-fashioned teaching in the form of a lecture is regarded as not beneficial as a teaching strategy since "[l]ectures fail to provide instructors with feedback about student learning”.
Since the Grammar-Translation, Direct Method and Audio-Lingual methods have been referred to as Traditional Methods (by Weideman, 2001), their shortcomings in general and individually are discussed in the following paragraphs. The main “failure of traditional grammar translation and audiolingual methods to produce fluency and accuracy in second language learners” has been the reason why teachers and researchers have moved away from these methods (Lightbown and Spada, 2013: 156).
As one of the negative features of the Traditional Methods is that much attention is paid to “the teachers’ elaborate explanation of English grammar rules, while all the students are either listening or taking notes. Thus little attention is paid to the development of English communicative competence” (Chang, 2011: 13). Hence, the students taught in the Traditional Method fail to use “rules flexibly and appropriately in communication” (Chang, 2011: 13).
The practices of the Traditional Methods that are most criticized include “memorization and rote learning are the basic learning techniques” simply because they “cannot help to arouse students’ interest, build their self-confidence or improve their communicative strategies in English learning and even makes them fear English grammar learning” (Chang, 2011: 13). The traditional teaching of language is also criticized because it aims “to instill mechanics and the subtleties of grammar” (Gill, 2000: 47), which means that the mere purpose of learning a new language is to memorize as many rules as possible and learn the differences among the grammatical units, which does not seem to be the best approach for exercising all receptive and productive skills in learning a language.
The traditional teaching method has been referred to as “chalk and talk” also "jug and mug" method (Serbessa, 2006: 129 and Boumová, 2008: 11) to emphasize the dominance of the
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teacher and the passiveness of the students. This claim is supported by the notion that in the Traditional Method the main focus lies on the teacher as source of knowledge and the main initiator of teaching and learning (Boumová, 2008). This makes Traditional Method classrooms mainly teacher centered and frontal, which creates disadvantages and problems (Pfeiffer and Rusam, 1992).
More specifically about the teaching of verbal categories, Willis (2003: 112) points out several weaknesses of this method, namely, that the ‘traditional description’, as he refers to it, makes invalid distinctions in contrasting the tense forms. Similarly, generalizations about the tense- time relation are not strong since “[i]t makes misleading generalizations that all continuous forms can signal Interruptedness” (Willis, 2003: 99) and lastly, it treats “each tense form separately and fails to deal with abstractions like aspect” (Willis, 2003: 97-98). Another weakness is that time and tense are closely connected in the delivery of the material in this method, and finally language learning success is measured by the production of non- contextualized grammatical sentences (Willis, 2003: 16). These are a few of the reasons why this method, which is teacher-centered, is especially inappropriate for foreign language classes, since it limits the adult learner’s active interest and willingness to explore the language (Pfeiffer and Rusam, 1992: 426).
What is more, language skills and knowledge are addressed separately in this method (Boumová, 2008), which goes along with Willis’s (2003) view of the disadvantages of the Traditional Method since he points out the same shortcomings. One disadvantage being that it "assumes that all students have the same level of background knowledge in the subject matter and are able to absorb the material at the same pace” (Lord, 1999, as cited in Khalid and Azeem, 2012: 172). As a conclusion to the above, Larsen-Freeman (2000a: 23) points out that the weaknesses of the Grammar-Translation Method mean that it is considered ineffective, since it does not train the learners to apply the knowledge gained in class in communications outside of the classroom.
In the following lines, the problems of the Audio-Lingual and the Direct Method, as specific Traditional Methods, are addressed individually. One of the many problems of Audio- Lingualism (which bases learning on reinforcement) was that the “[s]tudents were often found to be unable to transfer skills acquired through Audio-Lingualism to real communication
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outside the classroom, and many found the experience of studying through Audio-lingual procedures to be boring and unsatisfying.” (Richards and Rodgers, 2001: 65). A specific example of the method’s practices, which are repetition and imitation (two elements of the Audio-Lingual Method), is provided by Willis (2003), who made use of these when he described a teaching experience situation in Ghana where he taught Ghanaian learners question tags and was unsuccessful (Willis, 2003: 2-4). Additionally, in teaching methods like in the Audio-Lingual Method, no mistakes are allowed, and when they do occur, the response is immediate error correction; this is a focal feature of the traditional instructional methods. Willis (2003) finds this a wrong approach since he considers mistakes as part of the learning process.
The Direct Method also referred to as Natural Method, was designed as a response to the Grammar-Translation Method with less emphasis on the grammatical rules than the previous Traditional Methods. The disadvantages of the direct method were that since it regarded the natural learning of the first language and the instructed learning of a foreign language as alike, it neglected “practical realities of the classroom” and “it lacked a rigorous basis in applied linguistic theory”. The method relied mainly on the native or native-like teachers’ knowledge and skills (Richards and Rodgers, 2001: 12-13). This method failed and was considered as “counterproductive, since teachers were required to go to great lengths to avoid using the native language, when sometimes a simple, brief explanation in the student’s native language would have been a more efficient route to comprehension.” (Richards and Rodgers, 2001: 13). Instead what should be done is outlined in the following lines.
Language or grammar teaching should be carried out by involving an “instructional technique that draws learners' attention to some specific grammatical form in such a way that it helps them either to understand it metalinguistically and/or process it in comprehension and/or production so that they can internalize” [original emphasis] (Ellis, 2006: 84). Alternatively, what should be done instead of instilling rules and patterns is that “we should teach grammar to help students gain flexibility in their use of language” (Patterson, 2001: 19). In this way the learners should be able to use the language in different ways, which should lead to a more effective way of language learning and diversity in language learning and production.
Nonetheless, it has to be noted that in spite of its disadvantages and the criticisms levelled against it, the Traditional Method cannot be ruled out entirely due to the fact that learning does
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happen to some degree when this method is applied, even if the method itself has some flaws. Instead, “many important dimensions of the learning process might be served more effectively by activities, materials, and instructional practices that integrate communicative methodology with Traditional Methodologies” (Pica, 2000: 5). Hence, in the experimental setting of my research, this method is one of the methods that is investigated.
8.2.2. The Five-Stage Method
The previous section (8.2.1.) clearly stated that the Traditional Methods have their advantages and disadvantage. Nonetheless:
[a]lthough there is now a clear conviction that a traditional approach to teaching grammar based on explicit explanations and drill-like practice is unlikely to result in the acquisition of the implicit knowledge needed for fluent and accurate communication, there continues to be disagreement regarding what should replace this. (Ellis, 2006: 102)
For this reason, various alternative approaches and methods to the traditional ones have been proposed: Silent Way, Counseling-Learning, Suggestopedia, and Total Physical Response, and more recent alternative methods and approaches such as Multiple Intelligences, Neurolinguistic Programming, and the Lexical Approach (Richards and Rodgers, 2001). Though similar, but still grouped separately due to their nature, current communicative approaches include: Communicative Language Teaching and the Natural Approach, Cooperative Language Learning, Content-Based Instruction, Task-Based Language Teaching, and the post-methods (Richards and Rodgers, 2001). The later one is discussed below in comparison to the target teaching method of my study.
After the criticism of the traditional language teaching and its failure to develop a communicative competence, and after the shortcomings of the traditional approach and the criticism of the communicative approach, a “search for an alternative to method rather than an alternative method” was needed (Kumaravadivelu, 1994: 29). This is exactly what the Five- Stage Method has elements of, being an alternative to method rather than an all-new, never seen before method. It is a collection of procedures and stages drawn from other methods and then integrated, meaning that some of the best features of other methods and approaches are combined into one method. The Five-Stage Method combines stages in which rules and
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conscious operations are not required (Improvisation), with stages where the focus on form and conscious operations are required (System Building and exploration).
When comparing this method with the other method’s implications and guidelines offered by other researchers (cf. sections 10.2. and 10.3.), it is apparent that this method includes all of the processes described in the other methods. In particular, it includes: deduction and induction, focus on form and focus on forms, explicit and implicit instruction, exploration and recognition of the material, and it also has a communicative component (in the stages of Improvisation and Consolidation).
The following paragraphs offer a description of the Five-Stage Method and a comparison of this method to other methods and approaches. The Five-Stage Method is an instructional method that allows errors in the first stages and considers these as part of the language learning process since they raise learners’ awareness of the gaps in knowledge (Willis, 2003). A combination of inductive and deductive activities is also a part of the method. This method can be used for teaching any grammatical unit, and unlike the Traditional Method, it makes use of both contextualized and decontextualized activities.
After unsuccessfully teaching Ghanaian learners using the Traditional Method, namely through drills and repetition in a teacher-centered environment, Willis (2003: 1) came to the conclusion that “what is taught may not be what is learned”. Moreover, since input does not guarantee intake, as a consequence learning, achievement, improvement of knowledge, let alone performance, all seem to be difficult to achieve. In contrast, using a method that provides tangibility42 of the language is more likely to result in competence (mental knowledge) and performance (written/spoken knowledge).
For the purpose of satisfying learner needs and learning styles, this method provides opportunities for noticing language constructions followed by derived general rules about that language item (in the stages of Improvisation and Recognition). In the other stages of this method (System Building and exploration), the learners are explicitly presented with the general rule of the language construction, followed by opportunities for exploring further uses and functions of the subject matter. Additionally, Willis’ (2003) Five-Stage Method introduces
42 Tangibility of the language here means experiencing the language with all senses, engaging all skills and observing and producing language in different contexts.
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all tense forms at once by leading the students through five stages of learning. The tense forms are introduced with the accompanying temporal adverbs, which serve as tense form triggers and cues in the process of acquisition, recall and retention.
This method also combines sentence-level and text-level use of grammar due to the fact that:
[t]o really understand how the system functions, however, it is necessary to appreciate its application at the suprasentential, or discourse, level. Without this perspective it is impossible to fully explain the various patterns of tense-aspect combinations that occur. (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999: 109)
So in order to fully explain and understand grammar or, in this case, a tense-aspect system, this method uses both contextualized and decontextualized activities which enable the learners to see how grammar operates both on sentence and on text-level.
Another way in which this method differentiates from others is the way in which it presents and approaches tense-aspect combinations. Since “[t]ense forms do not exist in isolation; the use of each tense is determined by its relationship with all the other possible forms” (Willis, 2003: 117); hence, according to this method, it is not enough to introduce tense forms one by one but they should rather also be compared and contrasted to each other (Larsen-Freeman et al., 2001: 4). Tense-aspect forms do interact or complement each other and so they need to be introduced that way at some point during the teaching of the entire tense-aspect system of a given language. Each of the five stages in Willis’ (2003) method (Improvisation, Recognition, System Building, Exploration and Consolidation) is based on the learning processes that happen when learning or acquiring a language, hence satisfying individual learner needs and learning types.
Improvisation
During this stage language production happens with “little time for preparation and in circumstances which make considerable demands on the learner’s developing system” and therefore makes the students use only the language knowledge they already have at their disposal (Willis, 2003: 21). Furthermore, errors are allowed in the initial stage of Improvisation, since according to Willis (2003: 113) “errors are a part of the developmental process which is the basis of language learning”. Errors are considered as means of raising the students’ awareness of their own gaps, which makes them a valuable part of the learning
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process. Ultimately, Willis (2003) claims that improvising with verb forms is a stage or a means of communication for the students that is inevitable and, since it takes place inside and outside of the class anyway, this stage is the first stage of the teaching method with the aim of producing guided Improvisation (in this case, with tense forms).
Recognition
In the second stage, the students focus on the form of the tense forms and discover the differences in form and use, and as a result, draw conclusions about particular tense-aspect combinations. What needs to be mentioned here is that the activities presented at this stage are not designed to test students’ knowledge of tenses, since the purpose of the tasks here is to merely present the different tense forms to the learners so that they can recognize and familiarize themselves with them. Willis (2003) explains his specific methodological design and the purpose of this stage by arguing that the mere presentation of tense forms is not sufficient for learning to take place. In fact, he clarifies this by saying that: when “[l]earners are introduced to new forms and expected to use them after explanation, demonstration and controlled practice […] [a]ll we know about language acquisition processes, suggests that this is unlikely to happen” (Willis, 2003: 116). This only confirms the need for additional stages in his teaching method which will stimulate more learning processes and foster learning (which follow here).
System Building
The third stage, System Building, enables the students to build explicit rule systems about the tense forms by using the information (about for instance, a particular tense-aspect combination and its definitions, forms and use) discovered in the two previous stages (Improvisation and Recognition). This is also the stage in which the teacher can step in and explicitly describe the tense forms in case the previous stages did not fully serve as means for the implicit discovery of the rules by the students on their own (independently of the teacher). When this stage is applied to a teaching setting of tense-aspect forms, this stage is used to find connections among the various forms and point out their differences and similarities.
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Exploration
In the fourth stage, the learners discover other forms and uses of the grammatical tense-aspect combinations and focus on generalization, exceptions and application of these in different contexts. Willis (2003: 118) says that the teachers “can help learners to recognise and systematise verb forms […] but they [the learners] still have to make complex choices when they come to use the tenses”. In order to help with this challenge, teachers can provide the learners with activities that contain a variety of tense-aspect combinations. Once the learners are exposed to all varieties of verb forms that can be used to refer to the past, present or future time, they will have to make their own choices, and having the range of options at their disposal will help them to choose the correct form for the correct reference (Willis, 2003).
Consolidation
Finally, the knowledge about the tense-aspect forms (which have been introduced in the stage of Improvisation and have passed through all learning stages) should be consolidated and integrated into speech in the stage of Consolidation in which mainly communicative activities are used. In this stage, the learners will “incorporate into their language items and patterns which they are aware of, but which they cannot command in spontaneous speech”, as a result of this “language which is on the threshold of spontaneity may be incorporated into their performance” (Willis, 2003: 22). This means that the knowledge that the learners already operate with and are able to produce when they are given the time needed, will possibly be available to them in speaking (when they do not have sufficient time for organized and revised language production), and as a result, ideally, become part of their speech. Once the learners have been guided though the initial four stages, once they reach the stage of Consolidation they should be able to “build new systems into their performance in such a way that these systems can be called on as automatic routines rather than worked on consciously as part of the production process” (Willis, 2003: 22).
Spoken production differs from written production or ‘prepared speech’ in terms of language production, preparation time and the focus, which in speaking is on getting the meaning across rather than accuracy. Since in most of the cases time is not an issue in writing, it means that higher accuracy is to be expected in writing than in speaking. So in the case when the learners have a good command over the language in written language, this means that the learners
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already are aware of certain grammatical rules but are still more likely to transfer accurate language production on paper rather than in speech. If the learners already have command over these grammatical rules (which are more advanced in written language than spoken) then there should be a way of helping the learners transfer the already acquired knowledge into speech. Willis (2003) believes that the Consolidation stage will help with the integration of the newly built systems into speech provided this method and sets of activities are used in an instructional setting.
Advantages
Because of the promise the Five-Stage Method makes in fostering integration of language forms into speech, and because of its versatility in activities and techniques, I chose this method as one of the methods that I investigate in my study. Another reason why this method sounds promising is because it has similarities with other methods that have empirically been proven to work in instructional settings (cf. sections 10.2. and 10.3.). Hence, in the following paragraphs, the Five-Stage Method will be compared to previous methods that have been successful in the classroom.
The Five-Stage Method shares some principles with the Cognitive Approach, since they both employ a combination of deductive and inductive teaching strategies. Further similarities that the Five-Stage Method with the Cognitive Approach and the Natural Approach (Krashen and Terrel, 1983) lie in the treatment of errors. “[A]llowing student errors to occur without undue emphasis on error correction” (Krashen and Terrel, 1983: 59) is part of the natural order hypothesis in the Natural Approach. Similarly, in the Five-Stage Method, errors are considered inevitable and a sign that learning is taking place since errors are believed to raise the awareness of the shortcomings in the learners’ knowledge (cf. section 10.3.).
In the Natural Approach, the learners “are not expected to apply rules consciously in the oral communicative activities of the classroom” (Krashen and Terrel, 1983: 59) which is the same expectation that the Improvisation stage in the Five-Stage Method has. The conscious application of the rules will take place in the stage of System Building and exploration (in the Five-Stage Method), when the learners need to “use the conscious grammar when they have time, when the focus is on form, and when they know the rule […] in written work, in prepared speech, or on homework assignments” (Krashen and Terrel, 1983: 59).
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The practices in the Five-Stage Method are similar to communicative language teaching since in both of them:
linguistic forms and rules are made available to learners in indirect ways, through reading and listening to meaningful, comprehensible L2 input. This practice often de-emphasizes, or even supplants, direct instruction. A tolerance of learners' grammatical errors is frequently preferred over correction thereof, with this latter strategy reserved exclusively for errors in the communication of message meaning. (Pica, 2000: 4-5)
Nevertheless, the communicative language teaching methods (on their own) “have not been sufficient to bring learners to the levels of proficiency that many now require for effective English language use” (Pica, 2000: 5), while the Five-Stage Method has other stages (besides the communicative stages and implicit stages) which focus on form in covert and overt ways. This is one of the reasons that lead to the assumption that the Five-Stage Method will be more effective in an experimental instructional setting.
Additionally, the Five-Stage can be used to approach language in an instructional setting in both specific and holistic ways. In the case of the tense and aspect, which is considered a complex system, the “key to understanding it is to see it as a whole” (Larsen-Freeman, 2002: 4). Tense-aspect forms can be defined individually, but the “teachers can show students how each works as part of a system by showing how each contrasts with its neighbors, the ones with which it is easily confused” (Larsen-Freeman, 2002: 4). Hence, a major claim in the Five-Stage Method is that “tense forms do not exist in isolation” therefore they should not be taught in isolation (Willis, 2003: 117). The introduction of all tenses at once may correspond to the natural environment of learning a language where these forms are not introduced in a specific order, nonetheless it still might raise some concerns. These concerns along with other possible disadvantages of the Five-Stage Method are outlined below.
Disadvantages
Even though the Five-Stage Method has many advantages (according to Willis, 2003), since it incorporates different learning and teaching techniques, it still might have some potential disadvantages, discussed in this section.
One concern about the Five-Stage Method is the introduction of all the tense forms at once. As already mentioned, Willis (2003: 114) proposes a “rapid introduction of a series of tense forms
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and associated adverbials”. This could be worrying, since the process of learning the tense forms, when they are presented one by one is difficult enough; so then, this rapid introduction might make the learning even more challenging in that it overloads the learners with too much information and could lead to confusion about the tense forms, their use and extended application. The introduction of tense forms at once, Willis (2003: 114) says, aims “to provide learners with the capacity to improvise and to begin to improve on their Improvisations, gradually moving from a reliance on a lexical, adverbial mode to the development of a grammatical mode”.
This means that the learners should be encouraged to improvise with the various tense forms and gradually shift from marking tense forms lexically to marking them grammatically. More importantly, he claims that in real life situations, learners of English are also not carefully introduced to the tense forms one by one; rather, when communicating with advanced speakers of English or native speakers, learners do in fact hear a range of possible tense-aspect combinations in one short conversation, and so are exposed to all of the tense forms’ uses and alternative functions simultaneously.
The findings in Yang and Huang’s research (2004: 49) may serve as support for the effectiveness of the Five-Stages method’s practice of introducing all tense forms along with the corresponding adverbs at once, since they have arrived at the conclusion that “the function of temporal adverbials may change from tense substitute to tense reminder as a result of special classroom training processes.” In other words, since the combined instruction of all tenses with the accompanying key words has been investigated, Yang and Huang’s (2004) research leads to the conclusion that this approach to tense-aspect instruction promises to be beneficial. The introduction of tense-aspect combinations with the corresponding adverbs does not have to mean that in situations like these, the less advanced learner will be overloaded with information about all the tense-aspect combinations, which again, does not necessarily need to cause confusion, but will rather enable the learner to visualize the wide spectrum of tense-aspect combination use of the English language in the form of a conversation.
Other concerns about the Five-Stage Method lie in the purpose of some of the stages and the likelihood of them to achieve their aims. For instance, the stage of Recognition, which relies on the learner to discover and recognize how the language functions, could carry some
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disadvantages. Discovery and recognition of language forms can be difficult for learners who are not accustomed to discovering knowledge and would rather be served information in comparison to seeking it on their own. In addition, even the learners who are willing to engage in this stage will need attentive guidance and prompting from the teacher, which cannot be done with every single learner individually in larger classrooms due to time and practicality issues.
An example of this is the ability of the learner to make generalizations in the stage of Recognition about tense forms which can be challenging, such as in the cases of discovering that the Present Simple and Present Progressive can be used to denote future, or when the discovering the difference between Simple Past and Present Perfect in situations when the action still continues at the moment of speaking.
Another challenge that this method might be faced with is the integration of grammatical forms into spontaneous speech, which is one of its main aims. It ought to be said that leading the learners through the five stages of this method only once may not guarantee that these forms will become an integrated part of the students’ spontaneous language production. My presumption is that the process of guiding the students through the learning stages needs to happen numerous times by using various activities adapted to each stage for integration to happen. Whether this way of applying the Five-Stage Method does foster integration of tense forms into speech will be indicated by the spoken post-test in Chapter 12. The next section describes the main aims, advantages and possible disadvantages of the third method that is tested in my study.
8.2.3. The Learning through Teaching-LdL (Lernen durch Lehren) Method
Learning through teaching is when the student learns the material independently, teaches it to the peers, tests if the new information has been taken in and, along the way, the student himself/herself internalizes the material (as pointed out by Martin, 2000: 1). Martin (2000: 3) further explains how the method works and says that the student takes over the role of the teacher, which leaves it up to the student to introduce the material and also to check the homework.
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Learning through teaching is not simply a presentation, lecture or tutoring by students, but rather teaching by deciding what methods and teaching strategies will be used, with the support and prompting of the classroom teacher (Martin, 2000). One of the aims is to make the teaching and learning fun by using entertaining activities in order to make grammar learning more interactive. Moreover, the teaching sessions are followed by a reflection and feedback discussion between the teacher and the student-teacher. Among some of the teacher’s responsibilities are providing teaching materials, helping with the teaching methodology, observing and monitoring the learning during the class (Grzega and Schöner, 2008).
The stages of the method and the way it works are elaborated in the following paragraphs. The steps in the LdL Method include dividing the whole material to be learned into parts and assigning it to students so that every student will know what they will teach ahead of time. Martin (2000) emphasizes that the teaching sessions are not presentations in the form of lectures since the students need to make sure that the material is understood. The student- teachers, by using self-designed activities in combination with course book exercises, have the responsibility of practicing and internalizing the material before they assume the role of teacher. During the actual student-teaching, the course teacher offers support and gives further explanations when something is not clear in class. Martin (2002: 6; 2000: 4) discusses the effects of the LdL Method and says that 80% of the speaking in class is done by the students; different students shed different light on the material, which provides them with a new approach to learning, namely, intensive and diverse interaction with the material. The students feel more free to ask the student-teachers for clarification; their teacher observes and sees their gaps and acts accordingly (meaning that the instructor takes note of the shortcomings and addresses them); finally, this method fosters social learning since the students within the group can and turn to each other for help.
The activities that the students carry out while one of their peers has the function as a student- teacher are various. That is to say, the student-teacher (under the guidance of the actual teacher), is advised about the types of the activities and the module that they need to cover. The teacher makes sure that the student-teacher provides the peers with controlled and freer activities that can be contextualized or decontextualized and activities that include tasks such as grammar for witting, sentence construction, fill in the blanks, among others. Moreover, the LdL Method has been used for developing personal, social and methodological competencies
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in the students (Grzega and Schöner, 2008: 168). In addition, Grzega and Schöner (2008) outline the skills, abilities and knowledge that the students gain when using this method by saying that:
[i]n this way learners are given the chance to acquire creativity, independence, self-confidence and key competencies, such as the ability to work in teams, the ability to communicate, complex thinking, the competence to seek and find information, explorative behavior, presentation skills, project competence, Internet skills, the ability to structure information and generate knowledge, punctuality, reliability and patience. (Grzega and Schöner, 2008: 169)
Zhao et al. (2012) also favor this method and say that learning happens through teaching and it is for this reason that this new method emerged. They state that learning through teaching is more effective than learning for individual purposes, due to the active involvement in the instruction process.
Martin (2002) claims that LdL makes the student-teachers act and behave differently in that they see the teaching as a project which needs to be planned and organized ahead of time; they make methodological and contextualized choices and set their own teaching aims. Finally, since they have to teach the whole class they are motivated to do well, and here Martin (2002) compares this motivation with the one of actors and says that this motivation is encouraging and long-lasting. In fact, the material needs to be simplified and structured and the students must work effectively in the group, which not only strengthens team-work but also their consideration for peers and their needs.
Pfeiffer and Rusam (1992: 425) were among the first ones who used LdL at university level. They report that this method makes the students feel taken seriously; it creates a relaxed ambiance and raises the motivation level. Moreover, they say that “wenn wir anderen komplizierte Sachverhalte erklären müssen, lernen wir selbst am meisten”, which means that we learn the most when we have to explain complex material to others (Pfeiffer and Rusam, 1992: 425). Additionally, in diverse and multicultural foreign language classrooms communicative obstacles can be resolved faster and easier with the LdL Method.
Advantages
Pfeiffer and Rusam (1992) introduced the LdL Method to university students who were beginners in German as a foreign language by practicing basic vocabulary. The teacher offers
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explanations in their mother tongue concerning the methodology of teaching upon which he/she takes the role as a peer not a teacher. The reactions to the method, Pfeiffer and Rusam (1992: 432) say, were positive and the method was quickly adopted and successfully carried out by all students despite their unfamiliarity, cultural diversity and low level of German. They conclude that when the role of the teacher is being step by step delegated to the student, it activates cognitive, explorative, communicative and social abilities. Their experience shows that this method (LdL) is especially applicable to university students because they are actively involved in the development of the teaching, and it also creates real-situation opportunities for communication and is motivating in itself. Grzega (2006) also used the LdL at university level after attending courses taught by Martin. He lists some of the resources and activities that can be used with this method: different texts, quizzes, role play, mind mapping, PowerPoint, and videos, among others.
All in all, student-teaching or peer teaching can be beneficial for both the student-teacher and the peers since the student-teacher will learn the material for teaching purposes and will be able to share this with the peers while exercising essential teaching skills. The peers benefit from being taught by a peer in receiving a variety of teaching methods organized by different student-teachers. Another benefit of this method is the variety of grammar explanation input laid out by different learners, enhancing the learning process. The notion is that if there is a variety of grammatical practice and delivery methods, then at least one of these will be appealing and effective for particular students depending on their needs and learning styles.
Disadvantages
Although this method has been highly spoken of so far, there are some concerns regarding the teaching method. Grzega (2006: 6-7) states and makes an attempt to refute some of the criticism against LdL listed in his study. One part of the criticism is that during LdL not enough material can be covered as there is not enough time for everything to get done and that the method itself can be considered unstructured. Grzega recognizes these statements but also refutes them by saying that quality is more important than quantity, the uncovered material can be covered via e-mail, and lastly, the method is structured since the most important points are outlined after each topic, respectively. However, since covering the material by e-mail (as a method for making up for not having enough time to cover the material in class) is not in fact instruction
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in itself, there might be better ways to cover this material which can be decided by the teacher and the student-teacher, by, for instance, offering an additional teaching session, or alternatively, by assigning a group project activity in which the students could be involved and guided by the student-teacher under the supervision of the teacher.
Moreover, additional criticism against the LdL is that the students lack the needed knowledge to teach, cannot offer in-depth insights, cannot give perfect presentations and have to do more work with this method than with other teaching methods. On the contrary, Grzega (2006) says that students should experiment, which will then result in comprehension of the issues; furthermore, there is no guarantee that a class taught by a teacher is always ideal and finally, working intensively in class with this method means spending less time at home revising the material. Likewise, the in-depth insights can be offered by the teacher during the student- teacher’s instruction session in order to ensure that the full spectrum of knowledge about the material that needs to be covered is presented and grasped. This means that the teacher can compensate for whatever aspect of the grammatical item taught by the student-teacher that might be misrepresented or not explained in enough detail by the student-teacher during the teaching session. As a final point, the effectiveness and the credibility of the LdL Method were reestablished by Grzega and Schöner (2008), who say that the LdL Method has been tested, discussed in workshops, written about in different articles, applied as a teaching method in universities, and has been constantly improved over the last several years.
It seems very ambitious that one method could help the learners achieve everything that Grzega and Schöner (2008) advocate for, since the student-teacher has only one teaching session. Nonetheless, from personal experience I can say that LdL has been highly beneficial for me, since I have experienced the method as both an MPhil and PhD student, and can conclude that this method’s description and benefits are sufficiently convincing to be part of my experiment.
9. Student perception of different methodologies-the WIHIC questionnaire
Now that the teaching methods have been introduced by pointing out their advantages and disadvantages according to experts in the field, what is crucial to find out next is how the participants in my experiment will experience each method. Since motivation is considered “as
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one of the key factors that influence the rate and success of second/foreign language (L2) learning” (Dörnyei, 1998: 117), what influence the type of teaching method has on learning in general and on the participants’ attitudes towards the method, needs to be investigated. For this reason, a WIHIC perceptions questionnaire is used in order to find out whether the three different methods have an effect on the classroom environment and to reveal the participants’ views about the teaching methods. The characteristics of the questionnaire (cf. section 9.1.), the manner in which it was adapted for my experiment and the successful deployment of the questionnaire in previous research (cf. section 9.2.) are examined in this chapter.
9.1. WIHIC questionnaire description
WIHIC (What is Happening in this Class?) is a questionnaire used for investigating classroom environments (Dorman et al.; 2006). It consists of 7 scales: Student Cohesiveness, Teacher Support, Involvement, Task Orientation, Investigation, Cooperation, and Equity. It has 56 items in total, which in previous research have been reduced or increased in order to adapt the survey to the researchers’ needs. Fraser et al. (1996) are the authors of this classroom environment perception instrument, and they developed it by bringing together factors drawn from previous instruments and by introducing scales relevant for the contemporary classroom. Each scale is illustrated and described in Table 9-1, in terms of the focus of the scale and the element that it investigates.
Table 9-1: WIHIC scales and explanation table from Roberge et al. (2011: 7) Category Description Student Refers to interpersonal relationships within the classroom Cohesiveness Teacher Support Refers to the instructor’s interest in student success Involvement Refers to opportunities to share ideas with the classroom community Task Orientation Refers to the student’s role and responsibilities in terms of the course and of the coursework Investigation Refers to the opportunity to practically apply what has been learned in the classroom Cooperation Refers to group work and cooperative learning in the classroom Equity Refers to the equitable treatment of students from the course instructor
Fraser et al. (1996) created and organized the items in each scale according to the targeted perceptions elicited with this questionnaire. For instance, what they refer to as a ‘Personal
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Form’ type of item, provides information about the individual perceptions and involvement of the learners in the class, while ‘Class Form’ items elicit attitudes and perceptions of the teaching environment as a whole.
What follows here is a detailed analysis of each scale and its aims. The first scale, Student Cohesiveness, explores the cooperative tendencies of the learners and investigates to what extent “students know, help and are supportive of one another” (Fraser et al., 2010: 557). This scale has items that test whether there is a cohesive, collaborative work environment among the students. The second scale, Teacher Support, elicits insights into how much “the teacher helps, befriends, trusts and is interested in students” (Fraser et al., 2010: 557). The items in this scale investigate the amount of help they receive from the teacher, and whether their individual feelings and problems are taken into account by the teacher. The scale of Involvement examines whether the “students have attentive interest, participate in discussions, do additional work and enjoy the class” (Fraser et al., 2010: 557). In particular, the items in each scale in the questionnaire (cf. Table 9-2), examine the students’ participation in class, sharing and discussions of ideas.
The next scale, Investigation, tests to what extent there is “emphasis on the skills and processes of inquiry and their use in problem solving and investigation” in the class (Fraser et al., 2010: 557). Particularly, this scale inspects whether the learners investigate some of the more demanding issues that are raised in class on their own and whether they try to carry out investigations on their own, independently of the teacher and the classmates. The scale of Task Orientation explores whether “it is important [to the students] to complete activities planned and to stay on the subject matter” (Fraser et al., 2010: 557). This scale tests whether task completion, getting things done and making an effort in class is considered crucial. The Cooperation scale investigates whether the “students cooperate rather than compete with one another on learning tasks” (Fraser et al., 2010: 557). The items in this scale examine whether the students share ideas, knowledge, and workload with the others in the class. Finally, the last scale, Equity, examines whether “the teacher treats students equally” (Fraser et al., 2010: 557). The items in this scale explore whether the teacher offers help, attention, support and opportunities to all students equally and fairly. The following section outlines the wide use and success of the questionnaire in previous studies.
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9.2. WIHIC questionnaire in previous research
WIHIC (What is Happening in this Class?) is a widely used survey for the investigation of the classroom environment. It has been shown that the WIHIC questionnaire can be used not only to examine the environment in the classroom, but also the influence of other factors, for instance the cultural background of the teachers (Khine and Fisher, 2001). The present section starts by discussing how other researchers have used this questionnaire and how they have analyzed it, more specifically and we can see that previous studies use the WIHIC questionnaire on its own or in a combination with other surveys. Moreover, previous studies use it in various settings with a somewhat similar purpose and analyze the data using different means. In fact, while some research simply intends to gain an insight into the attitudes of the participants toward the given classroom environment, other studies want to find out whether these attitudes can change over time depending on the teaching methods and environment.
Dorman et al. (2006: 909) point out that this questionnaire has been used by various researchers to elicit students’ perceptions in different classrooms and fields of study because it is a reliable and effective tool of investigation. In fact, the popularity of the questionnaire and its adaptability to different environments are two reasons why this questionnaire has been used in the present study for gauging student perceptions and attitudes. The WIHIC questionnaire has proven effective within different educational settings in different countries when investigating research specific attitudes. For instance, it has been used with American high school students (Hoang, 2008), science students in India (Koul and Fisher, 2011), primary school participants in South Africa (Aldridge et al., 2009), nursing and educational students (Roberge et al., 2011) and in an Iranian reading comprehension classroom (Ebrahimi and Rahimi, 2013), to name a few. The execution and result of the later one are outlined in the following lines.
Ebrahimi and Rahimi (2013) used WIHIC to determine pre- and post-test attitudes of 41 EFL Iranian students to CDA (critical discourse analysis) in a reading comprehension classroom. It was found that the pre- and post-test scores were significantly different, indicating that the attitudes of the students changed depending on the method used to teach reading in this case. This means that the perceptions of a class taught with CDA awareness were better than those of the class without a critical discourse analysis approach to reading, indicating that the critical
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reading comprehension teaching setting was more “efficient and facilitative of learning” (Ebrahimi and Rahimi, 2013: 1).
Some researchers interested in the investigation of attitudes and preferences combined the WIHIC questionnaire with other tests, such as the Test of Mathematics-Related Attitude (TOMRA) (Hoang, 2008) and a visual, aural, read/write, kinesthetic inventory (VARK) (Fleming and Mills, 1992; Roberge et al., 2011). In this way, the additional test served as a subject-specific tool that was aimed at investigating supplementary factors, while the WIHIC questionnaire was adapted to the classroom environment and the subject matter that was investigated.
The data analyses of the WIHIC questionnaire in previous studies has mostly been carried out with ANOVA (analysis of variance), MANOVA (multivariate analysis of variance) (Hoang, 2008; Aldridge et al., 2009), factor analysis and varimax rotation (Aldridge et al., 2009). Furthermore, computing the means for each scale by using Wilk’s lambda was another way of arriving at the results (when comparing the preferences to the nursing and education classrooms by Roberge et al., 2011). Koul and Fisher (2006) used a discriminant validity for the analysis of the WIHIC questionnaire.
What the analyses of most of these studies have in common is the inquiry of the WIHIC questionnaire having been undertaken by processing the surveys in terms of standard deviation and means of the scales used in the corresponding study. The data analysis methods employed in my study are discussed in Chapter 11 (cf. section 11.5.4.), while the results are illustrated in Chapter 12 (cf. section 12.4.). The next section offers an overview of how the WIHIC questionnaire was adapted for my experiment.
9.3. Adapted WIHIC questionnaire
The adapted WIHIC questionnaire for the current study maintained the original scales: Student Cohesiveness, Teacher Support, Involvement, Task Orientation, Investigation, Cooperation, and Equity, while the parts that were modified included items and some of the statements (cf. Table 9-2). The changes made in the questionnaire (with the purpose of adapting and redesigning the questionnaire for the elicitation of answers relevant to my study) were: the number items per scale and the content of the items in most of the scales.
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Specifically, this means that while the original WIHIC questionnaire had 56 items, the adapted questionnaire in this study has 49 items in total. The items that were left out were statements that were not applicable to a grammar teaching course, or items that were not relevant for the experimental setting. Moreover, for the context of my study, 49 items were sufficient in order to tackle the issues investigated. The revised questionnaire had 7 items in each scale whereas the original had 8 items in each scale. Finally, the way in which the items in the current questionnaire differ from the original ones is illustrated in Table 9-2:
Table 9-2: WIHIC item adaptation
Scale Original WIHIC Adapted Statement questionnaire Statement (by Aldridge et al., 2006, Aldridge et al., 2009 and Khine, 2001) Student cohesiveness I work well with other Working in groups helps me members. understand tenses better. Teacher Support The teachers’ questions help The teacher corrects us me to understand. immediately when we give the wrong tense. Involvement I discuss ideas in class. I like and do well in tense activities in the form of a text or story. Investigation I find out answers to I explore the rules and the use of questions by doing labs in tenses in different contexts. class. Task Orientation Getting a certain amount of Getting all the activities given in work done is important to class done correctly is important to me. me. Cooperation I learn from other students in No changes this class. Equity I am treated the same as No changes other students in this class.
As it can be seen in Table 9-2, the items have been changed and adapted for the first five scales (Student Cohesiveness, Teacher Support, Involvement, Task Orientation, and Investigation), while there is no modification of the items in the sixth and seventh scale of Cooperation and Equity, respectively, since the statements in these scales already fit the investigation of the classroom environment undertaken in my study.
The purpose of changing the number of items (from 56 to 49) and the content of the items was to reflect the overall investigative aims of my study and the nature of the tested teaching
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methods (Traditional, Five-Stage and LdL). For instance, excluded items were those investigating issues and activities not covered by any of the three teaching methods (for instance: I work with other students on projects in this class). Furthermore, the adaptation of the items embraced the nature of the teaching methods in that all practices present in all three methods were exemplified in the items. For instance, items 11 and 12 investigated which tense- aspect combination presentation practices were used in the individual teaching environments corresponding to the procedures of the teaching methods. In other words, item 11 and 12 (The teacher explains the tense-aspect combinations one by one; The teacher explains the tense- aspect combinations all at once;) investigated whether tense-aspect forms were introduced in different ways or rather the participants were able to notice these practices.
Additional guidelines on the number of participants that should be involved in this kind of survey were also followed in my experiment. That is to say, it is preferable that the number of participants in this questionnaire ranges from 20-30 instead of a larger number (Khine, 2001: 57). The number of participants per group who were taught in the three different methods (Traditional, LdL and Five-Stage) in my investigation (which is 36), is in line with this.
In the adapted questionnaire in this study, a Likert scale was set up so that the students could choose from five options: Almost Never, Seldom, Sometimes, Often and Almost Always (cf. Appendix 7). The WIHIC questionnaire used in my study was distributed to the students at the end of the semester when they were able to give their feedback about the different methods used in the respective instructional setting43.
Before the present study’s research design is laid out (cf. Chapter 11), the next chapter (Chapter 10) discusses issues about the difficulty of learning and the effect of learning in terms of SLA.
10. Previous research on learning second or foreign languages
Previous research that has been carried out in the field of second language teaching tests various teaching techniques, approaches and methods. These teaching methods and approaches that have been applied to grammar instruction and their success in that area are the main interest of
43 Cf. Chapter 8 for the different methods tested in the present study.
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this chapter. Additionally, this chapter discusses the reasons for teaching grammar and ways to do it, the factors that cause difficulties and potential challenges for learners when learning grammar and tense-aspect (cf. section 10.1.), the effect of instruction on the learning process in general (cf. section 10.2.) and specifically on the learning process of tense and aspect (cf. section 10.3.).
As an introduction to this chapter, the plausibility of the reasons for teaching grammar (including reasonable and unreasonable motives for grammar instruction) is discussed first (Swan, 2002). According to Swan (2002), there are seven bad motives for teaching grammar, among which are tidiness, testability, security, its existence, identity, power, and the fact that grammar is a whole system; while the good reasons for teaching grammar are comprehensibility and acceptability.
Teaching grammar just because it is there, or simply because of its existence, is a bad idea, since this leads to the neglect of the different students’ needs (Swan, 2002). The reason for this and probably also the source for all the bad reasons for teaching grammar is the fact that “[l]earning grammar is a lot simpler than learning a language” (Swan, 2002: 149). What makes learning grammar simpler, as Swan (2002) explains, is the tidiness of grammar, meaning that it is a system that can be categorized and classified and used in activities. This is considered true especially in the case of tense and aspect, which are considered to be a subject matter that is easy to teach, since “many grammatical rules exist that capture the structural facts concerning the various tense-aspect combinations and the semantic facts related to what meanings these combinations convey” (Larsen-Freeman et al., 2002: 3). This then leads to another problem, namely that there is a great deal of grammar that is actually taught.
Since there is so much grammar that needs to be taught, there is the danger of overloading the curriculum or the lesson plan with grammar lessons that focus on rules and that leave no time for the development of communicative competence and other skills. Teaching or learning grammar in this way reflects on the identity of the learner, in the way that the learner is led to consider grammar as crucial and as such, grammar is therefore learned in the form of an accumulation of rules. Knowing the rules and being able to apply them can give the learner a feeling of accomplishment as a sole measure of achievement.
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Furthermore, the testability of grammar is another bad reason for teaching grammar. Testing grammar is easier than testing any other part of language, and it is thus considered as a short- cut. Therefore, there is the danger of mainly testing grammar and exclusively teaching grammar in the first place for the same reason (Swan, 2002). Because grammar can be easily tested, this provides the teacher and the learner with a false assurance of knowledge; the results can be misleading since a knowledge of the rules does not necessarily mean a knowledge of the language. The results of the test serve as a measuring apparatus for the language learning, or teaching achievement, but do not always serve the learners in communicative activities or situations. This leads to the next bad reason for teaching grammar: power, namely the teachers’ need for superiority and knowledge, which urges them to teach what the learners do not know, which is grammar (Swan 2002).
The final bad motive to teach grammar is viewing grammar as a whole system or a machine that one has to fully comprehend in order to be able to use it. Swan (2002) says that not every aspect of grammar has to be mastered since not every aspect of grammar is so interconnected that it cannot function without the other parts, unlike a machine.
What is gained with instruction that focuses on teaching and testing straightforward rules is ‘structural competence’ rather than communicative or other language competences (Swan, 2002). Instead, Swan (2002) claims that grammar should be learned to fulfill language requirements and to obtain communicative competence as the first good reasons for teaching grammar. The second good reason for grammar instruction is acceptability, which is the acceptability of the level of grammatical correctness. This can be an aim for personal reasons, like self-image or reputation, or for professional reasons like employment and formal interaction.
Nonetheless, even if the decisions to teach grammar are good and valid, this still does not mean that the teaching/learning will be successful. What follows here is a description of various factors that make the learning of grammar and the tense-aspect system challenging.
10.1. The difficulty of learning grammar and tense-aspect systems
After considering the opinions and treatment of the categories of tense and aspect from a linguistic (cf. sections 2.2.; 3.1.; 3.2.; 5.1.; 5.2.) and pedagogical point of view (cf. sections
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7.1.; 7.2.), it can be seen that these two categories of the verb are problematic and there is a great deal of disagreement among grammarians and researchers considering the separability of tense and aspect or indeed the existence of the category of aspect. As discussed in Chapter 2 (cf. section 2.2.) and in Chapter 3 (cf. sections 3.1. and 3.2.), while some regard tense and aspect as closely related (Hornstein 1990) or at least as having a semantic connection (Quirk et al., 1985), others insist that there is a clear difference between these two categories (Comrie, 1985, Comrie, 1976; Leech, 2004). In section 3.1., another disagreement regarding the English tense-aspect system was picked up and discussed, namely, the exact number of tenses. While some insist that there are two tenses, the present and the past (Seely, 2007; Alexander, 1988; Cygan, 1972; Huddleston and Pullum et al., 2002), others claim that there are three tenses: past, present and future (Declerck, 1995, Declerck et al., 2006). In Chapter 5 (cf. sections 5.1. and 5.2.), the treatment of the category of aspect was a central issue. Chapter 7 (cf. sections 7.1. and 7.2.) introduced an additional issue, namely the assumption, for pedagogical purposes, of the existence of twelve tenses which are in actual fact tense-aspect combinations.
What follows from Chapters 2, 3, 5 and 7 is that the categories of tense and aspect and the issues that arise within each category have not been resolved and are still open to debate. This brings up the concern that if the categories of tense and aspect are so problematic in the eyes of grammarians, who cannot seem to reach a consensus, then how difficult and challenging will they be for learners of English as a second language? In addition, if defining these categories was not challenging and confusing enough, there are other issues that learners of English face which may directly be linked to their native language, the difficulty of the target language itself or even the instructional setting in conjunction with the learners’ general attitudes. Hence, this section outlines different challenges that learners of different L1s might face when learning or studying English as a second language. The spectrum of difficulties ranges from crosslinguistic to intralinguistic causes. Pedagogical solutions that have been suggested are also mentioned throughout the rest of this section.
Crosslinguistic causes of difficulty
In the following paragraphs, crosslinguistic influence on the acquisition of tense-aspect is discussed along with some possible solutions to this problem. In general, the difficulties in learning grammar are believed to be due to the following factors: “lack of relevant grammatical
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knowledge, influence from the learners’ L1, cognitive resource limitations, and maturational changes during adolescence” (Clahsen and Felser, 2006: 568). Additional reasons specific to the appropriation of tense and aspect include word order and difficulty in describing the progressive aspect to most learners of English (Zydatiβ, 1976: 352, as quoted in Niemeier and Reif, 2008: 326), while others claim that the acquisition of tense-aspect, or more specifically the progressive can also be due to task type and L2 proficiency (Sugaya and Shirai, 2007). Some researchers have found that the difficulty of learning the grammar of a new language is caused by the lack of corresponding tense or aspect form in the native language, or a dissimilarity in a particular form in the L1 and L2 (Cowan, 2008; Housen, 2000; Niemeier and Reif, 2008; DeKeyser, 2005), while others (Lim, 2007) found that both intralinguistic and crosslinguistic factors are reasons for interference in the learning of this system. All these claims and findings are discussed here.
Clahsen and Felser’s (2006: 578) findings revealed that “L2 learners do not have problems with all aspects of grammar but with the real-time computation of complex hierarchical representations”. They explain this further by stating that L2 learners do not have difficulties with the aspects of grammar that have ‘locally related constituents’ (like adjacent words or constituents), while on the other hand, they do have problems with the constituents that are non-locally related (in other words, constructions of ‘noncanonical word order’ like wh- questions reflexives or pronouns), which indicates crosslinguistic interference.
Niemeier and Reif (2008) and DeKeyser (2005) identify the lack of certain tense-aspect forms in the mother tongue as the main cause for the difficulties that learners of English face with regard to the category of aspect. This means that the fact that the L1 tense-aspect system differs from the system in the target language is what causes problems and difficulties in the learning of the system in English. Here it seems that they suggest that the interference is crosslinguistic, which would mean that the more the native and the target language differ the more difficulties there would be in learning the English tense-aspect system.
The “English tense-aspect system constitutes a major source of error even for advanced learners of English-and certainly not only for German students”, since they have problems with the part of grammar that differs from or does not exist in German (Niemeier and Reif, 2008: 326). Verbal aspect among others is considered to be resistant to teaching in instructional
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environments and to be difficult to acquire for learners whose L1 differs from English or for the learners whose L1 lacks the form (DeKeyser, 2005: 5). For instance, while for speakers of German the category of aspect is problematic, since their language lacks aspect, for speakers of Slavic languages this category is challenging since their language has a distinctive category of aspect. They also point out that tense and aspect cause German learners of English to make mistakes in this area for two reasons: 1) transfer and 2) intralingual difficulty (Niemeier and Reif, 2008: 351).
Cowan (2008) and Housen (2000) identify L1 features that affect the learning of the English tense-aspect system, namely the lack of or mismatch to corresponding tense forms, combinations or equivalents in languages like German (Cowan, 2008; Housen, 2000; von Stutterheim et al., 2009) and Dutch (Housen, 2000). For instance, in German the Present Simple can be used in ways that the Present Simple and Present Progressive can be used in English (Cowan, 2008), which can even have an influence on the attainment of the target language (von Stutterheim et al., 2009). The learners of English whose first language is Dutch, which also lacks the distinction between the Present Simple and Present Progressive, face the challenge of differentiating between these two in terms of use, form and function (Housen, 2000, von Stutterheim et al., 2009). So, the lack of the difference in form in one of the languages in question (native language and target language) is considered as a reason for interference and difficulties when a new language is learned.
Additional areas of difficulty are suggested by Lim (2007) who states that the acquisition of tenses, and especially the perfect tense forms, is considered difficult for the learners of the English language. In his paper, he examines whether there is a crosslinguistic or/and an intralingual influence when Malay students learn tenses (Simple Past and Present Perfect). Through examples, he outlines the possible reasons for the mistakes made by the Malay learners and concludes that most mistakes are made due to crosslinguistic differences. He also notices that the students fail to make a connection between the given tense forms and the accompanying adverbial. In addition, the learners fail to demonstrate knowledge of the duration or completion of the action in certain sentences. The lack of knowledge of the verb characteristics (whether the verb is stative or transitive), according to Lim (2007), is the main reason for the difficulty of the acquisition of the Present Perfect.
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Intralinguistic causes of difficulty
There is research that has indicated that "learners of different L1 backgrounds may face similar types of challenges" (Collins, 2007: 295) when they learn a new language. These challenges are considered intralingual since all learners have to deal with the same issues, for instance tense forms like the puzzling perfect tense combination (Vijaya and Viswanath, 2010), the basic use and meaning of certain tenses (Larsen-Freeman et al., 2001), and the exceptions to the rules of some tenses and tense-aspect combinations.
Learners with different L1 deal with the same problems especially when it comes to tense and aspect in English (Collins, 2007). Collins (2007) conducted a study on French and Japanese learners using Vendler’s ‘aspect hypothesis’ and concluded that even though the learners had very different native languages they used the English tenses in a similar way. If this would apply to any learner of the English language with any L1 (not only French and Japanese), then this would mean that the difficulty in learning the English tense-aspect system definitely lies in the language itself rather than the L1 of the student and is therefore of an intralinguistic rather than a crosslinguistic nature.
Furthermore, Vijaya and Viswanath (2010: 97) claim that despite the fact that the learners “know a great deal about the names of tenses, they find it difficult to understand the time/aspect that each tense indicates”. Vijaya and Viswanath (2010) additionally discuss an issue that they call ‘confusion about the perfect tenses’, and claim that the problems with learning the tenses lie in the structure of the tense-aspect forms, the irregularity of some verbs, the semantic stretch of the time span of some tense forms; also the fact that the “semantic notion of time reference is puzzling to any learner of English language”, since time and tense do not always go hand in hand (Vijaya and Viswanath, 2010: 98).
Similarly, Larsen-Freeman et al. (2001: 3) state that the difficulty of learning the tense-aspect system of the English language lies in the complexity of this system. Specifically, the main reason for the difficulties encountered by students is the fact that an English tense like the Present Perfect can have eight different meanings. Among some of the problems that occur when English is learned as a second or foreign language are the following: stative verbs are used in progressive tenses, and the mapping of form and meaning when using other tense forms to indicate the future in English, which both result in the misuse of the tense forms and
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frustrated teachers. One solution offered to these problems is learning the tense-aspect combinations as a system and approaching them as a whole (Larsen-Freeman et al., 2001: 4). In order to avoid confusions: “[i]t is clearly insufficient to work on the form and meaning of each tense-aspect combination independent of other related tense-aspect forms” (Larsen- Freeman et al., 2001: 4) tenses should be introduced individually but also in pairs for the sake of clarification and distinction.
A solution that might help with the learning of the tense-aspect system could be presenting tense and aspect in different contexts. If this were to happen, then the teaching method itself should focus on intralinguistic features and provide opportunities for the exploration of the English language, and limit the use of or reliance on the mother tongue, which according to the studies discussed above, has little influence on the learning process of the English tense-aspect system.
Since the way tense and aspect are approached can have an influence on acquisition, this means that instruction also has an influence on the learning of this system. Bardovi-Harlig (2000) claim that instruction does in fact have an effect on the learning of the tense-aspect system. The question is whether this is due to the information presented and gained in the classroom or due to specific activities with a focus on the target knowledge. For this reason, causes for the difficulty of learning rooted in instruction, are investigated next.
Instructional causes of difficulty
An important reason why learning a new language can be a challenging process is because a given “grammar unit can be daunting and frustrating for both teachers and students” (Roberts and Boggase, 1992: 1). If this is a widely shared view, then the teaching and learning of grammar will require a different approach, which will make the learning and teaching process less daunting and frustrating. Instructional issues that might contribute to the difficulty of learning the tense-aspect combinations, and possible solutions to the problems that are encountered by students and teachers, are discussed in the following paragraphs.
The difficulty in learning, or even failure to learn the English tense-aspect system, according to the secondary literature on the subject, exists due to a number of possible factors. Firstly, this difficulty exists because “little effort is rendered to the factors that facilitate or hinder the
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acquisition systems of tense and aspect” (Rahman and Ali, 2015: 131), secondly it is due to the strategies that learners use to analyze the target language (Vaezi and Alizadeh, 2011), and thirdly, because of the lack of context variety in the activities used in the instructional setting (Collins, 2007). Other issues that learners might face in an instructional environment are the difficulties in applying the knowledge of a grammatical item beyond the sentence-level (Clahsen and Felser, 2006). Larsen-Freeman et al. (2001) point out that making the learners aware of the differences of the tense-aspect combinations is not enough since they also need to know the similarities, which should be taught on the level of text (in other words, in contextualized activities). Partial knowledge of a grammatical unit (due to instruction or lack of understanding) is also an issue that can influence the learning process. This is clarified by Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1983) who identify form, meaning and use as three crucial elements that a learner needs to know in order to fully understand and use a grammatical item. Pedagogically, the levels of knowledge, namely competence and performance, go hand in hand and one cannot prevail without the other. Therefore, the students’ (written or spoken) performance cannot be appropriate if their (mental) competence lacks some elements of knowledge of a grammatical unit.
An empirical approach for identifying learner difficulties in learning the tense-aspect system is presented by Vaezi and Alizadeh (2011). In their study, they used evidence from think-aloud protocols in order to find out what coping mechanisms learners use when faced with English tenses. By using a cloze tense task during which the participants think aloud, Vaezi and Alizadeh (2011) in particular wanted to find out what it is that causes errors, and the exact processes the learners undergo during this task. Their conclusions are that the reasons are intralingual.
Not surprisingly, they also claim that accurate tense-aspect production is difficult for most of the learners, particularly in spontaneous spoken discourse (Vaezi and Alizadeh, 2011: 987). The findings, from the think-aloud cloze test task, show that the learners used the following strategies, among others: translation, paraphrasing, time signals, previous knowledge, S-V agreement, parallel structures (Vaezi and Alizadeh, 2011: 989-990). Furthermore, the sources of errors seemed to lie in the inappropriateness of translation, pronominal reference, and S-V agreement, among others (Vaezi and Alizadeh, 2011: 991). The difficulties of learning the
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tense-aspect system here seem to lie in the test itself rather than in crosslinguistic or intralinguistic causes.
Cowan (2008: 350) identifies a further challenge for the learners and claims that the “use of verb forms is one of the two or three most difficult areas for English language learner to master”. The various factors that make the process of learning or tense and aspect of the English language difficult for EFL and ESL learners are:
lexical aspect of the verbs play[s] a role along with the influence of the students’ L1 and the input that students receive in class [which] involves not only the instruction that the students receive from the teachers and the materials but, more specifically, the frequency with which, within this instruction, certain types of verbs are associated with particular tense forms. (Cowan, 2008: 379)
A mild generalization that Collins (2007: 299) arrived at was that “all learners could benefit from pedagogical activities that encourage them to manipulate contexts for verb forms” [original emphasis]. This would mean that the verb form or the tense-aspect combination choice would alter once a different context was provided. While in sentence based activities learners might arrive at and choose a certain tense-aspect combination as the correct answer, if a context were provided, this choice might change due to the additional information. For instance, decontextualized activities with sentences like: I broke the window, would require a past non- progressive form of the verb; however, if a context were provided and there was a cause-effect relation in the discourse then the tense-aspect combination choice would differ, as in the example: I have broken the window. Now, it is very cold in the house. The tense-aspect challenge should therefore make use of “instructional activities that require learners to supply or manipulate contexts for given forms may help address the difficulty learners have matching the tense-aspect forms they know with the meanings they would like to express” (Collins, 2007: 300).
A similar difficulty in the learning and correct use of tense and aspect lies in the level of focus in the instruction of these categories. To explain this further I use Celce-Murcia and Larsen- Freeman’s (1999: 161) comparison of sentence-level and text-level of teaching of tense, aspect and modality. They say that “[a] limitation of sentence-based accounts of English tense, aspect, and modality-even if well contextualized-is that such accounts fail to capture the fact that certain tenses, aspect, and modality combinations tend to occur together in discourse whereas
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others do not”. Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999: 162) claim that the learners who are successful in using tense-aspect in sentences will not be as successful in texts since they learn tense and aspect “bit by bit at the sentence level without ever learning how the bits interact in longer pieces of discourse”. When this happens, this does not only affect the accurateness of the sequence of use of tense, but also affects the coherence and cohesion of the text. Celce- Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999: 162) compare the two discourses below to illustrate the effect of tense-aspect on the comprehensibility and coherence of text (A) as opposed to (B):
(A) The little girl cried her heart out. She had lost her teddy bear and was convinced she hasn't ever going to find him. [original contraction] (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999: 162)
(B) ?The little girl cries her heart out. She lost her teddy bear and is convinced she won't ever find him. [original contraction] (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999: 162)
Since the tense-aspect system of the English language is complicated enough, and teaching tense-aspect combinations independently is ineffective, Larsen-Freeman et al. (2001: 3-4) propose an instructional solution to these problems. The description of the combinations should be done on a text-level rather than a sentence-level since the latter is incomplete as there is no contextual information beyond the single sentence. Teaching tense forms in a text is beneficial because when more tense forms are used, the text this will enable the learners to discover how the tense forms differ, how they relate to each other and whether they are the cause or the result of another event. The following quotation confirms what was discussed here:
[l]earning to recognize the way that the tense-aspect combinations operate in discourse is thus key to helping students learn to use the tense-aspect system as a resource in promoting cohesion of texts. (Larsen-Freeman et al., 2001: 4-5)
If the learners are able to note and understand how tenses and combinations function in a text and how they can be used to make a text coherent, then the learners will be able to make sense of how the tenses are connected and how they can interact with each other.
Another reason why Larsen-Freeman et al. (2001), like Collins (2007), insist on teaching tense- aspect combinations on the level of text is that there is no linearity or fixed sequence of tense- aspect combinations with regard to time in the text itself. On the contrary, a text can consist of a combination of events that happened at different points in time. Therefore, in order for the learners to understand the tense forms in a text, the instruction procedure needs to be done by
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using texts rather than sentences in order for the learners to fully grasp the English tense-aspect system.
After considering the factors that cause difficulties in learning this system, Cowan (2008: 383- 384) offers suggestions for teaching tense and aspect which involve the following: recognition of the role of lexical aspect; focus on tenses that are similar and cause confusion; raising the awareness of co-occurrence of tense-aspect combinations and adverbs. These suggestions are in line with those of Willis (2003), who claims that tense forms need to be introduced along with the co-occurring adverbs in different contexts, which is the practice applied in the Five- Stage Method (cf. section 8.2.2.).
What follows from this sections is that it can be argued with some certainty that besides crosslinguistic (L1 transfer) and intralinguistic (lexical aspect) influences, instructional factors also play an important role, since the way of teaching and the frequency with which this is done in a particular way, can influence the learning process of the tense-aspect system.
10.2. The effect of teaching and teaching methodology on learning in SLA (second language acquisition)
After outlining above the crosslinguistic, intralingual and instructional factors that might cause difficulties when learning a second or foreign language, the discussion that follows focuses on the positive effect of instruction on learning. This section outlines some of the arguments and suggestions in the existing literature concerning the influence that instruction has on the effectiveness of learning English as a second or foreign language.
The effect of teaching on learning in SLA is beneficial and positive because “instructed learners progress at a faster rate, they are likely to develop more elaborate language repertoires and they typically become more accurate than uninstructed learners” (Ortega, 2009: 139). Nonetheless, while it is believed that the effect of teaching on learning is advantageous, whether learning takes place due to the method, exposure or specific exercises is not clear and difficult to determine. For instance, Bardovi-Harlig (2000: 351) claims that specifically “the tense-aspect system is learnable in a classroom setting, but whether this result is due to the increased input or the specific noticing activities cannot be determined”. A specific explanation for the success or failure of teaching and learning in an instructional setting is offered by Ortega (2009: 138),
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who says that “teachers can only hope to teach successfully what learners are developmentally ready to learn”. If learning can only take place successfully when teaching and developmental readiness are matched, then research about the ways of successful teaching and its effects on successful learning needs to be consulted. The conclusions of previous research that has investigated whether there is an effect of the teaching methodology and whether a new teaching methodology can be applied in order to solve the difficulties, follow.
When investigating the effects of teaching grammar in second language teaching, the Skill Acquisition Theory (McLaughlin, 1987) and the Teachability Hypothesis (Pienemann, 1989) shed light on how and whether learning takes place. While according to the Skill Acquisition Theory learning takes place in the way that explicit knowledge becomes implicit knowledge through procedularization, the Teachability Hypothesis relies on the developmental stage the learner is at to have reached a certain point and his or her ‘readiness’ to learn and process new information. However, Ortega (2009: 138) claims that for tense and aspect morphology the Teachability Hypothesis does not fully apply, since there are stages when learning tense-aspect in particular that the learners cannot omit. This means that the learner’s ‘readiness’ to learn tense-aspect does not completely influence the language learning process. In other words, whether the learners are ready or not, they cannot ignore specific parts of the English tense- aspect system.
Moreover, “when morphology emerges in interlanguage to express grammatical tense and aspect, not all forms emerge at once” according to Ortega (2009: 127). Bardovi-Harlig (2000) claim that the order of grammatical tense and aspect is the following: Present Progressive, Simple Past, Past Progressive, Present Perfect and Past Perfect. This confirms Ortega’s (2009: 138) claim that when learning tense-aspect the learners cannot skip steps or omit whole parts of the system, since there is a specific order in which the tenses emerge. This might seem to contradict Willis’ (2003) claim that all tense forms should be introduced at once (cf. section 8.2.2.), but nonetheless, the claim here is that there is an order in which tense and aspect emerge rather than an order in which tense and aspect should be taught in an instructional setting.
The studies that have produced the evidence summarized in Ortega’s (2009) statement, fall into three groups of research: first, the effects of grammar teaching in general, followed by the
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different approaches to teaching tense and aspect, and finally the teaching of specific parts of the English tense-aspect system.
Some studies have found that teaching grammar can lead to accurateness, while others have concluded that different types of grammar instruction may indeed have different effects on the learning of English grammar. Specifically, Gao (2001: 334, in agreement with Larsen- Freeman, 1991: 279-280) says that “teaching grammar means enabling language students to use linguistic forms accurately, meaningfully and appropriately”. When teaching grammar in general, Gao (2001) claims that explicit grammar instruction is very important for the process of learning the language nevermind the age of the learners. Though children may have an advantage in learning grammar as opposed to adults, Gao (2001: 326) in his paper argues that adults will “compensate for their lack of intuitions”. He states that children who have acquisition abilities and intuitions have an advantage to learning a language, and that even though adult learners lack this advantage, they can use their ‘worldly knowledge’, ‘analytical powers’ and L1 grammatical knowledge to learn and apply the rules of the target language by deducing and inducing rules on their own (Gao, 2001: 332). His claim is that instruction provides the adult learners with means that will replace the intuition that children have when learning a foreign language.
Some studies provide empirical evidence that different types of instruction can have an influence on learning regardless whether this instruction is implicit or explicit. In order to investigate this, Özkan and Kesen (2009) pre-, post- and delayed-post tested 50 Turkish learners while they were being taught grammar in groups, some explicitly and others implicitly. Based on the improvement of both groups (implicit and explicit with an advantage noted for the second one) they arrive at the conclusion that teaching grammar does have a significant influence on learning a language. So for them, instruction is crucial and does contribute to language knowledge overall. From the above we can conclude that that teaching does have an effect on learning, and therefore the rest of the section will go on to outline studies that investigate the effect of teaching methodology on learning.
Boumová (2008) and Khalid and Azeem (2012) also compare the traditional way of teaching against what is referred to as ‘modern instructional method’ and ‘constructivist method’. While Imai (2008) and Bielak and Pawlak (2011) rely on cognitive processes in order to increase the
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effectiveness of learning, Gass and Selinker (2008) and VanPatten and Uludag44 (2011) investigate ‘Processing Instruction’ as a teaching method to be used against the traditional instruction. A detailed examination of all these studies, including the investigation methodology and findings, is presented below.
In order to make learning of tense-aspect more effective, Imai (2008) tries to raise the non- native speakers’ awareness of the cognitive processes that native speakers have subconsciously about tense and aspect, among other things. In his experiment, one group of the university- level participants was advised to learn about tense and aspect in the cognitive way proposed by Imai (2008) and the other group in the familiar traditional way. This means that while one group was given clear instructions on what to learn about tense, aspect, and modality, the Traditional group was instructed to learn these things from a high school book on their own without any instruction or assistance from the teacher. The results from the pre- and post-test of the 125 participants showed no statistical significance. This could be due to the short time span between the pre- and the post-test, namely one week and the more difficult activities in the post-test.
Imai (2008) puts the blame on teachers and books for presenting poorly translated descriptions which cause the students to make mistakes. Another problem that adds to the challenge of mastering the tense-aspect system is that translation is imposed as the fifth skill on the learners, even though not all of them want to be translators. Furthermore, grammar in these situations is used for translation purposes and not for active L2 production in interaction (Imai, 2008: 25).
In order to find out how efficient form-focused cognitive grammar teaching against traditional grammar teaching is, Bielak and Pawlak (2011) investigated the effect of different teaching methods by using 52 participants in three groups (control, cognitive experimental and traditional experimental). Cognitive grammar, unlike the traditional descriptions, attempts to make grammar meaningful, and offers visual illustrations unlike the traditional one, among other differences. A pre-, post- and delayed post-test were used together with quantitative data.
44 For VanPatten and Uludag (2011: 46) traditional teaching is explicit material delivery and it is achieved “via the move from mechanical to meaningful to communicative activities”.
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All three groups improved, however, the cognitive group improved moderately more than the Traditional group.
Gass and Selinker (2008: 373) present the benefits of Processing Instruction by saying that this is an “instructional intervention that relied heavily on the notion of attention to form and its crucial role in a learner’s movement from input to intake and finally to output”. In this method, instead of allowing the natural process of language learning to take their course and wait for language rules to sink in and be made available to the learners, the method intends to manipulate the input before internalization happens.
VanPatten and Cadierno (1993, in Gass and Selinker, 2008: 374) tested the effectiveness of Processing Instruction against traditional instruction. In the traditional instruction method, the learners are given the grammatical instruction for the purpose of practicing, on the other side, in Processing Instruction an effort is made to manipulate the manner in which input is recognized and processed. VanPatten (2007) further explains Processing Instruction by saying that it has three fundamental features, which include the following: the language structure should be presented to the learners, provide the learners with processing strategies which might hinder selection and comprehension and provide organized input so that the meaning can be elicited from the language form and not from natural processing (in Gass and Selinker, 2008: 374). VanPatten (2008, in Gass and Selinker, 2008: 374), in an experiment where Processing Instruction was compared to Traditional Methods, found that the processing information groups showed better results than the Traditional group.
More support for the success of Processing Instruction was found by VanPatten and Uludag (2011). In their experiment, the passive voice was taught to Turkish L1 students without any production practice, which is thought to be enough for gaining knowledge of and being able to accurately construct new language forms. The conclusion they arrive at suggests that the instruction of passive voice, which goes one step beyond teaching tenses, can be very effective even if the teaching method lacks the stage of production of passive voice samples.
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Since the traditional way of teaching has been proven to be less effective than other methods Khalid and Azeem45 (2012) propose an approach based on innovation and acquisition which should replace the traditional one, namely, the constructivist approach. In detail, this approach uses creative activities and gives the students opportunities to negotiate, construct, correct and confirm knowledge collectively. Unlike in the Traditional Method, here the teacher is a facilitator and guides the process without serving knowledge since this is expected to be derived by the students based on their past experience, previous knowledge and materials provided by the teacher. The teacher refrains from instructing or simply giving the knowledge away, but rather engages the students in experiments and problem solving activities.
In the studies investigating different grammar teaching methodology it can be noticed that the traditional teaching has been one of the most investigated teaching methods. While some found that this type of instruction is effective, others came to the conclusion that this method is not as effective when compared to other methods. Whether the findings in the current study will follow this trend is discussed in Chapter 12.
The methodology used for teaching tense-aspect is discussed next.
10.3. Prior tense-aspect teaching methodology research
This section presents different ways to teach grammar or the tense-aspect system in particular. Different beliefs, experiments and suggestions about what methodology is the most promising are presented in the paragraphs below.
Some believe that the involvement of cognitive processes is the best methodology for learning the tense-aspect system (specifically of the Present Simple) (Niemeier and Reif, 2008; Tian, 2015; and Iwasaki, 2006), while others believe that a systematic method (by visually presenting the subject matter, followed by application in written and oral activities) is more effective (Svalberg, 1986). Another proposal of how tense and aspect or the Present Perfect should be taught is by using a form-focused approach in three steps (Lim, 2007).
45 For Khalid and Azeem (2012: 170) the Traditional Method happens in the form of a lecture focused on covering the material and expects memorization from the learners. It does not consider the “mental level of interest of the students” and it does not expect creativity.
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Niemeier and Reif (2008, in agreement with Achard, 2004), want to combine teaching grammar for communicative purposes by approaching grammar cognitively, and therefore their aim is to bring cognitive linguistics into tense-aspect teaching (Niemeier and Reif, 2008: 326). Their suggestion is a “lens” and “keyhole” method used to describe actions in pictures in which an event is presented in a progressing way. They claim that aspect can be best explained and understood if the learners perceive the progressing situation on the picture through a lens or a keyhole isolating it from the beginning or the end result of the action.
In order to investigate the effect of methodology on the learning outcome, the Present Simple was taught cognitively to one group of Chinese high school students while another group was taught traditionally in Tian’s (2015) study. The 45 minute sessions focused on presenting the different uses of the Present Simple. The difference in instruction between the traditional46 and cognitive group was that in the Traditional group the native language was used as language of instruction and tense-aspect differences were introduced with rules and accompanying adverbs, while in the cognitively instructed group visual illustrations of the grammatical differences were used. The findings indicated that the cognitive groups had an overall better performance. However, they did not significantly outperform the Traditional group in activities like error correction and fill-in-the-blank.
The effect of cognitive instruction of grammatical and lexical aspect was investigated in Iwasaki’s (2006) study for which 50 Japanese students were pre-tested before half of them involved in traditional instruction and the other half in cognitive instruction of aspect. While in the first group (traditional) the activities consisted of explanation of the meaning of the progressive aspect, in the second group the activities were designed in such a way that they involved cognitive processes which were believed to enhance the learning process. The results showed that there is statistical significance for the cognitively instructed group.
Kanda and Beglar (2004:107) also investigate the effectiveness of two experimental methods of teaching the Present Progressive based on four instructional principles: “(1) teach form- function relations, (2) compare related forms, (3) promote learner autonomy, and (4) provide
46 For Tian (2015) in the tradition teaching methods canonical uses of tense forms are emphasized followed by the introduction of the accompanying adverbs that co-occur with the tense form and the extended uses of the tense forms. Here a set of rules must be followed and the most common practices are memorization and repetition.
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opportunities for generative use”. The participants were 99 high school learners aged 15-16 who were pre-, post- and delayed post-tested after 3 weeks. To test their hypothesis that form- oriented instruction will show better results than lecture type instruction, they organized the participants in three groups. There were two experimental groups, namely group 1 and 2 and a control group. The experimental group 1 was instructed using grammar explanations and a comparison of the meaning of Present Progressive and Simple Present using contextualized activities on sentence and discourse level. The experimental group 2 received the same grammar explanation and activities as the experimental group 1 and in addition they also did pair activity where the focus was on meaning with opportunities for expression form-focused relation followed by memorization and dialogue creating. The control group had a 50-minute lesson in Japanese explaining the rules for the present progressive followed by four activities. The activities were unscrambling sentences, rewriting sentences using a particular verb, fill in the blanks with the correct verb form, and translation. The results showed that the group that performed best was the experimental group 2, followed by the experimental group 1 and last the control group. This shows that activities with focus on meaning foster more in-depth processing of the grammar form. However, the most effective teaching method was the one combining form-focused and meaning-focused activities.
A systematic method of the tense-aspect system that could be used in teaching which provides the students and the teachers with an overview of the subject matter with the aim of providing the students with tools to understand the tense-aspect selection is offered by Svalberg (1986). Tense and aspect are presented cohesively by taking into account the students’ learning styles. This method, which would be visually presented to the students, can be used before, during or after working on a task, and the newly gained knowledge is performed in communication activities with a communicative purpose that should be done afterwards. In practice, the teacher should present the method by providing explanations and examples. This will then be applied in written and oral activities and followed by communicative activities which, according to the author, will help the learners to “use their new knowledge spontaneously” (Svalberg, 1986:141).
For a ‘pedagogical investigation into the acquisition of Present Perfect’, Lim (2007) recommends a three-stage form-focused instructional procedure, in which (in agreement with Ellis, 2005) the language focus will be on form and meaning. In the first stage Lim (2007)
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recommends an explicit comparative instruction of the tense and voice forms. In the second stage the teaching should be focused on distinguishing the Present Perfect from the other tenses in terms of time reference. For the final stage, he suggests that the instructors compare the Present Perfect to other tense forms in different settings and use a table indicating which verbs associate with which tenses.
The conclusions that can be drawn from the above teaching methodology research of tense- aspect teaching to account for the partial effectiveness of the methodology or the poor acquisition results, are that effects may be grounded in the instructor or the teaching materials and the type of instruction used for teaching tense and aspect.
What follows in the next chapter is the rationale of my study and my personal reasons for investigating the effect of teaching methodology on the acquisition, retention and integration of tense forms into speech. The next chapter also outlines the setting of the current study, and the participants and the testing instruments that have been used in testing the effectiveness of teaching methods on the acquisition and integration of tense forms into speech.
11. Present study research setup
In this chapter the methodology of the experiment including the rationale of the study, research questions, hypotheses and set up of the experiment are presented by describing the circumstances and means used for carrying out the research. The chapter also offers an elaboration on the participants in the experiment, the participants’ L1 and level of language proficiency. The last section of this chapter presents the tests of the experiment, their aims and predicted outcome.
11.1. Rationale of the present study
11.1.1. Research gap
Even though previous research has already tested a vast number of instructional methods, each based on different theories of language, there are still some methods that have not been empirically investigated and can therefore not be declared as effective or otherwise.
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Furthermore, integration of tense forms in spontaneous speech has not been empirically tested in previous studies nor has it been the aim of teaching methods concerning tense (except for Svalberg, 1986 and Willis, 2003), but rather has simply been declared as an aim difficult to achieve (Vaezi and Alizadeh, 2011).
One of the instructional methods that have not been tested experimentally is the Five-Stage Method suggested by Willis (2003; cf. section 8.2.2.). This method is aimed at teaching language, grammar and the tense-aspect system, and which is, according to Willis (2003) (who has tried various teaching methods in his teaching career), more promising than other methods. This method is compared to two other methods (Traditional and LdL) in order to investigate its effectiveness in an instructional setting at the South East European University, Macedonia.
A further incomplete field that required further research is the tense-aspect system in Albanian (cf. Chapter 5), which if left in its partially defined state in existing secondary literature, could not as such be compared to the English counterpart (cf. Chapter 6), which serves as a basis from which to build upon and as a starting point for the instructional experiment in my study. Likewise, Albanian is not widely represented in research as the first language of learners of English, which is done in this study by taking corpus studies into consideration in order to achieve a pedagogical benefit. Only after the Albanian and English systems of tense and aspect have been established and defined (individually and in comparison; cf. Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6), can the main aim of this study then be investigated, namely the effect of instruction on the learning of tense forms, analyzed in SPSS (including tests such as: ANOVA, bivariate correlation tests and T-tests) in Chapter 12.
In the following part of this section, Willis’s (2003) instructional method is compared to the previously used language, grammar and tense-aspect teaching methods, with the purpose of illustrating its uniqueness. As opposed to the “three-stage form-focused instructional procedure” (cf. section 10.1.) suggested by Lim (2007), who in his investigation found that tense-aspect combination mistakes are crosslinguistic rather than intralingual, when this method (“three-stage form-focused instructional procedure”) is compared to the Five-Stage Method, the Five-Stage Method includes Improvisation and Consolidation as stages that are inevitable when learning a language (according to Willis, 2003) and accordingly has more
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stages than Lim’s (2007) method. The Five-Stage Method does not only include the stages suggested by Lim (2007), but also it includes stages where the focus in on forms.
The Five-Stage Method has also similarities with Niemeier and Reif’s instructional methods (2008; cf. section 10.3.) of combining communicative and cognitive teaching strategies for the instruction of grammar. They use the ‘lens’ or ‘keyhole’ method to explain aspect, which helps to view the function and use of aspect in individual parts. Likewise, Willis’s (2003) method also has a stage in which the form and function of the tense and aspect and tense-aspect combinations are analyzed. This is the stage of system-building and the method explains tenses by analyzing, comparing, contrasting and generalizing in addition to offering stages that foster communication (like the stage of Improvisation and Consolidation) and stages with exclusive focus on the form (like the System Building stage). It further offers the learners stages for exploration, practice and implementation of the forms into spontaneous speech.
Similarly to Gao’s (2001) study (cf. section 10.2.), in which he claims that explicit instruction is crucial in grammar instruction, Willis’s (2003) Five-Stage Method offers the System Building stage for explicit grammar purposes. However, unlike Gao (2001), who focuses only on explicit instruction that provides both prescriptive and descriptive rules and who claims that ‘worldly knowledge’ and ‘analytical powers’ will contribute to language learning, the Five- Stage Method makes use of implicit instruction in the stage of Improvisation, deducing exceptions and generalizations in the stage of Exploration and Recognition as well as integration of the rules into speech in the stage of Consolidation.
The teaching routines that Özkan and Kesen (2009) claim to be ideal for instruction (cf. section 10.2.) are explicit and implicit grammar instruction (with an advantage of explicit versus explicit). Both explicit and implicit modes of instruction are integrated into the Five-Stage Method proposed by Willis (2003), since a variety of procedures is taught in order to cater for the different learning styles. In addition, the Five-Stage Method provides more stages in which the learners can explore and recognize further forms and the use of these forms in different contexts on their own. Finally, Willis’ method has the stage of Consolidation in which the tense forms will be consolidated in spoken English.
Like Kanda and Beglar’s (2004) study (cf. section 10.3.), Willis’s (2003) method can also be used and applied for the teaching of specific tense-aspect combinations such as the Present
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Perfect Progressive and Past Perfect Progressive. The activities, grammar explanation and tense comparison used by Kanda and Beglar (2004) in the second experimental group (which received form-oriented instruction as opposed to the fist experimental groups taught in a lecture type instruction) are similar to the ones proposed for the system-building stage by Willis (2003; where in some stages the focus is on meaning and in the others on form). Willis’ (2003) method therefore integrates the same instruction in some stages. In addition, the Five-Stage Method also provides learners with opportunities to improvise using the tense form by relying on the knowledge they already have and their L1 in the first stage (Improvisation), and continues the method with stages in which the learners will recognize and explore the forms further and use them appropriately when speaking in English.
The most obvious advantage of this teaching method (the Five-Stage Method), is that it takes into account the suggestions regarding the effectiveness of other methods and approaches and combines them in carefully sequenced and organized stages which involve different tactics in material delivery and material versatility. In other words, the Five-Stage Method seems very promising, since it takes the best of all worlds and applies it in one single teaching method.
Since the Five-Stage Method offers a variety of learning processes stages, focus on form and focus on meaning activities, contextualized and decontextualized activities, inductive and deductive activities and consolidation of appropriate use of tense forms in spontaneous speech, it would be of great instructional value to test the effectiveness of this method.
11.1.2. “Morphology 1” - the course that most students fail at SEEU
This section offers an overview of the reasons for undertaking my study and it describes the courses in which tense-aspect combinations are taught as well as the curriculum at the South East European University (SEEU), Tetovo, Macedonia.
The students who study English Language and Literature are required to take linguistics courses such as Morphology 1 (cf. section 1.4.). For reasons investigated in this study, this one semester course is the course that most students fail, and as a result they are not eligible to register for the linguistics courses of the following semester (Morphology 2, Syntax 1 and Syntax 2). This then results in attending a summer school and taking the dreaded repeat courses that SEEU offers, with the sole aim of passing the course. Despite this, there are still a
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considerable number of students who cannot pass the exam even after attending intensive private courses and consultation hours with the professors and the assistants of that course.
The grammatical elements covered in Morphology 1 include: tense forms, passive voice and reported speech, the latter two of which cannot be learned or mastered if the first system (tense- aspect) has not been mastered first. This is a vicious cycle of making an effort to learn reported speech without explicit knowledge of tenses analogous to making an empty effort to master complicated mathematical problems while not knowing simple addition and subtraction. This is not to say that the tense-aspect system is simple; on the contrary it is a complex system to teach and to learn, as has been established in previous sections (cf. section 10.1.). This analogy simply means that more complex grammatical issues cannot be learned and mastered if the prior issue on which they depend have not been learned properly or at all. There are thousands of mid-term and final exams at SEEU accumulated since the opening of the university in 2000 that can serve as proof for the students’ failure to demonstrate accurate knowledge of the English tense-aspect system.
The target past tense-aspect combinations investigated in this study are the most notorious and dreaded tense forms for our students. Hence, due to the students’ lack of motivation to learn the tense-aspect system and due to the challenges learners face with the past tense group of tense forms, my study exclusively focuses on these tense-aspect combinations: Simple Past, Present Perfect, Present Perfect Progressive, Past Perfect and Past Perfect Progressive.
11.1.3. Personal teaching and learning experience
My personal learning and teaching experience considering the English tense-aspect system is also a motivational factor for this study. Being taught tense forms in high school and undergraduate studies in the Traditional Method was an ambivalent experience. Though the methodology itself was dreaded collectively, the results and the effectiveness of the learning process of the tense forms were evident to a degree. Moreover, the mastering of the English tense-aspect system continued during my first job which involved teaching and learning how to teach and thus employing, in a sense, the LdL Method (Learning through Teaching, cf. section 8.2.3.). Once I was responsible for teaching others the English tense-aspect system, I was able to understand this system better and was able to provide explanations and comparisons of the tense forms that my teachers had never taught me.
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Finally, while teaching MA courses at SEEU, we (the MA students, the course convener and I as a teaching assistant) discovered the benefits of the Five-Stage Method (by Willis, 2003) which was my main inspiration for the current study. The idea of investigating the Five-Stage Method was a result of the numerous fruitful discussions with the graduate students who had grown very fond of the method due to its many advantages, as outlined above.
Since I have been exposed to three different instructional settings (Traditional, Five-Stage Method or LdL) when learning or teaching verb morphology, I was intrigued to investigate which teaching method would promote acquisition and integration of the tense-aspect combination into spontaneous speech (in an environment where the motivation and rate of passing exams were very low). Moreover, after having discussed the benefits of the Five-Stage Method (cf. section 8.2.2.), I hypothesize that the L1 Albanian learners taught in this method will perform better in the post-test of the study than the other two groups taught using the traditional and LdL Method. Since this teaching method accommodates the learners’ learning processes and offers a variety of contexts for knowledge to be discovered and applied, this leads me to the assumption that this group will have better results than the learners taught in the other two methods especially in tasks that are contextualized.
11.2. Research questions and hypotheses
Research Question: Which teaching method (Traditional, Five-Stage or LdL) will best promote the acquisition and integration of tense forms into spontaneous speech when L1 Albanian learners learn English as a foreign language?
The main aim of this study is to find out which of the three tested methods provides the best results in the post-test (both spoken and written) as opposed to the pre-test of the study, and which of the groups will statistically outperform the other groups when the results of the post- tests of all groups are compared. The predictions and expectations are outlined in the 4 hypotheses below.
Hypothesis 1: The Five-Stage group will perform better in the post-test and this group will have learned most of the information due to the stages of this method.
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The main assumption is that the group experiencing the Five-Stage Method will present the best results and will have improved more during the training period than the other two groups. This is tested with a spoken and written pre- and post-test.
Hypothesis 2: The students taught with the Five-Stage Method will perform better in the contextualized and decontextualized exercises, whereas the traditional and LdL group will mainly perform well in decontextualized exercises.
Testing performance in contextualized and decontextualized activities is an additional issue in my study, where it is expected that the Five-Stage groups will score better in both types of activities since the teaching method itself is designed to foster acquisition and better performance in both types of activities (as opposed to the Traditional one, for example, which exclusively uses decontextualized activities). Since the Five-Stage Method provides an exploration stage in which the learners explore the use of tense form in different contexts, the performance of the groups taught in this method should be better than the other two groups (traditional and LdL).
Hypothesis 3: The Five-Stage Method will enable the students to consolidate the rules for the tense-aspect combinations and use them in spontaneous speech.
Since the Five-Stage Method is the only method that consists of stages aimed at fostering integration of tense forms into speech, this method is expected to enable the group taught in this way to perform better in the spoken post-test (cf. section 12.3.2.) than the other two groups (Traditional and LdL). Whether the integration of the tense forms into speech has taken place will be established when the spoken pre- and post-tests are compared and if this group (Five- Stage) is the only one that has made a statistically significant progress, then this would confirm this hypothesis, and it would mean that the teaching method keeps what it promises. However, if all of the methods’ results are significantly better in the post-test as opposed to the pre-test (cf. section 12.3.3.), then this would mean that integration has happened regardless of the method, and the progress can be pinned to the training period rather than to the nature of the teaching method itself.
The statistical significance of the progress between the spoken pre- and the spoken post-test can be used as one way of measuring internalization of tense forms into speech (cf. section
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12.3.). Another way of measuring internalization of tense forms into speech can be done when the results of the written and the spoken test are compared; if the performance of the groups is not significant in the spoken test but are significant in the written test, that would mean that they can perform better ‘on paper’ than ‘in speech’, which would indicate that the tense forms are mainly part of their written competence and a less obvious part of their spoken performance. These results would mean that internalization into spontaneous speech has not taken place. However, if one of the groups performs significantly better on the written and spoken post-test as opposed to the pre-tests, this would mean that the instructional method has played the main part in achieving this. Alternatively, if all groups have significantly better results in both post- tests, this would mean that internalization has happened for all groups and that the teaching method has not had a direct influence on the progress or internalization of tense forms into speech.
Hypothesis 4: The WIHIC questionnaire will reveal that the students prefer the Five-Stage and the LdL teaching method to the Traditional one due to the lack of interaction and exposure to a teacher-centered teaching environment in the Traditional Method.
The prediction is that the Five-Stage will be the most preferred method of the students due to the fact that it engages them in the teaching process and provides a variety of learning opportunities. Due to the fact that it has so many stages and an attempt to embrace learning processes, it is expected that this method will meet the students’ needs better than the other two methods and will therefore receive the most positive evaluation in the questionnaire.
11.3. Setting
The university where the experiment was carried out and where the data was collected was the South East European University (SEEU) in Tetovo, Macedonia. The students enrolled in the English Language program study linguistics courses along with teaching methodology and translation techniques, which opens more doors upon graduation. The English department, which is a part of the smaller faculty (Faculty of Languages, Cultures and Communications) at SEEU (compared to Business, Public Administration and Law), also offers a number of electives that the teachers have designed themselves in the students’ best interest, for example Discourse Analysis, Culture and Civilization, English Reading Skills, Public Speaking, to name a few. Moreover, the students who enroll at this university are mainly of Albanian ethnicity.
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The university also provides opportunities for students from outside the country (Turkey, Albania, Kosovo etc.) to study there.
Unfortunately (but fortunately for this study), almost all of the students who have been educated in Macedonia have very poor background knowledge in English gained in elementary and high school. This means that the university teachers have the responsibility of filling the gaps in their language knowledge during their 4 years of studies at SEEU. The teachers are aware of this and offer the students additional classes and a number of electives that can help the students to catch up with the pace of a university student who is studying how to become a teacher of English language, linguistics and translation.
There are several issues concerning the students’ performance in the linguistics course at SEEU. One of them is the fact that the learners find the linguistics courses (especially Morphology 1 which covers the target verb categories) challenging. The teachers of these courses at SEEU agree that this course is one of the main struggles for the students. One of the reasons why the learners have this attitude is the fact that they have already tried learning the English tense-aspect system in high school and did not succeed. Others might be put off by the complexity of the system in the English language.
There is a consensus among the teachers at SEEU about the difficulties that Albanian learners have when producing language in both situations, that is, when focusing on form and in spontaneous speech. This consensus again, means that the teachers put a special focus on tense- aspect combinations in other courses (English Skills 1 to English Skills 6) with the belief that exposure and repetition will help the learning process.
Additionally, the knowledge that is gained in the Morphology 1 course seems to disappear by the end of the semester and is not in evidence during the following semesters when the learners need to take Morphology 2 and Syntax 1, courses that require application of the knowledge gained in Morphology 1.
Morphology 1 was not the course of training in my study as initially planned, for several reasons. First, this course spends only 2 to 3 hours during the entire semester on the English tense-aspect system. Second, since this course is a mandatory course and it has a strict syllabus, this course was not suitable for the current study. Third, the number of the students who take
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this course in one semester is circa 60, which would not have been enough in terms of participant numbers for my study. Instead, the names of the courses in which the participants were trained during a period of one term were two groups of ‘English Language Skills’ students, two groups of ‘Advanced English Language Skills’ students, and two elective courses: ‘Contrastive Teaching of Tenses’ and ‘Tenses and Learning Processes’ (which the students attend in their first and third semester-depending on their curriculum).
The material that was introduced to all three groups was the same (except for some games that were introduced by the student-teacher in the LdL Method), with the difference lying in the delivery of the material according to the method in which they were taught, and the type of activities covered by the class47. While the Traditional group was teacher-centered and in the LdL group all eyes and focus were on the student-teacher, and in the Five-Stage Method the teacher’s focus was on following the five stages and providing a variety of activities to satisfy the purposes of these five stages.
The teaching in the Traditional group was carried out by the teacher who introduced the tense- aspect combinations one by one followed by decontextualized activities with a minimum of effort required for interaction and exploration among the students (cf. Appendix 1). The LdL group was taught by student-teachers who followed a syllabus that was the same for the other two methods in consultation with the actual teacher of the course (cf. Appendix 3). Unlike the Traditional group, in the LdL group the student-teachers were encouraged to use a variety of activities including deductive and inductive tasks and interactive activities and games (cf. Appendix 3). In addition, the teacher and two other students, during the teaching sessions of the current study, supervised and evaluated the teaching process by rating and commenting on the learning and teaching that took place and the class management and learning monitoring, and in doing so testing elements that the student-teachers are aware of in advance.
In the Five-Stage Method, the students were led through all five stages during every training session in an attempt to help them undergo the learning processes of this teaching method several times (cf. Appendix 2). Each stage of the method was realized with an appropriately adapted activity or task with the aim of stimulating the purposes of the stages. For instance,
47 A sample lesson plan and types of activities can be found in Appendix 1 (Traditional), Appendix 2 (Five- Stage) and Appendix 3 (LdL).
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while in the stage of Improvisation the focus is on meaning and errors and mistakes are tolerated, in the stage of System Building the focus is on the grammatical rule and use of the tense-aspect combination being taught.
Finally, all groups were pre-tested and post-tested (in written and spoken form) on the English past tense forms. The tests (pre- and post-test) contained two parts, written and spoken, with similar activities, adapted to the purpose of each test. The pre-test took place at the beginning of the semester, while the post-test was administered at the end of the semester after a 15-week training period.
11.4. Participants
120 students majoring in English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Languages, Cultures and Communications participated in the current study. They were L1 Albanian students enrolled in 4 different undergraduate courses (English Language Skills, Advanced English Language Skills, Contrastive Teaching of Tenses and Tenses and Learning Processes), and were all enrolled at the South East European University, Macedonia. One third (or two groups) of the groups were taught in the Traditional Method, another third (or two groups) were in the LdL Method and lastly, the other third (or two groups) were instructed in the Five-Stage Method. It was made sure that the overall number of participants was approximately 40 participants per method. Only the data of 36 participants was used for the analysis for each teaching method, which means that the total of participants after the selection was 108. The reasons for the reduction in the number of students include: very low performance of individual students, very poor attendance or even failing the course, and a different L1.
Some of the undergraduate students were in their first year of studying, while others were in their second year. This was possible due to curriculum changes, since the first year students took the course of Morphology 1 in their second semester, while the second year students did so in their fourth semester. In order to avoid the issue of the possible advantage that the second year students might have over the first year students, each method was taught to one first year group and one second year group. This means that each method has participants that were enrolled in the first and the second year, in order not to compromise the results, since the second year students could have had the advantage of one year more instructional experience none of which, however, was specifically focused on the tense-aspect system in English. The only
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linguistics courses that the students attend in the first year are Phonetics and Phonology, which could not have prepared them for the tense-aspect training period that they underwent as part of my experiment.
The age of the participants varied between 17-25. In addition, the majority of the students at the university in general are females. In this particular study, there were 81 females and 27 males in total. Their previous knowledge in terms of tense forms was mainly accumulated during their high school studies where English is taught for 45 minutes once or twice a week over a period of 4 years, and very little attention, if any, is given to grammar or the tense-aspect system.
The participants for the study were selected based on their native language (namely Albanian). This means that only the input and results of the learners with L1 Albanian were taken into consideration, whereas the data collected from students with different L1 was left out. It has to be noted that normally the groups at the university are somewhat heterogeneous in terms of their L1, which means that whilst almost all groups had Macedonian, Turkish, and Croatian L1 speaking students, the majority were L1 Albanian speakers. For the actual study, only the data collected from the Albanian speaking participants was used, since an L1 homogeneous group should produce more reliable results.
While carrying out the experiment, I kept in mind that good performance in school can hardly be entirely pinned to the effectiveness of formal instruction, since there are other factors that can contribute to success, among which are: extracurricular activities, communication with native speakers, English TV programs, etc. Here only a few of the exposure opportunities have been named that can and do contribute to students’ achievement and improvement notable in class. Nonetheless, since the L1 Albanian participants in this study live in a non-English speaking country, and since their generation makes use of social media on a daily basis, it is safe to say that all of them received similar exposure to the target language outside of the classroom. It follows that the improvement that they have achieved during the period of training is almost entirely due to the instruction they received, with a certain, small degree of out-of- class language or grammar input.
In the next section, all the pre- and post-tests are described along with their purpose, execution and content.
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11.5. The tests
The means for evaluating the effectiveness of the three instructional settings in this study involve four different tests with different aims. First, a Proficiency Test (cf. Appendix 4) was used to determine the overall knowledge of the English language, which was then correlated to the written pre-test in order to see whether an overall proficiency in a language may or may not be connected to their results on the written test with tense-aspect activities. Next, a spoken pre- and post-test (cf. Appendix 5) was used to test the students’ accurateness of the target tense- aspect combinations in their speech. Likewise, a written pre-and post-test (cf. Appendix 6) was used with the purpose of eliciting the students’ knowledge of the tense-aspect combinations targeted in this study. Finally, upon the completion of the training period of 15 weeks, the students of each group, LdL, Traditional and Five-Stage completed a WIHIC questionnaire (cf. Appendix 7) to test their preferences and attitudes towards specific practices in the three different teaching environments. This questionnaire was used because of its effectiveness and adaptability (cf. Chapter 9).
11.5.1. Language proficiency test
The Language proficiency test was organized in 3 parts: listening, reading and writing, with a maximum score of 34 points (cf. Appendix 4). The participants took the test before the beginning of the semester. The Language proficiency test itself was a composition of IELTS tests designed to last from 60-90 minutes, unlike the actual IELTS test which lasts several hours, time which I did not have at my disposal. The listening part involved an activity in which the students had to fill in the missing information while listening to a conversation between a student applying for a job and a career center manager. For the reading part, which was about education methodology, the students had to circle the correct answers found in the text itself and finally in the writing section, the participants had to produce paragraphs about job satisfaction factors in at least 100 words.
The students took this language proficiency test at the beginning of the semester before the classes started without prior notice of any examination. This means that they had no knowledge of what the test might contain or what they would be tested on, and no time for preparation.
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11.5.2. Spoken pre- and post-test
Since there are so many activities to choose from for eliciting tense-aspect forms, some of which might be more effective than others and since “there is no a "right" or "wrong" elicitation method for a given context“ [original emphasis] (Gass and Mackey, 2007:4), various activities were piloted48. Although it might be true that there is no ideal elicitation method, the pilot still helped to filter out which elicitation techniques were best for university students at SEEU. The selection of the elicitation activities relied on previous research that has determined that the type of the task has a great effect on the success of the elicitation (Dominguez et al., 2012). While some researchers recommend more controlled elicitation activities (Dominguez et al., 2012) like for instance: fill-in-the-blank tasks providing verbs (Rosi and Cancila, 2007), others found that open tasks and activities with a low degree of control to be better suited for the purpose of elicitation (Mosel, 2012). Tracy-Ventura and Dominguez (2009) recommended a variety of tasks for elicitation: descriptions, narratives, controlled and less controlled activities, and comprehension. Dominguez et al. (2012: 547) concluded in their study that only a “mixed methodology approach (i.e. combining production and comprehension data using elicitation tasks with varying experimental control)” provides the best results when testing tense-aspect. Hence, they used personal interview, semi-controlled impersonal narrative and a controlled storytelling task.
These three elicitation tasks, along with seven more, were used in a pilot project conducted at SEEU49. The pilot project tested nine activities in total, recommended or applied by previous research. The activities were tested on fifteen 3rd year students (L1 Macedonian and L1 Albanian) majoring in English Language and Literature at the South East European University, Macedonia. The tasks were the following: group interaction; spontaneous story generation; personal (impersonal) narrative; adverb stimuli; sentence stem completion; question/answer task; translation; picture description and a picture story task.
48Elicitation activities were piloted in my paper: “Acquisition and integration of tense forms into speech. Piloting and elicitation challenges”. Paper presented at the 5th Austrian Students' Conference of Linguistics, Österreichische Studierendenkonferenz der Linguistik-ÖSKL, Vienna, Austria. 11-12, Nov. 2012 49 Cf. Mirtoska 2012. “Acquisition and integration of tense forms into speech. Piloting and elicitation challenges”. Paper presented at the 5th Austrian Students' Conference of Linguistics, Österreichische Studierendenkonferenz der Linguistik-ÖSKL, Vienna, Austria. 11-12, Nov. 2012
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Spontaneous story among several participants, picture description and picture story were the least controlled tasks. For instance, in the spontaneous story activity, the students were prompted to say one sentence each for the sake of developing a spontaneous story, until the story was finished and coherent. In the picture description task, the participants were instructed to describe the activities in the pictures with only one instruction, namely to use before and after in their description. Finally, for the picture story task, a series of pictures were shown to the participants where actions were finished or in progress. The results of the pilot project48 showed that these three less controlled activities were less effective than the other 7 since they all elicited only Simple Past examples, and thus they were not included in the actual experiment of my research. The interaction activity, personal/impersonal narrative; adverb stimuli; sentence stem completion; question/answer task; and translation proved to be more productive in eliciting the target tense-aspect combinations, and hence these were used in the actual spoken pre- and post-test. (These tasks are outlined in this section, after the description of the spoken tests.)
For the oral part of the test, the students were interviewed with an attempt to engage them in a conversation and to remove their focus from tenses. Nevertheless, the interaction was aimed at eliciting conversation containing the particular target English tense forms. The activities in the spoken test were more conversation based, including tense form elicitation and sentence translation from Albanian to English.
Pre- and post-tests in the spoken form were taken before the beginning of the semester and at the end of the semester, respectively. These tests were carried out in private one-on-one sessions, out of their regular class time, for which they were given extra credit in the respective course that they were attending. The spoken test had a total of 50 points and consisted of the following activities (cf. Appendix 5):
personal narrative about an event in the past (the participant could choose to discuss any event, occasion or memory of the past and was prompted with questions in order to achieve the desired length of the narrative); interaction activity about an argumentative topic (the participant was offered several topics for discussion to choose from. The flow of the argumentation is ensured through questions that contain the desired tense-aspect form);
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adverb stimuli activity in which adverbs were presented and the participants had to make sentences with each one; sentence stem completion activity in which a certain sentence was started by the interviewer and the students had to complete it; question/answer session in which the participants were asked questions eliciting the target tense forms; translation activity in which the participants were presented a sentence in Albanian which contained the investigated tense-aspect combinations. These then, needed to be translated into English with no time for preparation or note taking.
The participants were instructed to answer in full sentences in order to avoid one word answers (Yes or No answers) which would not contain the desired information. The last activity was a translation activity from their mother tongue into English used to see if they had productive knowledge about tense-aspect combinations.
In terms of scores, the first activity had 10 points given to it, while the rest of the activities had 5 points each given if the tense form, adverb and tense and aspect combination was correct. The first exercise had more points since it was a freer activity. In this activity, the amount of the information and the number of sentences were balanced for all participants and were scored in terms of form, combination of tense, aspect and adverbs.
11.5.3. Written pre- and post-test
The written pre-test, like the spoken test, was taken by the participants before the beginning of the semester and the post-test was taken at the end of the summer semester. The students took this test in groups, outside of regular classroom time before the teaching in the respective course started. The activities in the first part of this test mirrored the ones in the spoken test, except for the personal narrative, while the second part of the written test had contextualized and decontextualized activities. The maximum points on the first part of this test were 50 and on the second part the participants could score 44 points (cf. Appendix 6). The written test included the following activities:
a paragraph writing activity about an argumentative topic; an adverb stimuli sentence construction activity;
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a sentence stem completion activity, where a sentence was started and the students had to complete it; a question/answer session in which the participants were asked to answer the questions in full sentences; a translation activity, where a sentence in Albanian needed to be translated into English; 3 contextualized and 3 decontextualized activities resembling activities the learners usually get in the Morphology course exams.
The first part of the written test consisted of the first five activities listed here which mirrored the activities in the spoken test. In this part of the test, the participants could score 30 points from the accurate verb form, the correct combination of tense and aspect, and the appropriate co-occurrence of tense forms and adverbs.
Since direct translation activities and decontextualized activities are common practice in traditional teaching environments, these were included in the pre- and post-test, both written and spoken. This assumption derived from the teaching practice of translation which is one of the sets of methods that the traditional instructional methods make use of. Hence the performance in these activities should be better for the group taught in the Traditional Method in comparison to the two other groups instructed in the Five-Stage Method and the LdL Method, which both lack the translation technique and do not only stick only to decontextualized activities.
The second part of the written test consisted of a set of additional contextualized and decontextualized activities aimed at discovering whether the type of the activity has an effect on the score of the three groups taught in three different methods, and it was anticipated that that this will be visible in the results of the group taught with the Five-Stage Method. The example sentences and entire activities for the contextualized and decontextualized test were taken from English grammar books which also supplied an answer key used for the grading of these activities (cf. Appendix 6). Specifically, while in some exercises the participants had to change the verb form and fill in the blanks of a paragraph, in other activities they had to do the same for sentences that were unrelated to each other.
In addition, in the written test the participants were assigned this type of exercise (contextualized and decontextualized activities) since these are the activities they need to take
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in the mid-term and final exam in the course of Morphology 1, which is the course in which tense forms are mainly dealt with. Another reason why contextualized and decontextualized exercises were included in the written part is because, according to Willis (2003), different reference rules apply in different contexts. He also points out that the learners’ performance is different depending on the contextualization of the activity. In addition, the contextualized activities will show whether the Five-Stage Method (which makes use of different contexts) will offer better results than the Traditional Method, which mainly offers decontextualized exercises.
Depending on whether the activity provides or lacks context, this will also enable the students to look for cues like adverbs in order to give the correct answer. Also, the different types of activities in the tests will enable the students to apply their knowledge in different contexts which will facilitate the consolidation of the tense forms and their use in spontaneous speech inside and outside the classroom. Some of the exercises concentrate on two tense-aspect combinations while others can be completed by using all tense forms at once.
What follows here is a description of the application of the perception questionnaire that was used in my experiment.
11.5.4. WIHIC questionnaire
The students filled out the questionnaire after the last class of the semester in which they had been taught tense-aspect combinations in three different methods respectively. Regarding the number of the students who took part in the questionnaire, it has to be said that not all of them had the chance to fill one out because of various reasons that the end of the semester brings with it. The exact number of students who took the questionnaire was 24 students taught in the LdL Method, 25 in the Traditional Method and 28 in the Five-Stage Method. This number was less than the actual number of the participants in the experiment (36 for each group) due to attendance.
11.5.5. The scoring of the tests of this study
This section describes the way the tests were scored and what criteria needed to be met in order for the answer in the different elicitation tasks to be considered appropriate.
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There are several factors that a sentence needs to satisfy in order for the given tense-aspect combination in that sentence to be used correctly. Among these factors (considered in this study) are the following elements: the form of the tense form, the appropriate aspect, the required verb form, the appropriate accompanying adverb and the proper time frame for the sentence.
The participants could score 34 points on the 3 parts of the proficiency test (listening, reading and writing). Using the answer key provided by the IELTS sample tests, the proficiency tests were graded and scored for all three groups. They were later correlated with the pre-test in order to find out whether there is a direct link between general language performance and tense- aspect performance (cf. section 12.2.2.)
The spoken pre- and post-tests were almost identical in task design and were tested and scored in the following way. First, the personal narrative, the interaction activity and question answer session were transcribed and analyzed for accuracy of the answers in terms of the target tense- aspect combinations that were meant to be elicited. For instance, if the topic for the interaction activity was: Men have always been trying to dominate women, then an attempt was made to elicit the desired tense-aspect forms by asking additional questions like: When have you started to notice that? For how long has this been going on? Have you ever done something to change this? to name a few. If the answer to the question contained the same tense-aspect form or an appropriate alternative, then that would mean that the participant would get a mark for that. However, if the answer to the question: Have you ever done something to change this? was: No, I do not do anything to change this, then this would mean that the participants would not get a point for using the elicited target tense form correctly. In addition, the participants would get a point if the answer to the question: For how long has this been going on? contained the Present Perfect instead of the Present Perfect Progressive.
The next three activities were more straightforward in terms of grading. The adverb stimuli activity, which offered an adverb to prime a tense form that goes with this adverb, was scored based on the co-occurrence of these adverbs with the tense-aspect combinations offered by the participants. The sentence completion task offered more information to achieve elicitation and priming effect. For instance, here some sentences would contain a subject, a verb form or even a part of a sentence which contained sequential information or even cause or result in order to
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trigger answers that would fit in this combination. Finally, the translation activity in the written test could be read by the students, who then had to write the answers down, while in the spoken test, the source text was read by the interviewer and the answers were recorded. These answers were transcribed and matched to the sentences that needed to be translated. For instance, if the Albanian sentences: Nuk e kam parë sot. Ndoshta do ta shoh nesër (cf. Appendix 5), were translated in the following way: I did not see her today. Maybe I will see her tomorrow, this would mean that the participant understood that the day is over and that there is no chance of seeing this person today. In opposition: Nuk e kam parë sot ende. Ndoshta do ta shoh më vonë, where the situation implies that there still is a chance of seeing this person therefore the translation needed to be similar to: I have not seen her today. Maybe I will see her later. The sentences that needed to be translated not only tested the tense-aspect form but also the implied meaning, cause and effect, and context dependent meaning.
The written pre- and post-tests were similar in design and content to the spoken test. Instead of a personal narrative in the written test there was a paragraph witting task which asked for cause and effect statements, and sentences that described past events, or actions that continued up to the moment of speaking and may or may not continue in the future. The grading of this task was based on the tense-aspect forms used in the topic and the instructions that the participants were given, and the instances of the target tenses that were used correctly. Once all paragraphs were evaluated, this gave me a clear picture of how the grading needed to be done, taking into consideration the best and the poorest paragraphs provided by the participants in this study. This means that the grading was repeated and unified to assure it was done according to the same criteria among all participants.
The task which followed was the adverb stimuli for which participants were provided with an adverb and needed to use the co-occurring tense-aspect combination with it. The grading of this task was done according to the likelihood of the combinability of the tense-aspect combination with the given adverb. This means that if the adverb can be paired with a particular tense-aspect combination, then the sentence would be marked as correct. The task after this one was a sentence completion task in which the subject, time expression or an auxiliary verb were provided in order to elicit the desired verb form. The grading of this task was even more straightforward since this task limited the number of answers that could be given. For instance, if a sentence began like this: I have never …………… this would mean that the answer had to
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contain a participle form of the verb since the auxiliary verb have and the adverb never have been provided.
As opposed to the spoken test, which had a question answer session, in the written test there was a question task that the learners had to complete by writing their answers down. Again, the way this task was graded depended on whether the same or a similar tense form was used in the answer. For instance, if the question was: Have you been taking private English courses … and the answers that were provided were: I have been taking … or I have taken …, then both answers would get points despite the different aspect used in the second answer. Finally, the last activity in the written test (which was the same as in the spoken test) was a translation task with Albanian equivalents of all the target tense forms investigated in my study. This activity was scored depending on whether the translated sentences contained the same tense-aspect combination.
Finally, the additional part that the written pre- and post-test consisted of was a combination of contextualized and decontextualized activities where the highest score was 44 points. This test was fairly easy to grade since the sources of the activities in the texts, these activities were taken from, came with an answer key. If the answer was the same as the one provided, this meant that they would get a point for the answer they provided.
The next chapter (cf. Chapter 12) illustrates the collected data of all the tests described in Chapter 11 along with the discussion of the results.
12. Analysis and discussion of results
This chapter presents, analyzes and discusses the results of the test carried out in the experimental section of the current study. The comparison of the results is organized in the following manner. First, the language proficiency test (cf. section 12.1.) for all three groups are compared in order to see if there is a significant difference among the groups, with the aim of finding out if one of the three groups had an initial advantage over the other groups. Next, the data from the written pre-test (cf. section 12.2.1.) collected from all groups is compared among the three groups in order to find out which group performed better, depending on the method it was taught in. Then, the language proficiency test is correlated to the results of the
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written pre-test (cf. section 12.2.2.) in order to determine whether the students’ overall language performance is linked to their knowledge of the English tense-aspect system.
In order to find out whether there was a significant among group difference in the written post- test, a paired T-test was used (cf. section 12.2.3). The same test was carried out to compare the results from the written pre- and the post-test (cf. section 12.2.4.) in order to find out if instruction improved the students’ knowledge of the tense forms and whether a particular teaching method contributed to this. After that, the results of the contextualized and decontextualized activities (cf. section 12.2.5.) were compared individually and in combination in order to find out if there was progress and if there were differences among the three groups.
The same comparisons (carried out for the written tests) were done with the spoken test (cf. section 12.3.). An ANOVA test of the spoken pre-test reveals whether one of the three groups had a better spoken command of the target tense-aspect forms. Then, the pre-test is compared among groups, followed by the same comparison for the post-test, and finally a pre- post-test comparison using a paired T-test. The spoken and spoken pre- and post-tests results are illustrated in tables and scatter diagram graphs (cf. Section 12.3.).
Finally, the data of the WIHIC questionnaire (cf. section 12.4.) is evaluated in order to investigate specific differences in the perceptions of the students who were taught in three different methods. This was done in ANOVA with a Tukey test (due to the uneven number of participants), followed by a frequency analysis of each item in the questionnaire for more transparent results. The statistical significance of each WIHIC survey scale is illustrated for each group, in order to see the difference in their perceptions of the different classroom environments. Here, the attitudes of the students toward the teaching method will not only show which method was preferred, but also whether their attitudes could have influenced their test outcomes as a result of their positive or negative attitude toward the teaching method.
12.1. Language proficiency test
The English language proficiency test (as already described in section 11.5.1.) is an adapted version of different IELTS tests including three skills (listening, reading and writing). The results of the proficiency test were analyzed in two ways. First, a one-way ANOVA was used to determine between-group differences and second, the language proficiency test scores were
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compared to the total score of the written pre-test for each group using a bivariate regression test, in order to determine correlation between the pre-test scores and the language proficiency test results. This correlation would indicate if their proficiency in tense-aspect combinations corresponds to their overall proficiency of the English language.
The comparison of the results of the proficiency test among groups was carried out in SPSS with a one-way ANOVA test in order to see whether there is significant difference between the groups in terms of their English proficiency. The one way analysis of variance showed that there is a statistically significant difference among the groups in the language proficiency test. The means and standard deviation, illustrated in Table 12-1, give the initial results and show that the mean differs considerably for certain groups.
Table 12-1: Comparison of the mean and standard deviation of all three methods50
N Mean Std. Deviation Traditional 36 22.08 3.981 LdL 36 18.75 4.205 Five-Stage 36 20.56 4.772 Total 108 20.46 4.504
As can be seen in Table 12-1, the Traditional group produced the highest mean of 22.08, followed by a lower mean of 20.56 for the Five-Stage group. The lowest mean was produced by the LdL group which was 18.75. This ranking of the results of the proficiency test are as follows: Traditional > Five-Stage > LdL.
Table 12-1, furthermore, illustrates that the means of the Traditional group and the LdL group differ considerably. Whether this difference is statistically significant is illustrated in Table 12- 2:
50 This table was published in proceedings of IAC-TLEI 2016 in Budapest. Publisher: Czech Institute of Academic Education z.s. 2016.1st edition.117-131. ISBN 978-80-906231-3-2; (cf. Mirtoska, 2016).
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Table 12-2: Means and statistical significance for the proficiency test among the three groups *The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level50
(I) group (J) group Mean Difference (I-J) Sig. Traditional -3.333* .004* LdL Five-Stage -1.806 .185 LdL 3.333* .004* Traditional Five-Stage 1.528 .297 LdL 1.806 .185 Five-Stage Traditional -1.528 .297
Table 12-2 reveals that there is in fact statistically significant difference between the traditional and the LdL group since p<.004 (which is smaller than the alpha level for significance p<.05), whereas there is no statistical significance between the LdL and the Five-Stage group, nor between the Five-Stage group when compared to the Traditional group when the alpha level is taken into consideration. This means that the language proficiency of the participants in the Traditional group is significantly better only than the one of the LdL group.
The mean plot of the proficiency test scores among the three groups can be seen graphically in Figure 12-1, where the lines clearly indicate the proficiency level of the groups and where it becomes apparent that the Traditional group scored much higher than the LdL group and also somewhat higher than the Five-Stage group.
Figure 12-1: Mean plot of the proficiency test scores among the three groups51
51 This figure was published in proceedings of IAC-TLEI 2016 in Budapest. Publisher: Czech Institute of Academic Education z.s. 2016.1st edition.117-131. ISBN 978-80-906231-3-2; (cf. Mirtoska 2016).
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It follows that since the Traditional group and the LdL group display significant difference in the results of the proficiency test, namely, an alpha level of p<.004, this would mean that the Traditional group outperformed the LdL group (as can be seen in Figure 12-1). Hence, it would be of significance to find out whether the fact that the Traditional group performed better in the proficiency test would mean that the Traditional group would perform better in the pre- and post-tests focusing on tense-aspect combinations (cf. section 12.2.4.).
12.2. Written pre- and post-test
12.2.1. The written pre-test for all three groups
The difference in the written pre-test among the three groups was analyzed by using a one-way ANOVA. This is illustrated in Table 12-3, which shows that the means of the LdL and the Five-Stage group are very close while the one of the Traditional group is higher than the means of the other two groups.
Table 12-3: Means and standard deviation differences in the written pre-test among the three groups50
N Mean Std. Deviation LdL 36 31.25 5.803 Traditional 36 35.00 4.635 Five-Stage 36 31.47 5.824 Total 108 32.57 5.667
Whether these differences illustrated in Table 12-3 are noteworthy and whether there is statistical significance in the alterations is illustrated in Table 12-4.
Table 12-4: Among group differences in the written pre-test50 *The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level. (I) group (J) group Mean Difference (I-J) Sig. Traditional -3.750* .012* LdL Five-Stage -.222 .984 LdL 3.750* .012* Traditional Five-Stage 3.528* .019* LdL .222 .984 Five-Stage Traditional -3.528* .019*
As can be seen in Table 12-4, there are statistically significant differences between some of the groups, meaning that the performance of these groups in the written pre-test significantly
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differs at this point. Table 12-4 signposts that the Traditional group has the highest means difference of 3.750, when compared with the scores of the LdL group, with a significance of p<.012. The significance p<.019 and mean difference 3.528 for the traditional compared to Five-Stage is also significant since the Traditional group outperformed this group as well.
The mean plot shows that the Traditional group differs a great deal from the Five-Stage group and the LdL group, which is graphically illustrated in Figure 12-2.
Figure 12-2: Mean plot for all three groups for the written pre-test51
This Figure (12-2), like the previous tables (cf. Tables 12-3 and 12-4), also indicates that this difference in the written pre-test for the Traditional group is significant.
Here it needs to be mentioned that the Traditional group showed significantly better results in the proficiency test in comparison with the LdL group, namely, a mean of 22.08 over the 18.75 mean of the LdL group (cf. section 12.1.). The same trend can be observed in the written pre- test, in which there is a significant difference between the scores of the Traditional group when compared to the LdL group and the Five-Stage group.
Since the Traditional group outperformed the LdL group and the Five-Stage group in the written pre-test and had the best results in the proficiency test, it would be expected that this group would show the best results in the post-test as well.
Before the written post-test for all three groups is introduced (cf. section 12.2.3.), the results of the written pre-test are compared to the proficiency test (cf. section 12.2.2.).
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12.2.2. Correlation of the Language proficiency test and the written pre-test results
12.2.2.1. Correlation of the Language proficiency test and the written pre-test for the LdL group
A bivariate correlation test was used to find out whether the written pre-test scores draw a parallel with the language proficiency test scores. The regression (r) test shows that the bivariate correlation between the two variables written pre-test (M=56.58, SD=9.075) and English language proficiency test (M=18.75, SD=4.205) for the LdL group is r=.612, with a significance level of p<.001. The results show that the correlation of the written pre-test against the proficiency test is positive and statistically significant. Furthermore, the coefficient of determination r²=.374 shows that the amount of variability of the written pre-test results and the proficiency test is 37%.
The observation that can be made here is that the written pre-test results do go hand in hand with the proficiency test results, which show that the performance on one test can be correlated with the performance on the other test. In other words, this group’s performance is constant in both tests, which again shows that the results of the written pre-test correspond to the participants’ overall knowledge of English (tested with the proficiency test).
This is also illustrated with a scatter diagram graph with a regression line which represents the average positioning of the points in Figure 12-3. The written pre-test scores against the proficiency test scores produce a positive slope moving upwards as illustrated in Figure 12-3.
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Figure 12-3: Written pre-test against language proficiency test for LdL
The horizontal axis in the figure represents the scores of the written pre-test of the LdL group, while the vertical one shows the scores of the proficiency test of this group. As can be seen in this scatter diagram graph, there is more association for the LdL group than in the figures of the other two groups (cf. Figures 12-4 and 12-5). According to Figure 12-3, since the line of correlation is upward, this means that high scores of the proficiency test correlate with the high scores of the written pre-test. In other words, the students’ high scores on the written pre-test are associated with the ones on the proficiency test. It follows that the participants who scored high on the proficiency test also scored highly on the written pre-test.
12.2.2.2. Correlation of the Language proficiency test and the written pre-test for the Traditional group
For the Traditional group, a bivariate correlation test was also used to find out whether the written pre-test scores correlate with language proficiency test scores. The results indicate that the bivariate correlation between the two continuous variables, namely, on one side the written pre-test as a summed result (M=62.69, SD=8.831) and on the other hand, the English language proficiency test (M=22.08, SD=3.981) for the Traditional group, are the following: r=.470, p<.004. The results indicate that the correlation of the written pre-test against the language test is positive and statistically significant (since p is smaller than .05). Moreover, the coefficient
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of determination for the correlation of the results of the Traditional group is r²=.221, indicating that the variability of the written pre-test scores and the English proficiency test for this group is circa 22%. A scatter diagram graph, with a regression line representing the average positioning of the points, is used to illustrate the correlation graphically below.
Figure 12-4: Written pre-test against language proficiency for the Traditional group
Figure 12-4 shows that the scores of the written pre-test for the Traditional group in comparison to the proficiency test scores produce a positive slope moving upwards. The same analysis and illustrations are done for the Five-Stage group in the next section.
12.2.2.3. Correlation of the Language proficiency test and the written pre-test for the Five-Stage group
In order to investigate whether the written pre-test scores correlate with language proficiency test scores for the Five-Stage group a bivariate correlation test was used again. The findings show that the bivariate correlation between the written pre-test (M=57.56, SD=8.974) and English language proficiency test (M=20.56, SD=4.772) for the Five-Stage group is r=.335, p<.082. The outcome in the correlation for the Five-Stage group also shows that the correlation of the written pre-test against the language test is positive, although not statistically significant, since p<.082 (and in order for the correlation to be significant the p value needs to be smaller than .05). In addition, the coefficient of determination r² is .086, which means that the amount of variability of the written pre-test results and the proficiency test is 9%.
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The low correlation coefficient and the insignificant alpha level show that there is no significant correlation between the students’ performance on the written pre-test and the English proficiency test for this group, which means that their overall language competence is not consistent with their tense-aspect knowledge. A scatter diagram graph with a regression line Figure 12-5 shows the correlation between the written pre-test scores and the proficiency test scores for the Five-Stage group.
Figure 12-5: Written pre-test against language proficiency for the Five-Stage group
The outcome was a positive slope moving upwards (cf. Figure 12-5), however less steep than the LdL and the traditional regression line (cf. Figures 12-3 and 12-4). The fact that the Five- Stage group’s correlation is lower than the Traditional group or the LdL group means that the results for this group (Five-Stage group) were not as relatable as they were for the other two groups (Traditional group or the LdL group). This means that the Five-Stage group, which had the second best performance on the proficiency test, performed worse on this test (proficiency test) in comparison with the written pre-test.
12.2.3. The written post-test for all three groups
In order to find out if there is a difference in the test scores of the three groups in the written post-test, one way ANOVA was used once more. Table 12-5 shows that the differences between the means for all three groups are marginal and therefore not significant.
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Table 12-5: Means and standard deviation differences in the written post-test among the three groups50
N Mean Std. Deviation LdL 36 40.33 4.963 Traditional 36 42.22 3.979 Five-Stage 36 39.78 4.986 Total 108 40.78 4.741
If we compare each of the three groups with each of the other two groups from Table 12-5, we see that none of these individual differences reaches statistical significance since the alpha level for significance is not lower than .05 (cf. Table 12-6).
Table 12-6: Among group differences in the written post-test50
(I) group (J) group Mean Difference (I-J) Sig. Traditional -1.889 .204 LdL Five-Stage .556 .869 LdL 1.889 .204 Traditional Five-Stage 2.444 .072 LdL -.556 .869 Five-Stage Traditional -2.444 .072
Figure 12-6 illustrates that the Traditional group performed better in the post-test when their results are compared to the post-test of the Five-Stage and the LdL group but without significance.
Figure 12-6: Mean plot for all three groups for the written post-test 51
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Figure 12-6 also shows that the LdL group also outperformed the Five-Stage group but not with statistical significance.
12.2.4. Written pre- and post-test progress for all three groups
A paired-samples T-test was used to investigate whether the LdL, Five-Stage and Traditional group demonstrated improvement during the treatment period of one semester. The comparison of the results from the pre-test to the results of the post-test for the written part of the experiment is illustrated for each group in the following lines.
LdL group
Table 12-7 illustrates the comparison of the pre-and post-test results and it clearly show that the LdL Method had an effect on the participants instructed in this way. The outcome shows that the students performed better in the post-test (M=40.33, SD=4.963) than in the pre-test (M=31.25, SD=5.803).
Table 12-7: Written pre- and post-test results for the LdL group50
Mean N Std. Deviation LdL written pre-test 31.25 36 5.803 Pair 1 LdL written post-test 40.33 36 4.963
The exact mean difference before and after the treatment is 9.083 which means that there is great improvement (cf. Table 12-7). Whether these mean differences are significant is illustrated in Table 12-8.
50 Table 12-8: Paired difference results between the written pre- and post-test for the LdL group *The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.
Paired Differences t df Sig. Mean Std. Deviation 95% CI of the Difference -9.083 4.759 -10.694 -7.473 -11.452 35 .000*
Table 12-8 indicates that the performance in the pre-test significantly improved in the post-test for the LdL group, which means that the LdL Method has a positive effect on learning. The same comparisons were done for the Traditional group and are illustrated in the following lines.
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Traditional group
The scores of the pre-test and the post-test for the written part of the experiment show that the students exposed to the Traditional Method also did better in the post-test (M=42.22, SD=3.979) than in the pre-test (M=35.00, SD=4.635) (cf. Table 12-9):
Table 12-9: Written pre- and post-test results for the Traditional group50
Mean N Std. Deviation Traditional written pre-test 35.00 36 4.635 Pair 2 Traditional written post-test 42.22 36 3.979
That is to say the difference in the means is -7.222 indicating that the Traditional group has improved by 7.222 points on average. The significance of this improvement is illustrated in Table 12-10.
Table 12-10: Paired difference results between the written pre- and post-test for the Traditional group50 *The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.
Paired Differences t df Sig. Mean Std. Deviation 95% CI of the Difference -7.222 3.958 -8.561 -5.883 -10.949 35 .000*
The statistical significance of this enhancement is specified by the p value which is lower than .001 which is also highly significant in statistical terms (cf. Table 12-10). Whether this is the same for the Five-Stage group will be revealed below.
Five-Stage group
What is apparent in Table 12-11 is that the post-test (M=39.78, SD=34.986) has a higher mean than in the pre-test (M=31.47, SD=5.824) for the Five-Stage group.
Table 12-11: Written pre- and post-test results for the Five-Stage group50 Mean N Std. Deviation Five-Stage written pre-test 31.47 36 5.824 Pair 3 Five-Stage written post-test 39.78 36 4.986
In fact, the paired mean for this group’s pre- and post-test scores is -8.306, and Table 12-12 shows that this improvement is indeed statistically significant, since is p<.001.
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Table 12-12: Paired difference results between the written pre- and post-test for the Five-Stage group50 *The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.
Paired Differences t df Sig. Mean Std. Deviation 95% CI of the Difference -8.306 3.816 -9.597 -7.014 -13.059 35 .000*
Tables 12-11 and 12-12 show that there is significant improvement in the performance of the Five-Stage group as well achieved during the training period of 15 weeks.
Since all three groups (Traditional, LdL and Five-Stage) improved significantly, the comparison of their means will show which group was better. That is to say, the pre- and post- test scores of the Five-Stage group in the written test is -8.306, which is lower that the paired mean of the LdL group -9.083, but higher than the paired mean of the Traditional group of - 7.222. In other words, the Five-Stage group improved significantly, and more than the Traditional group. However, the LdL group’s results indicate that this group outperformed the other two groups, since that group made the most progress between the pre-test and the post- test.
What follows here is further analyses of the written test, namely the contextualized and decontextualized part.
12.2.5. Comparison of contextualized and decontextualized activities
Since it was previously stated that the participants might perform differently in tasks that have or lack context, depending on the instructional setting they were involved in during the training period, in this section their performance in these two different types of activities is analyzed. The written test consisted of a part that was very similar to the spoken test but it also contained a separate part that was designed to test the participants’ performance in contextualized and decontextualized activities in order to investigate if the teaching method has an effect on their scores in these activities.
The analysis was carried out in two ways. First, the contextualized and decontextualized scores from the pre-test and the post-test are addressed separately in order to find out whether one of the three groups performed better in either type of these activities, and secondly, the total points of the contextualized and decontextualized activities from the pre-test and the post-test were compared for all three groups in order to see which group performed better. This was done in
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order to discover whether the students’ performance was affected by the type of the exercise and whether they performed better in tense-aspect activities in the form of separate unrelated sentences (decontextualized) or in activities in the form of a text (contextualized).
12.2.5.1. Contextualized activities pre- and post-test progress for all three groups
In order to find out whether any of the methods used for teaching tense-aspect had an effect on the progress of the three groups regarding specific types of activities, a paired T-test was carried out targeting the scores of the contextualized activities.
The pre- and post-test means for the contextualized activities in the written test are illustrated in Table 12-13. This table shows that the LdL group produced a mean of 10.06 in the pre-test for the contextualized activities, while in the post-test the mean increased and it was 10.83. Next, the Traditional group’s mean in the first test was 11.69 and in the second test 12.81. The Five-Stage group produced a mean of 10.67 in the pre-test for contextualized activities while the score in the post-test was higher since the mean was 11.97.
Table 12-13: Means and Standard Deviation between written pre- and post-test contextualized exercises among the three groups
Mean Mean Difference N Std. Deviation Pair LdL pre-test 10.06 36 3.505 +0.77 1 LdL post-test 10.83 36 2.833 Pair Traditional pre-test 11.69 36 3.853 +1.12 2 Traditional post-test 12.81 36 3.495 Pair Five-Stage pre-test 10.67 36 4.064 +1.3 3 Five-Stage post-test 11.97 36 3.939
Table 12-13 shows that there is improvement between the pre- and post-test for all three groups; however, whether this progress is significant for the three groups is shown in Table 12-14.
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Table 12-14: Paired difference results of contextualized activities between the written pre- and post-test *The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level. Paired Differences Mean Std. 95% CI of the t df Sig. Deviation Difference Lower Upper LdL pre-test -.778 2.126 -1.497 -.058 -2.195 35 .035* Pair 1 LdL post-test Traditional pre-test -1.111 2.505 -1.959 -.264 -2.662 35 .012* Pair 2 Traditional post-test Five-Stage pre-test -1.306 2.638 -2.198 -.413 -2.969 35 .005* Pair 3 Five-Stage post-test
Table 12-14 representing the paired differences shows the progress all three groups made during the training period of one term, and the statistical significance of these results. It can be seen that the Five-Stage group produced a paired difference mean of -1.306, the Traditional group a mean of -1.111 and the LdL group produced a mean of -0.778, which is the smallest difference and therefore this group made the least progress when compared to the two other groups in the analysis of contextualized activity scores. Regarding the p values in the same table, it can be seen that all differences are significant but that the significance is higher for some groups compared to others in the following order: Five-Stage > Traditional > LdL (with p values of .005<.012<.035, respectively).
This means that the Five-Stage group did best in the contextualized exercises when comparing the pre-test to the post-test. In other words, the Five-Stage teaching method has most influence on the results in the written test and can therefore be considered as the best of the three methods for teaching tense-aspect in contextualized types of activities. On the other hand, the lower statistical significance of the traditional and the LdL group is to be expected, since they have been taught the English tense-aspect system in a decontextualized manner rather than contextualized.
12.2.5.2. Decontextualized activities pre- and post-test progress for all three groups
A paired samples T-test was used for the analysis of the scores of the decontextualized activities with the aim of finding out whether there was significant improvement achieved during the treatment period and whether any of the methods had an effect on this progress. In this analysis,
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the pre- and post-test means for the decontextualized exercises of the written test were compared for all groups and are displayed in Table 12-15.
Table 12-15: Means and standard deviation between written pre- and post-test decontextualized exercises among the three groups
Mean Mean Difference N Std. Deviation LdL pre-test 15.28 36 1.406 Pair 1 +0.500 LdL post-test 15.78 36 1.838 Traditional pre-test 16.00 36 1.195 Pair 2 +0.389 Traditional post-test 16.39 36 1.420 Pair 3 Five-Stage pre-test 15.42 36 1.645 +0.583 Five-Stage post-test 16.00 36 1.434
The LdL group produced a mean of 15.28 for the decontextualized activities in the pre-test which somewhat increased in the post-test to 15.78. The pre-test mean of the Traditional group, which was 16.00, also increased only slightly as was 16.39. The third group, the Five-Stage group, produced a mean of 15.42 while in the post-test the mean was 16.00. The Five-Stage group produced a paired difference mean of .583, the LdL group produced a mean of .500 and the Traditional group a mean of .389. This means that the group which made the least progress with decontextualized written activities was the Traditional group.
The p value in Table 12-16 shows if the progress is significant and whether there are differences between the groups taught using the different methods.
Table 12-16: Paired difference results of decontextualized activities between the written pre- and post-test *The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level. Paired Differences Mean Std. 95% CI of the t df Sig. Deviation Difference Lower Upper LdL pre-test -.500 1.521 -1.015 .015 -1.972 35 .057 Pair 1 LdL post-test Traditional pre-test -.389 1.498 -.896 .118 -1.557 35 .128 Pair 2 Traditional post-test Five-Stage pre-test. -.583 1.204 -.991 -.176 -2.907 35 .006* Pair 3 Five-Stage post-test
There is solid evidence for the progress of the Five-Stage group where the significance is p<.006, marginal significance for the LdL group which is below the alpha level with a p<.057, and no significance for the Traditional group since p<.128 (cf. Table 12-16). This means that
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the Five-Stage Method has most effect on the acquisition of the tense forms in the written test concerning the decontextualized activities. The results here are surprising and unexpected for the Traditional group, since this group was taught tense and aspect using methods which mainly focus on decontextualized activities (at the educational institution where they were tested and at prior institutions).
All in all, though all groups made progress on the decontextualized activities, this difference in performance over the pre-test was statistically significant for some, and insignificant for others. More specifically, the order of significance is the following: Five-Stage > LdL > Traditional, since the p values are .006<.057<.128, respectively. What was unexpected here is that the Traditional group, which was mainly instructed using decontextualized activities, has not made significant progress during the training program. However, that this group had an advantage from the start needs to be taken into account, and it can be assumed that that group could have reached its learning curve, hence, no statistical significance.
12.2.5.3. Contextualized and decontextualized activities pre- and post-test progress for all three groups
For the analysis of the combined scores of the contextualized and decontextualized activities once again a paired samples T-test was used to determine whether there was significant improvement when the scores are computed together. The pre- and post-test means for both types of exercises on the written part were compared for all groups. These pre- and post-test results are represented in Table 12-17, which shows that LdL group produced a mean of 25.33 for both activities together in the pre-test, which then increased in the post-test to 26.61. The Traditional group with a mean of 27.69 showed progress as well, namely with a post-test mean of 29.19. The Five-Stage group produced a mean of 26.08 in the first test while in the post-test the mean was 27.97.
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Table 12-17: Means and standard deviation between the written pre- and post-test contextualized and decontextualized exercises among the three groups
Mean Mean Difference N Std. Deviation LdL pre-test 25.33 36 4.021 Pair 1 +1.28 LdL post-test 26.61 36 4.087 Traditional pre-test 27.69 36 4.534 Pair 2 +1.5 Traditional post-test 29.19 36 4.282 Five-Stage pre-test 26.08 36 4.953 Pair 3 +1.89 Five-Stage post-test 27.97 36 4.861
Table 12-17 shows that there is improvement for all groups and that there is statistical significance for all three groups, as becomes evident in Table 12-18.
The Traditional group with a mean of 27.69 was better than the Five-Stage group with a mean of 26.08 and both groups had a higher mean that the LdL group, with a mean of 25.33, which was the case in the pre-test for contextualized and decontextualized activities. In the post test some of the results do not change, namely, the Traditional group still had the highest mean of 29.19, then the Five-Stage group, which had a mean of 27.97, followed by the LdL group with a mean of 26.61. This indicates that all three groups became better in contextualized and decontextualized activities during the training period.
In Table 12-18 it can be noticed that the Five-Stage group still stands out from the others since it produced a mean difference of -1.889 which indicates significant improvement.
Table 12-18: Paired difference results of both contextualized and decontextualized activities between the written pre- and post-test *The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level. Paired Differences Mean Std. 95% CI of the t df Sig. Deviation Difference Lower Upper LdL pre-test -1.278 2.288 -2.052 -.504 -3.351 35 .002* Pair 1 LdL post-test Traditional pre-test -1.500 2.741 -2.427 -.573 -3.283 35 .002* Pair 2 Traditional post-test Five-Stage pre-test -1.889 2.955 -2.889 -.889 -3.836 35 .001* Pair 3 Five-Stage post-test
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The table also shows that the other two groups have also significantly improved; the LdL group improved by -1.278 with a p value of p<.002, with the same p value the Traditional group had a paired differences mean of -1.500.
The comparison of the combined scores of the contextualized and decontextualized activities for all three groups indicates that there is significant improvement between the first and the second time of testing. A conclusion that can be drawn from the three comparisons of the contextualized, decontextualized and the combined scores is that the Five-Stage group showed better results. This means that the Five-Stage Method proposed by Willis (2003) does have an effect on the learning of grammatical language units, in this case tense and aspect forms, and this effect is greater than the effect of the other two methods used in this study (the LdL and the Traditional Method).
It is apparent here that there is statistically significant improvement between the pre- and post- test when both contextualized and decontextualized activities’ scores are compared for all groups. The order according to means is the following, with similar significance levels: Five- Stage > Traditional > LdL, with these significance levels: p<.001<.002<.002. However, the significance, just like in the decontextualized and contextualized activities comparison, is highest for the Five-Stage group.
12.3. Spoken pre- and post-test
The results of the spoken pre- and the spoken post-test are compared in this section (as one of the ways of measuring internalization of tense forms into speech). If the progress is statistically significant for a particular group that would mean that the teaching method has contributed to the internalization of the tense forms into speech. Nonetheless, if all groups have significantly improved during the training period, then that would mean that all of them have internalized the tense forms into speech and that any form of instruction contributed to this success.
As a control factor, during the spoken pre- and post-test the participants were unaware of the fact that tense-aspect forms were being elicited or tested, since they were told that this was simply the spoken part of the proficiency test. This was done to elicit tense forms in speech that the learners felt the need to use on their own without being stimulated or triggered to do so.
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12.3.1. The spoken pre-test for all three groups
This section illustrates the differences between the spoken pre-test among the three groups instructed in different methods by using a one way ANOVA. The results showed that the means were different for all three groups, which can be seen in Table 12-19.
Table 12-19: Means and standard deviation differences in the spoken pre-test among the three groups
N Mean Std. Deviation LdL 36 30.72 4.482 Traditional 36 30.89 4.471 Five-Stage 36 31.72 4.495 Total 108 31.11 4.462
Whether the higher mean of the Five-Stage group of 31.72 is statistically different from the means of the other two groups (Traditional and LdL; cf. Table 12-19) is illustrated in Table 12- 20.
Table 12-20: Among group differences in the spoken pre-test
(I) group (J) group Mean Difference (I-J) Sig. LdL Traditional -.167 .986 Five-Stage -1.000 .612 Traditional LdL .167 .986 Five-Stage -.833 .711 Five-Stage LdL 1.000 .612 Traditional .833 .711
The statistical significance of the difference in the means in the spoken pre-test among all three groups is displayed in Table 12-20 and indicates that there is no statistical difference between any of the groups involved in the training.
Even though the mean plot shows that the LdL group differs most from the Five-Stage group, which has the highest score (cf. Figure 12-7), this difference is not statistically significant.
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Figure 12-7: Mean plot for all three groups for the spoken pre-test
Figure 12-7 shows that the Five-Stage group is slightly better than the other two groups in the spoken pre-test. What remains to be seen is whether the Five-Stage Method will help this group to achieve significantly higher results than the other two groups in the post-test and whether it will be significantly better than this group’s spoken pre-test.
12.3.2. The spoken post-test for all three groups
In order to see whether one of the three groups was better than the other in the spoken post- test, a one way ANOVA was used again. This section shows whether there is a difference among the three groups in the spoken post-test by illustrating the difference in the means for all three groups in Table 12-21.
Table 12-21: Means and standard deviation differences in the spoken post-test among the three groups
N Mean Std. Deviation LdL 36 36.25 3.358 Traditional 36 38.92 3.298 Five-Stage 36 38.22 3.788 Total 108 37.80 3.637
Table 12-21 shows that the Traditional group was better than the two other groups with a mean of 38.92, followed by the Five-Stage group with a slightly lower mean of 38.22 and lastly, with the lowest mean of 36.25 was the LdL group. Whether these results indicate difference in
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performance at a level of statistical significance for two of the groups is elaborated in Table 12-22.
Table 12-22: Among group differences in the spoken post-test *The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level. (I) group (J) group Mean Difference (I-J) Sig. Traditional -2.667* .004* LdL Five-Stage -1.972* .047* LdL 2.667* .004* Traditional Five-Stage .694 .676 LdL 1.972* .047* Five-Stage Traditional -.694 .676
Table 12-22 shows that there is significant difference the Traditional group and the Five-Stage group, where the p value is smaller than .05 namely, p<.004. In addition, there is marginal statistical significance where p<.047 between the LdL and Five-Stage group. The order in terms of statistical significance the order is as follows: Traditional > Five-Stage > LdL.
Statistical significance is illustrated graphically in Figure 12-8 below, which shows the mean plot for the three groups in the post-test phase for the spoken part.
Figure 12-8: Mean plot for all three groups for the spoken post-test
The mean plot Figure 12-8 indicates that the Traditional group has the highest score, which is significantly higher than the one of the LdL group. Also the Five-Stage group scores are
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significantly higher than the ones of the LdL group. Finally, there is no statistically significant difference between the Traditional group and the Five-Stage group. While in the comparison of the results in the spoken pre-test there was no significant difference between the results of all three groups, the spoken post-test shows that the traditional and the Five-Stage group outperformed the LdL group significantly.
This would mean that the integration of tense forms has taken place for the most part for the Traditional group and the Five-Stage group due to their statistically significant improvement, unlike in the LdL group.
The Five-Stage group had the highest results in the spoken pre-test, but had no significant difference over the other two groups. On the other hand, in the post-test, the Five-Stage group significantly outperformed the LdL group, which indicates that this group’s integration of the tense forms into speech has improved since the beginning of the training.
However, what is unexpected is the considerable improvement of the Traditional group, which was taught in a method that fosters neither communication nor integration of tense forms into speech, since it does not have activities especially designed for this purpose. This group’s scores in the spoken pre-test were lower than those of the Five-Stage group, as opposed to the post-test where the scores of the Traditional group are better than those of the Five-Stage group (though with no statistical significance). In addition, the Traditional group has a better score than the LdL group in the pre-test (with no statistical significance), and a statistically better score in the spoken post-test. What is astonishing and unanticipated, due to the nature of the teaching method, is that the Traditional group, which performed slightly worse than the Five- Stage group in the spoken pre-test, has now performed slightly better than the Five-Stage group and significantly better than the LdL group.
The results also indicate that the Five-Stage group, which was slightly better in the pre-test, has become significantly better than the LdL in the spoken post-test. What can be added here is that the performance of the Five-Stage group in the post-test was to be expected due to the nature of the teaching method which has speech integration stages and advantages in this respect over the LdL group. Nonetheless, the fact that the Traditional group has the highest score in the spoken post-test contradicts the assumption that the method aimed at integration would perform best. What follows is the comparison of the pre- and post-test for each group.
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12.3.3. Spoken pre- and post-test progress for all three groups
A paired-samples T-test was used to determine whether the LdL group, the Five-Stage group and the Traditional group improved during the training period of one semester in the spoken test. The tables that illustrate this, as well as the discussion that follows below, are organized by groups.
LdL group
The pre-test results were compared to the post-test results for the spoken part of the experiment for the LdL group in order to find out how significant these differences are. Table 12-23 indicates that the students trained in the LdL Method performed better in the post-test (M=36.25, SD=3.3.58) than in the pre-test (M=30.72, SD=4.482).
Table 12-23: Spoken pre- and post-test results for the LdL group
Mean N Std. Deviation Pair 1 LdL spoken pre-test 30.72 36 4.482 LdL spoken post-test 36.25 36 3.358
The paired differences mean shows that the improvement of the LdL group between the period of the pre-test and the post-test produces a mean of -5.528, which means that there is quite some improvement. The significance of this improvement is illustrated in Table 12-24.
Table 12-24: Paired difference results between spoken pre- and post-test for the LdL group *The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level. Paired Differences t df Sig. Mean Std. Deviation 95% CI of the Difference -5.528 2.913 -6.513 -4.542 -11.386 35 .000*
Table 12-24 shows that this improvement is significant statistically, since the p value is p<.001, which clearly shows that the LdL group improved a great deal during the training period.
Traditional group
The comparison of the results for the Traditional group for the spoken pre- and post-test are illustrated in Table 1-25.
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Table 12-25: Spoken pre- and post-test results for the Traditional group
Mean N Std. Deviation Pair 2 Traditional spoken pre-test 30.89 36 4.471 Traditional spoken post-test 38.92 36 3.298
Table 1-25 shows that the students trained in the Traditional Method performed better in the post-test (M=38.92, SD=4.471) than in the pre-test (M=30.89, SD=3.298). The progress of the Traditional group between the pre-test and the post-test is indicated with a mean of -8.028, meaning that the improvement is greater than that of the LdL-group which was -5.528. The statistical significance of this improvement is indicated by the p value in Table 12-26:
Table 12-26: Paired difference results between the spoken pre- and post-test for the Traditional group *The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.
Paired Differences t df Sig. Mean Std. Deviation 95% CI of the Difference -8.028 2.863 -8.997 -7.059 -16.821 35 .000*
Table 12-26 shows that the p value is <.001 indicating that the improvement of the Traditional group is also significant.
Five-Stage group
The spoken pre- and post-test for the Five-Stage group are illustrated in Table 12-27. This table shows the means and the standard deviation of the progress that the Five-Stage group made.
Table 12-27: Spoken pre- and post-test results for the Five-Stage group
Mean N Std. Deviation Pair 3 Five-Stage spoken pre-test 31.72 36 4.495 Five-Stage spoken post-test 38.22 36 3.788
The post-test (M=38.22, SD=3.788) shows a much higher score than in the pre-test (M=31.72, SD=4.495). Statistical significance of the progress is confirmed in Table 12-28.
Table 12-28: Paired difference results between the spoken pre- and post-test for the Five-Stage group *The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.
Paired Differences t df Sig. Mean Std. Deviation 95% CI of the Difference -6.500 3.676 -7.744 -5.256 -10.609 35 .000*
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Table 12-28 indicates that this group too made a significant improvement during the training period with a significance level of p<.001.
What the previous analyses show is that all groups considerably improved during the training period. Their pre-test results of the spoken test differ from the results of the spoken post-test significantly, which indicates that the instruction made a considerable difference in the outcome of the tests.
12.4. WIHIC questionnaire results
The perceptions questionnaire was analyzed in two ways. The first part of the analysis involves an ANOVA test (cf. section 12.4.1.) and the second part involves an analysis of frequency of the ratings for each item for a more in-depth investigation of attitudes (cf. section 12.4.2.).
12.4.1. WIHIC current study analysis
All three groups were taught by the same teacher which controlled the factor ‘person of the teacher’ and eliminates any preferences or attitudes that the participants in my study might have had towards different instructors. Eliminating this factor enables the participants to solely focus on the instructional method and to evaluate this element rather than any other elements that might have influenced their perceptions. It is true that the questionnaire itself does have a scale that focuses on the support that the students get from the teacher (Teacher Support scale; cf. section 9.1.; Table 9-1) where they are able to project their perceptions of the teacher and the interest he/she takes in the learners’ progress. However, under the assumption that the teacher being identical for all three groups would lead to the same projections, the teacher factor is neutralized and any differences emerging can therefore be put down to the teaching method52.
As presented in Chapter 9 (cf. section 9.2.), the WIHIC questionnaire is thought to be reliable and adaptable for eliciting attitudes in different instructional settings and has therefore been frequently used in previous research (Dorman et al., 2006). In earlier studies, this questionnaire has been used as means of discovering learners’ attitudes and testing whether these attitudes can change if the environment changes. The versatility and adaptability of the questionnaire is
52 A detailed description of the WIHIC questionnaire described Table 9-1 in Chapter 9 and the detailed scales can be found in Appendix 7.
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evident in studies where the scales and items can be adapted to the needs and aims of the investigation, evident in studies where WIHIC has been combined with other tests (Hoang, 2008; Roberge et al., 2011).
In my study, each scale (Student Cohesiveness, Teacher Support, Involvement, Task Orientation, Investigation, Cooperation, and Equity) consists of 7 items. Each item in the questionnaire can be rated with one of 5 options on the Likert scale, where ‘almost never’ has 1 point and ‘almost always’ has 5 points.
It needs to be added that not all participants who were involved in the experiment were available to take the WIHIC questionnaire for various reasons (one of them was the fact that it was the end of the semester and the students needed to study for final exams). This meant that in the LdL group only 24 students took the questionnaire, in the Traditional group 25, and in the Five-Stage group 28 students were able to participate.
The first step in analyzing the questionnaire was to calculate the scores of each scale for every participant. Due to the uneven number of participants in the three groups, a Tukey test was used to calculate the means and standard deviations in a one-way ANOVA. The means and the standard deviations can be observed in Table 12-29.
Table 12-29: ANOVA means and standard deviation for the WIHIC questionnaire for all three groups *LdL stands for Lernen durch Lehren- Learning through Teaching **Trad. stands for Traditional
Mean Standard Deviation Scale LdL* Trad.** Five- LdL* Trad.** Five- F Sig. Stage Stage Student 25.25 24.00 24.93 3.904 3.719 3.887 .710 .495 Cohesiveness Teacher 27.25 25.80 27.04 3.554 4.000 2.728 1.296 .280 Support Involvement 26.71 25.48 25.54 4.438 4.194 4.150 .657 .522 Investigation 25.92 24.60 25.18 3.374 4.848 3.662 .664 .518 Task 26.71 25.88 28.04 2.851 3.898 2.861 3.016 .055 Orientation Cooperation 26.00 25.32 24.96 4.212 6.149 3.564 .315 .731 Equity 28.50 29.40 29.64 4.364 4.518 2.857 .588 .558 N 24 25 28
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It can be seen that the means for all scales are very close and there are almost no differences showing statistical significance in the difference of their attitudes towards the three different instructional methods. However, there can be seen a marginally statistically significant difference in the Task Orientation scale, where the value is actually higher than the alpha level for statistical significance p<.05. On this scale, the significance level p<.055 is bigger than the alpha level for significance (.05), which nonetheless still indicates marginal significance for this scale among the three groups. This means that there are marginal differences in the Task Orientation scale; these are elaborated in detail in section 12.4.2..
As already mentioned (cf. section 9.1.), the aim of the WIHIC questionnaire is to observe the reactions and attitudes of the students to the practices used in a classroom, in order to observe the reactions and attitudes to the particular method (Traditional, Five-Stage or LdL) with which tense forms were taught. The students’ perceptions of the teaching environments are elaborated in the following paragraphs.
The data in Table 12-29 show exactly what was happening in the different classrooms where a different method was used to teach the English tense-aspect system. The WIHIC results indicate that the environment was positive, hence the high scores of the mean, which range between 24 as the lowest mean and 29.64 as the highest mean. The fact that the range between the lowest and the highest mean is not significantly high, shows that the perceptions were similar between the groups in terms of the different scales, and for that matter the different methods, which is somewhat unexpected and will be further discussed.
The scores for standard deviation on most scales are higher than 1, which shows that there is diversity in the perceptions and attitudes except for the involvement scale, which suggests that there is little diversity: LdL 4.438, Traditional 4.194 and Five-Stage 4.150 (cf. Table 12-29). This indicates that there is a certain agreement in the perceptions among all students, regardless of the method they were taught in. On the other hand, the answers that the students gave for the other scales like: Student Cohesiveness, Teacher Support, Investigation, Task Orientation, Cooperation and Equity were more scattered throughout the 5-point Likert scale, signifying different opinions and perceptions in these 6 scales of the WIHIC questionnaire within the groups, indicating different perceptions and most likely different personal preferences.
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Specifically, when looking at the means of these 6 WIHIC scales it becomes apparent that in five of them the means for the Traditional group are lower than the other two groups. This is not the case in the Cooperation scale, where the group mean for the Traditional group is 25.32, for the LdL group: 26 and for the Five-Stage group: 24.95; and the Equity scale where the score of the Traditional group is 29.40 and thus higher than the LdL group (28.50) but lower that the Five-Stage group (29.64). The group means across the scales, for all three methods, are illustrated in Table 12-30, and are outlined and discussed in detail in the following lines.
Table 12-30: WIHIC scale means for all three groups
Scales Group Means LdL Traditional Five-Stage Student Cohesiveness 25.25 24.00 24.93 Teacher Support 27.25 25.80 27.04 Involvement 26.71 25.48 25.54 Investigation 25.92 24.60 25.18 Task Orientation 26.71 25.88 28.04 Cooperation 26.00 25.32 24.96 Equity 28.50 29.40 29.64
The means for Student Cohesiveness are very close for the LdL 25.25 and the Five-Stage group 24.93, while the Traditional group rated this scale with a mean of 24. Even though the means of all three groups are relatively similar, the numbers show that the students perceived that they collaborated and interacted in the LdL and the Five-Stage Method group more than the Traditional one. This result was to be expected since the LdL and the Five-Stage Method are student-centered and provide more opportunities for cooperation among the students, and which was a more common practice in the LdL group, since this method allowed student- teachers to encourage their peers to work together. The SD (standard deviation) for this scale for all three methods (LdL 3.904, Traditional 3.719 and Five-Stage 3.887) shows that the perceptions of all three groups do not deviate from the average opinions among these three groups in this scale.
The next scale, in Table 12-30, the Teacher Support scale was perceived and rated higher by the Five-Stage group, with a mean of 27.04, than by the Traditional, with a mean of 25.80, but similarly to the mean of the LdL group, namely 27.25. This indicates that the students perceived the support of the teacher to be on a higher level in the LdL group where the teaching was carried out by their peers. This can be due to the fact that the LdL group received more guidance
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and one-on-one interaction and collaboration with the teacher than any other group, while in the Traditional group the teacher addressed the students as a class rather than as individuals, which justifies their ratings to a certain degree. In fact, the Traditional group rated the support that the teacher offered them throughout the semester with a lower mean than the other groups which is to be expected from a teacher-centered classroom. The SD in this scale indicates that there is some degree of disagreement within the groups. The SD is as follows: LdL 3.554, Traditional 4.000 and Five-Stage 2.728, which shows that the answers deviated and that there were different opinions among the participants taught in the LdL Method and mostly in the Traditional Method (cf. Table 12-29). This could be due to personal preferences, but one reason why the Five-Stage group has a low SD and a lower deviation could be due to the variety of stages and the different nature of teacher support in each learning stage which can create an atmosphere where there is, so to say, ‘something for everyone’. This group could therefore have had more similar opinions and rated the teachers support scale in a more unified way.
Involvement was also rated similarly by all three groups with a slightly higher mean produced by the LdL group. In this group, the student-teachers provided a variety of activities which could be the reason for the higher involvement mean than the other two groups (LdL 26.71, Five-Stage 25.54, Traditional 25.48) (cf. Table 12-30). Furthermore, the ratings for the scale of Investigation were marginally higher for the LdL group than the Traditional and Five-Stage (4.438, 4.194, 4.150, respectively) (cf. Table 12-29).
In addition, similarities in the perception of the three groups can be observed in the Investigation scale of the questionnaire, where the LdL group expressed positive regards with a mean of 25.92 similar to the one of the Five-Stage group (25.18) but higher than the Traditional, which rated this scale with scores that produced a mean of 24.60. The SD was highest for the Traditional group compared to the other two groups (Traditional > Five-Stage > LdL; 4.848 > 3.662 > 3.374), respectively indicating deviation within the group (cf. Table 12-29).
For the Task Orientation scale, the Five-Stage group produced the highest mean (28.04), while the LdL had a mean of 26.71 and the Traditional group produced the lowest mean (25.88). The SD for the three groups was as follows: LdL=2.851, Traditional=3.898 and Five-Stage=2.861. The highest diversity could be observed in the Traditional group due to the differing opinions
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they had about the nature and goals of a certain task. This is explained in detail for each item of this scale in section 12.4.2., where the results of the frequency analysis are presented.
The LdL group expressed a higher regard for the Cooperation scale (26.00), which is higher than the Traditional group’s ratings with a mean of 25.32, while the Five-Stage perceived this scale with the lowest mean (24.96). The means from this scale were also the most variable compared to the other scales, which shows that there is disagreement between the groups and mostly within the Traditional group (LdL, Traditional and Five-Stage; 4.212, 6.149 and 3.564, respectively).
The scores for the Equity scale are as follows: LdL=28.50, Traditional=29.40 and Five- Stage=29.64. The SD indicates within group variation and between group similarity for the LdL (4.364) and the Traditional group (4.518), but lower variation in the Five-Stage group with a SD of 2.857, meaning that the students taught using the Five-Stage Method gave more similar answers for the majority of the items on this scale (cf. Table 12-29).
The within group and between group variation is illustrated in Table 12-31 along with the alpha level for significance.
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Table 12-31: ANOVA test for the WIHIC questionnaire for all three groups
Sum of df Mean F Sig. Squares Square Student Between 20.916 2 10.358 .710 .495 Cohesiveness Groups Within 1090.357 74 14.735 Groups Total 1111.273 76 Teacher Support Between 30.666 2 15.333 1.296 .280 Groups Within 875.464 74 11.831 Groups Total 906.130 76 Involvement Between 23.785 2 11.893 .657 .522 Groups Within 1340.163 74 18.110 Groups Total 1363.948 76 Investigation Between 21.306 2 10.653 .664 .518 Groups Within 1187.940 74 16.053 Groups Total 1209.247 76 Task Orientation Between 62.970 2 31.485 3.016 .055 Groups Within 772.563 74 10.340 Groups Total 835.532 76 Cooperation Between 14.115 2 7.058 .315 .731 Groups Within 1658.404 74 22.411 Groups Total 1672.519 76 Equity Between 18.247 2 9.123 .588 .558 Groups Within 1148.429 74 15.519 Groups Total 1166.675 76
The analysis of variance (cf. Table 12-31) shows that there are no within group or between group statistically significant differences which indicates that the students’ perceptions of all three methods are similar and positive. While ANOVA shows the within group or between group means and their significance, it does not provide item specific information. Hence, a
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frequency analysis (cf. section 12.4.2.) will provide a more in-depth analysis and valuable insight into the distinctions of the perceptions among the groups.
In the next section, each item of the scales in the questionnaire is presented and discussed according to percentage, which will show towards which answer in the 5-scale Likert scale the students’ perception and opinions were inclined.
12.4.2. WIHIC frequency analysis
In order to get a more in-depth view of the perceptions that the students had about the different methods, a closer look at the raw data analysis tables is necessary (cf. Appendix 8). In other words, the tables with the exact percentage of rating of the WIHIC questionnaire provide some interesting opinions about and observations of the classrooms where different methods were taught. These specific examples are stated and discussed scale by scale and item by item, considering the most significant examples especially for clarification purposes and with the intention of facilitating the process of drawing conclusions about the students’ perceptions of the three instructional methods (Traditional, LdL and Five-Stage). The frequency analysis of the responses representing the students’ perceptions for each scale and item are presented in Tables 16-4, 16-5 and 16-6 in percentages (cf. Appendix 8). The items that are of most interest are discussed scale by scale in the following paragraphs.
Student Cohesiveness
The item frequency analysis of the Student Cohesiveness scale (cf. Appendix 8) produced coherent results for the three groups taught using the three different methods. Most of the students in all three groups selected the ‘sometimes’ and ‘often’ option in the questionnaire for this scale. However, over 45.8 % of the LdL group rated item 4 (The other students correct me when I make a mistake – cf. Appendix 7) with the ‘sometimes’ option. 40.7% of the Five-Stage group chose the option ‘sometimes’ for the same item, while the Traditional group expressed a rare occurrence of this practice in the classroom, with 47 % choosing the options ‘almost never’ and ‘seldom’. These results were to be expected, if not predicted, since the traditional teaching method provides few opportunities for student cohesiveness let alone peer correction. The Five-Stage Method does offer opportunities for students to correct other students and this did happen more frequently in the group taught using this method than in the Traditional one.
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Helping others in the class and correcting them had the highest percentage in the LdL group, since here the student-teacher has the opportunity to correct their peers and offer help when needed.
Teacher Support
Item 9 (The teacher lets us improvise with tense-aspect combinations (form/usage/adverbs) – cf. Appendix 7) in the Teacher Support scale (cf. Appendix 8), revealed that the LdL group and the Five-Stage group observed the practice of Improvisation with tense forms more than the Traditional group. 62.5% of the LdL group rated this practice with ‘almost always’ and so did 66.7% of the Five-Stage group, while the Traditional group chose the option ‘often’ with 58%. These ratings only justify and reflect the Improvisation stage in the Five-Stage Method. In this method, using the language competences that the students already have and making the language work for the sake of communication is exactly what the purpose of the stage of Improvisation is.
Involvement
For item 15 (My involvement in this class has improved my knowledge of tense-aspect combinations – cf. Appendix 7), more than 50% percent of the participants for all three groups stated that their involvement in class ‘almost always’ improved their knowledge of tense forms (cf. Appendix 8). In the same scale, they rated their willingness for involvement in contextualized activities (item 17: I like and do well in tense-aspect combinations activities in the form of a text or story - cf. Appendix 7) as follows: LdL 45.8% with ‘often’, Five-Stage 48.1 % and Traditional 47.1% with ‘sometimes’. This indicates that the LdL group preferred the contextualized activities more than the other groups, which is surprising since this type of activity is integrated into the Five-Stage Method, and so the prediction was that the Five-Stage group would prefer this type of activity.
The students’ willingness to partake in decontextualized activities was expressed in the following way: the LdL group chose ‘sometimes’ with 37.5%, the Five-Stage group chose ‘often’ with 44.4% and the Traditional group chose ‘often’ with 47.1% (cf. Appendix 8). The results indicate that the Traditional group preferred these activities in class since the method itself is sentence-level based rather than text-level based. This means that tense forms are
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presented, practiced and learned by using decontextualized sentences rather than texts. On the other hand, in the LdL Method and mostly in the Five-Stage Method both types of activities are introduced and the students are encouraged to get involved in the recognition and exploration of tense forms in texts. What this means in terms of attitude investigation is that since all learners in all three groups have been instructed in grammar and verb morphology (to a very limited extent) during their previous education in the traditional way and on a sentence level rather than a text level, it can be said that these are the activities they are used to and these are the activities they feel comfortable with. This could also mean that these learners of English language who are studying the English language in order to become teachers consider this way of presenting and testing the tense-aspect combinations the correct and best way.
Item 21 on the same scale (I find giving presentations on tense-aspect combinations useful since they help me and my colleagues learn a lot - cf. Appendix 7) tested the students’ preferences and usefulness of student presentations (a practice only present in the LdL Method). The LdL group rated this item as ‘almost always’ with 45.8%, the Five-Stage group chose the option ‘sometimes’ with 48.1% and the Traditional group chose the option ‘often’ with 41.2% (cf. Appendix 8). Apparently, the LdL group likes and prefers this practice (since they were the only group involved in student-teaching during the experiment which provided them with the opportunity to see the benefits of student-teaching) hence, their ratings for item 2153 were the highest out of the three groups.
Investigation
On the scale of Investigation, the students indicated that they have different perceptions regarding their willingness to explore rules and use of tense forms in general or in different contexts (item 22: I explore the rules and the use of tense-aspect combinations in different contexts- cf. Appendix 7). More specifically, the Traditional group showed their readiness to be involved in investigation by choosing the ‘often’ option with 52.9%; LdL rated their exploration with 45.8% by choosing the ‘sometimes’ option, while the Five-Stage group was inconsistent when rating this item, since 29.6% chose the ‘sometimes’ option and exactly the same percentage (29.6%) of the same group chose the ‘almost always’ option (cf. Appendix
53 This item is of course a hypothetical one for the Five-Stage group and the Traditional group since this was not a practice included in the teaching method itself. Instead, this item investigated whether these two groups think that this way of instruction, or rather learning, would be beneficial to them.
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8). These ratings were surprising since the participants in the Traditional group were never asked to explore rules on their own, while this was a common practice in the Five-Stage Method. One explanation for this could be that the Traditional group’s participants would like to be given the opportunity to explore on their own, or they could have implied that they do explore despite of the lack of opportunities. In the Five-Stage group, the differing ratings could mean that one part of the participant group liked and preferred the exploration part of the learning, while the other part of the participant group did not.
For item 24 (I like to know the tense form rules before I start doing exercises - cf. Appendix 7) the three groups gave similar answers, namely the majority of them agreed that they prefer to know the rules of the tense forms before they get involved in an exercise. The most frequent choice in all three groups was the option ‘almost always’ for the LdL group with 58.3%, the Traditional group with 52.9%, and the Five-Stage group with 48.1% (cf. Appendix 8). This shows that a great number of the students, who are used to the drill (presentation followed by practice), are more interested in finding the correct answers for the exercise itself rather than investigating and exploring the rules, a practice that might lead them to draw their own conclusions, elicit or explore the grammatical rules. This result was unexpected for the Five- Stage group where the discovery and exploration of rules is a common practice.
In terms of their own ability to notice that they mix tense forms when speaking (item 26: I notice that I mix some tense-aspect combinations when speaking- cf. Appendix 7), some of the groups showed more awareness than others who noticed the mixing of tense forms in their speech only occasionally. Specifically, the LdL group rated this item with ‘sometimes’ in 41.7% of all cases, the traditional with ‘sometimes’ in 64.7% of all cases, while in the Five- Stage group the most frequently chosen option was ‘often’ with 44.4% (cf. Appendix 8). This shows that the Five-Stage group has more self-awareness of their use of tense forms in speech. Consequently, by investigating and realizing their mistakes and gaps while speaking, this could indicate that they have made the first step to improve the use of tense form in speech, which can lead to self-correction and also ideally result in internalization of the correct tense forms into speech.
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Task Orientation
The ratings for item 31 (Tense-aspect combinations are important for speaking activities - cf. Appendix 7) of the questionnaire which belongs to the scale of Task Orientation, indicate that there is a difference in the perception of the importance of tense forms for speaking activities. If the participants think that they do not need accurate tense form use in speech, then this could interfere with integration of tense forms into speech.
While the LdL and the Five-Stage group chose ‘almost always’ with over 70% in both groups, the Traditional group chose the same option only in 47.1% of the cases (cf. Appendix 8). This clearly shows that the Traditional group does not find tense forms as crucial for speaking as the other two groups do. Learning tense forms just for the sake of being able to do exercises correctly and for the sake of passing an exam may not be the way that will lead to long-term acquisition, retention and integration of tense forms into speech. The perceptions that the Traditional group has are worrisome. If they consider tense forms only as a means of successfully completing exercises (and less than half of them consider tense forms crucial for speaking), then this means that their perception might affect whether and how they use tense forms in speech.
The responses for item 32 (I use my intuition when using tense-aspect combinations or when doing exercises - cf. Appendix 7) are also very different for the three groups in my study. 50% of the LdL group rated this item with ‘often’, 47.1% of the Traditional group rated this item with ‘seldom’ while the majority of the Five-Stage group rated this item with ‘sometimes’ at 33.3% and ‘often’ by 33.3% (cf. Appendix 8). The percentages show that the Traditional group makes the least effort of all three groups to learn the rules of the tense forms, something that could hinder them in knowing the use, generalizations and exceptions of the English tense- aspect system.
Cooperation
The LdL and the Five-Stage groups showed that students worked with each other in class during assignments in order to achieve class goals (item 40: Students work with me to achieve class goals- cf. Appendix 7) more than the students in the Traditional group. In percentages, the LdL group expressed this by choosing the ‘sometimes’ option with 41.7% and the Five-
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Stage group also chose the option ‘sometimes’ with 44.4%. On the other hand, almost half of the Traditional group 47.1% chose the option ‘seldom’ since they have observed the practice of cooperation with other students for achieving class goals less than the two other groups. This indicates that there has been less cooperation, less freedom, less opportunity or need for the peers to rely on classmates while working on an assignment in the Traditional group.
Equity
The Equity scale shows that a great percentage of the students stated that they get the same amount of help from the teacher (item 43: I get the same amount of help from the teacher as do other students - cf. Appendix 7), namely, almost 70.8 % (options ‘almost always’ and ‘often’) in the LdL group, 94.1% (options ‘almost always’ and ‘often’) in the Traditional group and 75.2% (options ‘almost always’ and ‘often’) in the Five-Stage group. In terms of equal treatment (item 44: I am treated the same as other students in this class - cf. Appendix 7), equal opportunity (item 45: I get the same opportunity to contribute to class discussions as other students- cf. Appendix 7) and praise (item 46: My work receives as much praise as other students' work - cf. Appendix 7) the LdL rated these by choosing the options ‘almost always’ and ‘often’ at an aggregate of 87.5%, 79.1% and 77.5%, respectively, meaning that almost all participants in this group agree that they all nearly always receive the same treatment, opportunity and praise from the teacher. Similarly, the Traditional group expressed their satisfaction for the same items of this scale with the following percentage: 94.1%, 100% and 82.4%, respectively (cf. Appendix 8). The Five-Stage group expressed their satisfaction for same treatment, opportunity and praise in class by agreeing with 100%, 100% and 88.9%, respectively. Finally, items 47 (I get the same opportunity to answer questions as other students- cf. Appendix 7), 48 (I receive the same encouragement from the teacher as other students do - cf. Appendix 7) and 49 (The teacher gives as much attention to my questions as to other students' questions- cf. Appendix 7) also received maximum percentage positive ratings by all three groups, in comparison with the other scales of this questionnaire (namely, 100% for all groups; cf. Appendix 8).
The findings analyzed in Chapter 12 are recaptured and related to the research question and hypotheses of this study in Chapter 13.
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13. Discussion of research question and hypotheses
Based on the results presented in Chapter 12, this chapter discusses how the outcomes of the experiment answer the main research question of this study, and whether they help to prove or reject the hypotheses in my study.
Research Question: Which teaching method (Traditional, Five-Stage or LdL) will best promote acquisition and integration of the tense forms into spontaneous speech, when Albanian L1 learners learn English as a Foreign Language?
In order to answer this question, the results of tests (proficiency, written and spoken) from Chapter 12 need to be restated and related to each other. By using the results of these tests, the following paragraphs discuss three issues in order to answer the research question, namely: the advantages of the head start of the Traditional group, the improvement results during the training period and the results of the post-tests amongst the groups.
First of all, in the proficiency test (cf. section 12.1.), the Traditional group performed better than the Five-Stage group and statistically better than the LdL group. This group also showed considerably higher scores in the written pre-test (cf. section 12.2.1.) in comparison to the other two groups (which was not the case in the spoken pre-test; cf. section 12.3.1.). Consequently, this led to the conclusion that the Traditional group had an advantage in two tests before the beginning of the training and it also led to the question whether the Traditional group would outperform the other two groups in the written post-test. In section 12.2.3. it was evident that the Traditional group was indeed better than the other two groups in the written post-test, although the outcome was of no statistical significance. This means that even though the Traditional group was significantly better at the beginning of the training this was not the case at the end of the training.
When the results of the written pre-test were compared to the post-test it was evident that all groups had significantly improved during the training period (cf. section 12.2.4.). When comparing the results of the written post-test (cf. section 12.2.3.) among the three groups there is no significant difference, however the Traditional group does have a slight advantage over the other groups. The advantage of the Traditional group over LdL (not Five-Stage) was of statistical significance in the spoken post-test (cf. section 12.3.2.), which indicates that even
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though the Traditional group had the advantage of a head start in the proficiency test and the written pre-test, the other groups (Five-Stage and LdL) picked up the pace during the training period and caught up with the Traditional group in the written post-test.
In has to be restated here that, since the Traditional group had an advantage from the beginning, this initial knowledge might have contributed to their improvement in tasks and tests that were not part of the teaching method. Therefore, if the success of the Traditional group can be partly pinned to an initial advantage in knowledge and test performance, the success of the other two groups is due to the instructional influence and effect on performance, which indicates that the Five-Stage Method and the LdL Method made a more significant contribution to improvement.
Nonetheless, when the spoken test is concerned, though the Traditional group was worse than the Five-Stage group at the beginning of the training, this group was better than the Five-Stage group in the spoken post-test and statistically better than the LdL group. What this shows is that the Traditional group was better at integrating the tense forms into speech than the group exposed to a method that was designed to do this, namely the Five-Stage group (further elaborated in hypothesis 3, in this chapter).
Hypothesis 1: The Five-Stage group will perform better in the post-test and this group will have learned most of the information due to the stages of this method.
The post-test results of the Five-Stage group were significantly better than the pre-test results for both tests: spoken (cf. section 12.3.3.) and written (cf. section 12.2.4.). However, when the spoken post-test results for all three groups were compared (cf. section 12.3.2.), the Five-Stage group was significantly better only than the LdL group but not better than the Traditional group. The Five-Stage group was worse than the LdL group and the Traditional group in the written post-test comparison among groups (cf. section 12.2.3.). This means that the Five-Stage group did not perform better than the other groups in the post-test and therefore did not learn most of the information as predicted (which was the initial belief due to the stages of this teaching method).
Nonetheless, it needs to be mentioned that the fact that the Traditional group performed better in the written post-test could be due to its significantly better results in the written pre-test and proficiency test. On the other hand, the enhancement of the Five-Stage group and the LdL
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group in the post-test is due to the instructional stimulus, and not an initial advantage over the other groups like in the case of the Traditional group.
One of the reasons why the Five-Stage group did not significantly outperform the traditional and the LdL group in the written post-test could lie in the possible disadvantages of the Five- Stage Method, which include the fact that some students might not be accustomed to discovering grammatical rules themselves without the explicit presentation of rules by the teacher first. These students might rather have the teacher explicitly lay out the grammatical rules and then be instructed to apply these in activities. This becomes problematic in the Five- Stage Method when students find the Recognition stage challenging or even perceive it as the incorrect way of approaching grammatical rules.
Hypothesis 2: The students taught in the Five-Stage Method will perform better in the contextualized and decontextualized exercises, whereas the traditional and LdL group will mainly perform well in decontextualized exercises.
All groups performed significantly better in the contextualized and decontextualized tests (cf. section 12.2.5.3.) post-test in comparison to the pre-test, with a slight advantage for the Five- Stage group. Moreover, in Chapter 12, it was evident that the Five-Stage group had an advantage over the other two groups in the contextualized test (cf. section 12.2.5.1.), and with a significantly better advantage in the decontextualized test (cf. section 12.2.5.2.).
The comparison of the results achieved in the decontextualized activities for all three groups indicated the following order of performance: Five-Stage > LdL > Traditional; with a significance level of: p<.006 < .057 < .128, respectively. The results for the contextualized activities can be illustrated in the following order: Five-Stage > Traditional > LdL; where the alpha level of significance was: p<.005 < .012 < .035, respectively. These numbers show that the Five-Stage group outperformed the other groups in both types of activities since both contextualized and decontextualized activities were part of their instructional routine. It was not anticipated that the Traditional group would show better results that the LdL group in the contextualized test, since this group was mainly instructed in a decontextualized way.
It follows that the students taught in the Five-Stage Method did perform better in the contextualized and decontextualized exercises than the other two groups, which proves the
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hypothesis. The part of the result that was not expected and does not prove the hypothesis, was the significant improvement when the contextualized pre- and post-test for the Traditional group are compared (cf. section 12.2.5.1.).
Hypothesis 3: The Five-Stage Method will enable the students to consolidate the rules for the tense-aspect combinations and use them in spontaneous speech.
The comparison of the results of the pre- and post-test in the spoken version (cf. section 12.3.3.) revealed that the three groups were considerably better in the later test. With a slight advantage for the Five-Stage group, the spoken pre-test did not reveal statistically significant alternation among the three groups (cf. section 12.3.1.). Since the Five-Stage group had the highest (but not statistically considerable) mean in the spoken pre-test comparison of all three groups (cf. section 12.3.1.), it was expected that this group’s results would be significantly better than the results of the other two groups in the spoken post-test. The spoken post-test showed that the LdL group was outperformed by the traditional and the Five-Stage group with a statistical significance that only partly confirms the hypothesis.
The hypothesis is however rejected by the fact that the Traditional group, which also significantly improved during the training period, outperformed the Five-Stage group and was significantly better than the LdL group in the post-test. This was unexpected of a group that was taught using a method that did not foster communication or integration of tense forms in speech.
Hypothesis 4: The WIHIC questionnaire will reveal that the students prefer the Five-Stage and the LdL teaching method to the Traditional Method due to the lack of interaction and teacher- centeredness of the traditional teaching environment.
The students did not favor the Traditional Method the least as predicted, since all teaching methods were rated relatively the same. In fact, the one-way ANOVA test (cf. section 12.4.1.) and the frequency analysis (cf. section 12.4.2.) revealed the students’ attitudes toward the three teaching methods as expressed in the WIHIC questionnaire were similar, nevertheless with a higher rating from the LdL group when compared to the other two groups.
The outcome of the questionnaire was unexpected since the three groups rated the items in the different scales of the questionnaire similarly. However, it was to be expected that the
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Traditional group would rate the scale of Student Cohesiveness less favorably due to the lack of interaction among students in this method (cf. Table 12-30 in section 12.4.1.).
The Teacher Support scale was best rated by the LdL group since they received guidance before and after the student-teacher sessions. Additionally, all three groups expressed self-awareness in the Involvement scale in that they thought their competence of the English tense-aspect system had improved. Moreover, as expected, the Traditional group declared in the Task Orientation scale that tense-aspect combinations are not crucial for speaking purposes, since in their method the focus was on accuracy rather than communicative competence. While the Cooperation scale revealed that the Traditional group thought that their classroom lacked interaction, in the Equity scale there was unanimous agreement among the participants in the Traditional group concerning their equal treatment as individuals and as a group in the classroom.
As was seen in Table 12-30 (cf. section 12.4.1.) the means of the LdL group for all scales (except the Equity scale) were the highest ones. Though not statistically relevant, it can be concluded here that the LdL Method was the most favored one, which partly confirms hypothesis 4.
So, as an answer to the research question and the hypotheses in my study, it can be concluded that the Traditional Method was better at integrating tense-aspect combinations in speaking and writing, the Five-Stage Method helped the participants improve more in contextualized and decontextualized activities, while the LdL Method was most preferred by the participants.
14. Summary and Conclusion
This chapter revisits the issues presented in the previous Chapters (cf. Chapters 1 to 12) and it draws conclusions based on the discussions and results of all of the chapters in this study. The key issues, problems, solutions and recommendations of every chapter are summarized, restated and compared to the findings of Chapter 12, followed by further discussion and conclusions. This chapter also outlines the contributions of this study that are theoretically, empirically and educationally applicable (cf. section 14.2.), followed by the limitations of this
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study (cf. section 14.3.) and suggestions for further research (cf. section 14.4.) on the issues and in the fields covered in this study.
14.1. Major findings of this study and summary
To what degree the main aims of my study, stated in section 1.1., have been achieved is discussed here in view of the findings presented in Chapter 12. These aims included: testing a new method (Five-Stage Method, Willis, 2003); testing which of the three methods (Traditional, LdL and Five-Stage) helps with acquisition and integration of tense forms into speech; establishing a clear picture of tense and aspect in Albanian (cf. Chapters 5 and 6); establishing a clear picture of what tense and aspect are linguistically (cf. Chapters 2 to 6) and pedagogically (cf. Chapter 7), and testing the students’ attitudes towards three methods (cf. Chapter 9). The conclusions about the above-mentioned aims, and the theoretical, empirical and applied aims of section 1.2. are summarized and discussed in the following paragraphs, chapter by chapter.
Chapter 2 examined the notions of tense and time, where a consensus about the difference between these two terms as defined in the research literature (cf. section 2.1.) could be detected. The distinction between tense and time needed to be established since it is specifically crucial for Albanian L1 learners of English because they have only one word in their language for both concepts (koha ‘time’ and ‘tense’). The distinction of time and tense was clarified based on the opinions and argumentation of previous research (cf. section 2.1.). For instance, while Declerck et al. (2006) refers to these as linguistic and exrtalinguistic respectively, since tense makes use of morphological, lexical and semantic means, Lyons (1977) establishes that tense is deictic, while time has a broader sense than tense.
This chapter also outlined the disputes regarding the sameness or dissimilarity of the categories of tense and aspect, and linguistic views of tense and aspect (cf. sections 2.2., 2.3. and 2.4.). The observation that was made in the chapter was that while tense and aspect are seen by some as connected (Hornstein; 1990), others insist on their categorical dissimilarity (Comrie, 1985; Michaelis, 2006; Herweg, 1991; Downing and Locke, 2006).
The decision to treat the categories of tense and aspect as separate was made here (cf. section 2.2.) due to morphological, logical, semantic and deictic reasons (to name a few), but mainly
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due to the periphrastic and inflectional nature of realization of tense and aspect in the Albanian language (cf. sections 5.1. and 5.2.). This separation first of all provided a pedagogical benefit for the instructional setting and instructional decisions of all three methods (Traditional, LdL and Five-Stage). Treating tense and aspect as separate was mainly done due to the inflectional and periphrastic system in the English and Albanian languages, which served as a basic ground for the comparison of these two systems (cf. Chapter 6). Furthermore, the position maintained concerning the separability of tense and aspect implies that they are separate categories with distinct functions and realizations. Establishing the separateness of tense and aspect and the exact types of aspect in language in general, serves as a basic ground for making pedagogical decisions in the experiment itself; a position that was also maintained about tense and aspect in English (cf. sections 3.1. and 3.2.) and Albanian (cf. sections 5.1. and 5.2.).
For the instructional experiment in my study, treating tense and aspect as separate was advantageous for achieving the purposes of each method. Introducing these categories independently served some of the purposes of the Traditional Method where grammatical units are learned one by one, separately (cf. Chapter 8). In the LdL Method, the student-teacher could address errors that their peers made by explicitly explaining which part of the sentence is wrong instead of relying on intuition. While in the Five-Stage Method, the different roles and realizations of tense and aspect could be improved, recognized and discovered independently of the teacher or with his or her help. All in all, knowing how to introduce tense and aspect independently and then identify them in use as separate categories, along with the ability to see how both can interact in the same sentence, is what learners need to know or be able to realize, in order to better retain this kind of information.
Issues that were thought to potentially make the learning and acquisition process of the English tense-aspect system challenging, addressed in Chapter 3, included the lack of consensus about the exact number of tenses in English, the disagreement about the dissimilarity of the categories of tense and aspect, and the role of aspect. Therefore, in agreement with grammarians, it was decided that for this study tense and aspect will be considered as distinct categories that can be combined into the tense-aspect combinations described in Chapters 4, 5 and 6.
Chapter 4 included a descriptive display of the English target tense forms of this study: Simple Past, Present Perfect, Present Perfect Progressive, Past Perfect and Past Perfect Progressive
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with a more or less similar analysis of the form and use of the tense forms agreed upon by different grammarians. This chapter established the differences in use and meaning of these combinations but also served as evidence that the English tense-aspect system is not very straightforward due to the numerous functions and applications of the target combinations. The way in which these numerous functions and applications of the target combinations differ from the Albanian language was defined in Chapter 5, followed by a direct comparison of the target counterparts in Chapter 6.
When describing the tense and aspect system of the Albanian language (cf. Chapter 5), the main issue that emerged concerned the category of aspect: namely, the dissimilar and insufficient description of aspect, and the complete disregard of this category by some authors. Ҫamaj (1984) and Agalliu et al. (2002) are among the few grammar book authors who offer a more complete account of the tense-aspect combinations in Albanian and were the main source for drawing conclusions on problematic issues such as the progressive in this language. It was established that there are three absolute tenses (the imperfect (E PAKRYERA), simple past (E
KRYERA E THJESHTË) and the perfect (E KRYERA)) and two relative tenses (the past perfect (MË
SË E KRYERA) and pluperfect (E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR). Ҫamaj’s (1984:151) definition of the category of aspect and types of aspect (perfect, imperfect, habitual and actual) was the most complete one and was hence the view adopted in my study.
This chapter showed that the Albanian language has similar issues to English as far as the separability of tense and aspect are concerned and as to the role and existence of the category of aspect. Once it was established in the study that they are separate and are realized morphologically and periphrastically, the direct comparison of the target tenses and their combinations with the English equivalents could be made (cf. Chapter 6). The English target tense-aspect combinations were contrasted with their Albanian counterparts, indicating that the main differences of the tense forms of these two languages lie in the marking and the use. For instance, while the simple past (E KRYERA E THJESHTË) in Albanian has a timeless reference (cf. section 6.2.), this can only be achieved with a perfect or a passive form in English. The second issue which was thought to affect learning the aspect of the English language was the fact that the progressive in Albanian can be realized with particles, inflection and the imperfect tense (E
PAKRYERA) (cf. section 6.1.), while this can be achieved in English only with suffixation. The final difference was the existence of the non-finite gerundive affirmative form (cf. section 6.6.),
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which was identified as potentially beneficial due to their similarity to the Present Perfect Progressive and Past Perfect Progressive tense forms in English. Nonetheless, according to the results specified in Chapter 12, which showed that the instructional training in all three methods had a significant learning effect, this indicated that the differences between these languages did not interfere with the learning process.
After it was established that the role of tense and aspect is not very straightforward in theoretical books (cf. sections 2.2.; 2.3.; 2.4.; 3.1.; 3.2.; 5.1.; 5.2.), these were discussed from a pedagogical point of view which lead to some concerns (cf. Chapter 7). In Chapter 7, it was established that reference, grammar and theoretical books mainly outline and recognize two or rarely three tenses in the English language, while course books claim that there are twelve tense forms, which are referred to as tenses, rather than tense-aspect combinations by most authors. Furthermore, the category of aspect is not mentioned in course or reference books, which consequently gives the impression that the category of aspect does not exist or is of little importance for the English tense-aspect system in general. The suggestion here was that the lack of consensus among grammarians in linguistics books and the mismatch of the information of the linguistics books when compared to pedagogical books would be very confusing for the EFL learner and future linguists. For this reason, it was recommended that it needs to be made clear what a tense is and what tense-aspect combinations are, which as such should be approached in a similar way linguistically and pedagogically. It needs to be mentioned here that the issue of the linguistic and pedagogical mismatch of the categories of tense and aspect as well as tense-aspect combinations, was and still is a concern for SEEU students, since these undergraduate students who attend linguistics, translation and pedagogical courses are exposed to both if not all types of books (pedagogical, linguistic, reference among others) which may cause confusion.
After the issues of the separateness of tense and aspect were resolved, and the way these need to be illustrated in all types of book discussed, Chapter 8 outlined three different instructional settings in which the teaching of tense forms was carried out. This chapter focused on the benefits and the shortcomings of the three teaching methods that were used in my study (Traditional, LdL and Five-Stage). Undoubtedly, the Five-Stage Method (cf. section 8.2.2.) was the one that used multiple sets of practices, including the ones that had been proven to work very well in previous research. Furthermore, it has been established that even though all
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of the methods have their advantages and disadvantages, both in theory and research, when the results of Chapter 12 are taken into consideration it is evident that all of the methods deserve credit, and that instruction does in fact make a tremendous difference in the instructional setting in this study as well.
Whether the participants taught in the different methods would have any preferences towards any of the methods and whether these preferences would affect their performance was tested with a WIHIC questionnaire (cf. section 9.1.). The way this questionnaire was used in previous research and the way it was adapted for my study was also elaborated in Chapter 9. Here it was mentioned that the learners’ attitudes can affect the learning and teaching process which is why this kind of tool was used in my study. This chapter gave a clear picture of how this questionnaire can be adapted to different instructional settings and it has been very effective in eliciting participants’ attitudes and perspectives on its own or in combination with other tests (in previous research).
Since in my study all three groups taught using the three different methods rated the WIHIC questionnaire positively (cf. sections 12.4.1. and 12.4.2.), and since all three groups significantly improved during the training period (cf. sections 12.2.4. and 12.3.3.), this indicates that their positive attitudes toward the teaching methods resulted in positive outcomes on the tests.
In order to find out whether there are other factors (other than the inconsistent description of tense and aspect in English and Albanian in linguistic and pedagogical books) that might affect the acquisition of tense forms, the difficulties that learners have in learning grammar and specifically tense-aspect and the effect of instruction on learning, were discussed in Chapter 10. Additional topics covered in this chapter included: previous research involving the overall effect of instruction on learning, and an overview of previously proposed and tested teaching methods for grammar and tense-aspect. It was established that instruction did have an effect on learning and that previous research findings showed that more recent teaching methods (Cognitive Teaching and Processing Instruction) were more effective than the traditional ones (Grammar Translation and Audio-Lingual Method).
In section 10.1. where the difficulty of learning tense-aspect systems was discussed, a number of intralingual, crosslinguistic and instructional difficulties were identified. Which of these
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were a concern for the current study and the attempt to eliminate them is elaborated here. Since task type and L2 proficiency (Sugaya and Shirai, 2007) and different verbal aspect (DeKeyser, 2005) or lack of verbal aspect (DeKeyser, 2005; Niemeier and Reif, 2008; and DeKeyser, 2005) between two languages were identified as some of the crosslinguistic factors in section 10.1., these were handled in my study in the following way: different verbal aspect in Albanian and English, as another potential crosslinguistic factor was lessened by clearly establishing the role of aspect in English (cf. section 3.2.) and Albanian (cf. section 5.2.) and by clearly indicating the similarities and differences for each combination of aspect in Chapter 6, where special attention was paid to the dissimilarities.
The instructional factors that affect learning or cause difficulties when learning which were identified in section 10.1., included the following: language analysis strategies (Vaezi and Alizadeh, 2011); lack of context variety (Collins, 2007); application of knowledge beyond sentence-level (Clahsen and Felser, 2006) that is, on the level of text (Larsen-Freeman et al., 2001); the necessity of awareness of both differences and similarities of the tense-aspect combinations (Larsen-Freeman et al., 2001); and form, meaning and use as three crucial elements to fully understand and use a grammatical item (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1983). The Five-Stage Method (as one of the instructional methods used in my study), was expected to take all of these factors into account due to its construction, since it provides context variety, opportunities for language recognition, analysis and production beyond sentence-level. It was used in such a way that both differences and similarities among the target tense-aspect combinations were pointed out, and it was made sure that the form, meaning and use of each combinations was explicitly explained in the stage of System Building (cf. section 8.2.2.). Whether this meant that this method would be more successful than the other two in my study is restated here in comparison to findings of previous studies.
Contrary to prior grammar teaching methodology research (Imai, 2008; Bielak and Pawlak, 2011; Gass and Selinker, 2008; cf. section 10.2.), which has compared cognitive or Processing Instruction to the traditional way of teaching and reported a strong to moderate advantage of other ways of teaching over the traditional one, the experiment in my study showed that the Traditional group improved more than the other two methods (LdL and Five-Stage) in the spoken post-test (cf. section 12.3.2.) and the written post-test (cf. section 12.2.3.). This is surprising since the other two methods have more in common with the cognitive and processing
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way of teaching, and both attempt to make grammar meaningful, and manipulate the way in which input is processed to some extent. Specifically in the Five-Stage Method, like in Processing Instruction, the language structure and processing strategies are presented to the learners with the difference that in the Five-Stage Method the learners are also provided with many production opportunities.
When the Five-Stage Method is compared to the four instructional principles formulated by Kanda and Beglar54 (2004), which was proved to be better than the traditional way of teaching, we find many similarities, namely: it has stages that establish form-function relations, it compares related tenses and tense-aspect forms, promotes learner autonomy with the stages of Consolidation and Exploration, and provides opportunities for generative use. Nonetheless, the Five-Stage group was not better in the written and the spoken post-tests as expected. It was only significantly better than the Traditional and LdL Method in the decontextualized activities test as was reported in Chapter 12.
Prior research found that when teaching the Present Progressive through explanations, comparison to other tense forms, contextualized activities, pair work, form-focused production, memorization and dialogue creation, better results were obtained than with a traditional lecture of explanation in the native language followed by practice (Kanda and Beglar, 2004). Teaching cognitively was found to be slightly more effective for teaching the Present Simple than other methods (traditional) (Tian55, 2015), but was, however, found to be significantly better for teaching the progressive than other methods (traditional) (Iwasaki56, 2006).
Contrary to previous research, which in general found that the Traditional Method proved to be less effective than any other method (Tian, 2015; and Iwasaki, 2006; Kanda and Beglar, 2004; cf. section 10.3), in my study the opposite is the case, since as already mentioned the Traditional group performed better in both post-tests (spoken and written). However, it needs to be mentioned here that the fact that the Traditional group was better from the beginning and performed better in the written pre-test and the proficiency test relativizes the advantage of this group during the intervention period.
54 Cf. section 10.3. for more information about Kanda and Beglar (2004). 55 Cf. section 10.3. for more information about Tian (2015). 56 Cf. section 10.3. for more information about Iwasaki (2006).
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In order to test the effectiveness of the three proposed instructional methods an empirical setting needed to be established. The main research questions, and hypotheses were elaborated in Chapter 11 along with the predictions about the experiment. The experimental setting of the current study is also outlined and discussed in this chapter, with a detailed overview of the setting, participants and the types of tests used and their purposes. The L1 Albanian university students taught in the three methods took a proficiency test (cf. section 11.5.1.) and were pre- and post-tested in written (cf. section 11.5.3.) and spoken (cf. section 11.5.2.) form along with a WIHIC questionnaire (cf. section 11.5.4.) investigating their attitudes toward the teaching method. After it was explained that the pre- and post-tests would indicate which teaching method would be more successful and whether this improvement would be in correlation with their attitudes, the next chapter offered statistical evidence about these questions.
In order to make sure that the type of the task (used in the written and spoken tests in my experiment) was not responsible for the success or lack thereof on the test, the spoken and written tests involved a variety of tasks that aimed to elicit tense-aspect forms in freer and more controlled tasks in different contexts (cf. section 11.5.2. and 11.5.3.). Second, L2 proficiency as a crosslinguistic factor that causes difficulties in learning was accounted for with the proficiency test (cf. section 11.5.1.). Whether either L2 proficiency or the acquisition of language helps was tested and correlated in section (cf. section 12.2.2.), where it was concluded that despite the different results in the proficiency test, all three groups significantly improved when the result of the written pre-test were compared to the post-test (cf. section 12.2.4.).
In Chapter 12, the results of the various tests were presented and described. As mentioned in section 12.1.1. the Traditional group showed significantly different results than both the LdL and the Five-Stage group in the proficiency test, with an alpha level of p=.004. This led to the question of whether the Traditional group would perform better in the written pre- or post-test as well. Indeed, the Traditional group showed considerably higher results than both the LdL group and the Five-Stage group in the written pre-test (cf. section 12.2.1.) and also in the written post-test (cf. section 12.2.3., but without statistical significance).
Chapter 12 also revealed that the results of the proficiency test correlate with the results of the written pre-test (for the traditional and LdL groups; cf. section 12.2.2.). This then, indicated that the participants who scored highly on one test also did well on the other test, which implies
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that their overall knowledge of English correlates with their knowledge of tense-aspect forms except for the Five-Stage group. For instance, the fact that the LdL group’s results on the proficiency test correlated with the written pre-test, indicated that this group’s performance was consistent on both tests and that their knowledge is mirrored in both tests due to the regression coefficient, which was r²=.374 with significance level p<.001. The findings were the same for the Traditional group for which the proficiency test also correlated with the written pre-test, with a regression coefficient of r²=.221 and statistical significance level of p<.004. Nonetheless, the Five-Stage group’s correlation coefficient was r²=.086, with an alpha level of p<.082, which indicated no significant correlation of the pre-test and proficiency results. This means that this group’s performance on the English proficiency test was not consistent with the written pre-test results. Whether this meant that the other two groups had an advantage over the Five-Stage group was revealed in the written post-test analysis (cf. section 12.2.3.) where it was concluded that there were no significant differences among the three groups despite the correlation results. This led to the conclusion that the Five-Stage group’s lower overall language performance did not affect their tense-aspect acquisition and improvement at the end of the training period.
The comparison of the written pre-test with the written post-test (cf. section 12.2.4.) revealed that all three groups performed significantly better after the training period. Even though the Traditional group had a statistically significant difference from the other groups in the written pre-test, the written post-test showed that there is no statistically significant difference in this test among the three groups. This again means that the fact that the Traditional group was slightly better in the post-test could be due to the significant performance in the pre-test, while the improvement of the other two groups in the post-test could be due to the instructional influence. It follows that the Five-Stage and the LdL group not only significantly improved during the training period they also so to say caught up with the Traditional group. However, due to the nature of the teaching method it was expected that the Traditional group would perform better than the other two groups in the written tests, since here the focus was on mastering the tense-aspect combinations for written performance, rather than oral performance. The Traditional group did surprise in the spoken post-test where it performed significantly better than the LdL group, which was unexpected and not in line with the method’s structure and aims. Since these students prefer to know the tense-aspect rules before they engage in any kind of activity (as the WIHIC questionnaire revealed in section 12.4.2.), this could have served
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as the main advantage for the Traditional group. This would mean that the instructional method’s success and effectiveness of teaching tense forms depended on the students’ preferences rather than on the set of practices used in this method.
The test, analysis and discussion that followed were those regarding the performance of the three groups in contextualized and decontextualized activities (cf. section 12.2.5.) as part of the hypothesis 2 in this study (cf. section 11.1. and Chapter 13). When comparing the written pre- and post-test results, all groups displayed a statistical significance in the performance in the contextualized activities with the following slight advantages: Five-Stage > Traditional > LdL, while in decontextualized activities the order was: Five-Stage > LdL > Traditional. The results are surprising, since the Traditional group did not focus on tense-aspect combination in different contexts and yet it improved significantly in contextualized activities. This group rather focused on decontextualized activities but did not improve in this type of activities during the 15-week training period.
The reason for the insignificant improvement of the LdL group in the written post-test for decontextualized activities, may lie in the instructional method itself. Since this approach aimed towards understanding the material with the purpose of teaching it to others, and providing peers with activities that they would complete rather than the student teacher him/herself; it could be that the members of the LdL group did not have as many opportunities to practice tense-aspect combinations in contextualized and decontextualized activities as the Five-Stage group did.
The clear advantage that the Five-Stage group had, which is in alignment with the predictions in the hypothesis 2, is that this group would perform better in contextualized activities. According to the results, the Five-Stage group was better in contextualized activities when the pre- and post-test were compared, and significantly better in the decontextualized activities than the two other groups. This confirms the effectiveness of the Recognition and Exploration stage which enables the learners to discover additional uses and application of the tense forms in various contexts. These results confirm the hypothesis made in this study and also confirm that the Five-Stage Method did achieve the goal of training the students to give a better performance in a variety of activities when using tense forms.
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The results of the spoken test showed that integration into speech was more successful for some groups (Traditional and Five-Stage) than others (LdL), leading to the conclusion that some teaching methods do help integrate tense forms into speech better than others. Secondly, the pre- and post-test progress significance for each group individually indicates that all three teaching methods contributed to significant tense-aspect improvement in knowledge. The fact that there was no significant difference between the results of the spoken pre-test (cf. section 12.3.1.) was promising in that all groups started the training with more or less an equal level of performance (with a slight advantage for the Five-Stage group). Moreover, what confirms the stated expectations is that the Five-Stage group significantly outperformed the LdL group in the spoken post-test (cf. section 12.3.2.). Since this is the aim of the teaching method used with this group, however, it is surprising that the Traditional group also showed statistical significance when compared to the LdL group, since the Traditional Instructional Method was used to teach this group which stresses neither communication nor the consolidation of tense forms into speech.
In conclusion, the fact that the Five-Stage group was better in the spoken pre-test than LdL but worse than the Traditional one in the spoken post-test, indicates that the Traditional group integrated the tense forms into speech better than the two other groups. The Traditional group was better than the LdL in the spoken pre-test (cf. section 12.3.1.), and also better than the Five-Stage group in the spoken post-test (cf. section 12.3.2.), with no statistical difference, which was unexpected and not in line with the teaching method’s structure and aims.
The attitudes of the students toward the three instructional environments were tested with a WIHIC questionnaire. The analysis of variance indicated no within group or between group significant alterations, which means that all groups liked their instructional environments. Since the ANOVA test did not reveal detailed differences for each item, a frequency analysis was carried out. Out of all three groups, the Traditional one rated the first scale of the questionnaire, namely, the scale of Student Cohesiveness, as the least common practice in their classroom. This evaluation is reasonable, since the method itself did not provide much opportunity for interaction among students, unlike the other two methods (which consequently gave higher ratings for this scale).
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The Teacher Support scale was best rated by the Five-Stage group since they did receive guidance while the teacher led them through the stages of learning. In addition, all three groups rated the items of the Involvement scale in the questionnaire similarly, since all of them expressed similar degree of agreement claiming that their competence of the English tense- aspect system had improved. In the next scale, namely the Investigation scale, all three groups more or less agree on the fact that they would prefer to be introduced to the rules first before engaging in activities, whereby the Traditional group expressed the most inclination towards investigating rules in the classroom. This declaration of the Traditional group was surprising since they have been served the rules unlike the Five-Stage group, which first had to make an attempt to discover tense-aspect forms and use.
What was remarkable in the Task Orientation scale was that the Traditional group declared that they do not think that tense-aspect combinations are crucial for speaking purposes unlike the other two groups. This is contradictory to the results that they achieved in the spoken post-test in which the students of the Traditional group significantly outperformed the LdL group and were slightly better that the Five-Stage group.
In the Cooperation scale of the WIHIC questionnaire, the Traditional group understandably stated that there was little interaction with other students or any peer work unlike the other two groups, which rated the items in the Cooperation scale positively. The Equity scale revealed that even though all three groups gave similar answers, the LdL group expressed that they got the most attention from the teacher, which might be due to several practices in this teaching method among which are: the one-on-one sessions with the teacher for preparation before the lecture, the guidance during the teaching, and the feedback session after teaching. According to the results in this scale, it can be concluded that the students prefer the teacher’s guidance but also appreciate the one-on-one consultation sessions, to the frontal approach.
All in all, the results of Chapter 12 offer the answer to the research question in this study, namely, that the teaching methodology does have an effect on the acquisition and integration of tense forms into speech. The results do not support all the hypotheses of my study since some of the results were not predicted, and success was observed where unexpected and vice versa. In a nutshell, the Traditional groups’ performance was considerably better in the proficiency test and the written pre-test. The advantage of the Traditional group in the written
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post-test was without a statistical significance. This means that this group’s superior performance in the written post-test was to be expected because of this group’s initial advantage at the beginning of the training period. Contradictory to the claims in the hypotheses, the Five- Stage group did not outperform the Traditional group in the written post-test, which, as previously mentioned, was probably due to the initial advantage that the Traditional group had over the two other groups.
The Five-Stage group, which has the best (but not statistically significant) results in the spoken pre-test, was expected to outperform the other two groups in the spoken post-test. Unexpectedly however, the Five-Stage group was worse than the Traditional group in the spoken post-test while both the traditional and the Five-Stage groups significantly outperformed the LdL group. These results go against the predictions in the hypotheses, since the Five-Stage Method, which was designed to integrate knowledge into speech, had worse (but not statistically significant) results than the Traditional group. However, this does not explain why the Traditional group had the best results in the spoken post-test. Moreover, the advantage that the Five-Stage group had over the LdL group in the spoken post-test can be a result of the nature of the Five-Stage Method, but the nature of the Traditional Method does not explain why this group was better than the Five-Stage group. One explanation could be that the fact that the Five-Stage group introduces all tenses at the same time and aims towards integrating tense forms into speech before the tense forms have become a solid part of the written competence of the students.
On the other hand, the fact that the LdL group scored similarly on the spoken pre-test but was significantly outperformed in the spoken post-test could lie in the fact that the student-teacher in this teaching method focuses on comprehension of the tense forms and seeks the same when teaching peers, rather than performance or integration of tense forms into speech. This means that the method’s aim could be the reason why this group was considerably outperformed in the spoken post-test by the Traditional and Five-Stage group, even though it had significantly improved during the training period.
As was previously discussed (cf. section 8.1), a method that can be considered as the best method for any teaching environment is the method that helps learning take place quickly (Prabhu, 1990: 168). This was exactly the purpose of my study: to identify which method would be best for teaching Morphology 1 at SEEU, Tetovo, Macedonia. Nonetheless, it needs to be
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taken into account that the teaching environment can also affect the method and its effect on the acquisition and learning (Pica, 2000: 3). Further factors that affect the learning process, that are neither under the methods’ nor the teacher’s control (as initially stated in Chapter 1), include: “personal characteristics and experiences of the learner, the social and cultural environment both inside and outside the classroom, the structure of the native and target languages, opportunities for interaction with speakers of the target language, and access to corrective feedback and form-focused instruction” (Lightbown and Spada, 2013: 212). Hence, the success or the failure of the three methods used in my study, as well as the improved hypotheses, cannot entirely be pinned to the method itself.
What is more, the results of my study show that there was statistically significant improvement nevermind the method, which suggests that methods are less significant than they tend to be represented as in the ELT world. Another factor that needs to be considered is whether this statistically significant progress was made because of the method, or good teaching, or simply because the learners were eager to learn and made a bigger effort than was expected of them to learn tense-aspect combinations. In other words, to further elaborate the third possibility, a method can hardly take full credit for the learner’s intrinsic motivation to explore and further recognize the different uses and applications of (in this case) of tense-aspect combinations.
Since the amount of learning done during a constrained time frame is one of the criteria that methods are judged on (Prabhu, 1990: 168), and since all three methods in my study helped the participants to improve their knowledge with statistical significance during a training period of 15 weeks, it can be established that all three methods were successful in their task.
In conclusion, since the teaching of university students at SEEU proved to significantly improve their knowledge of the English tense-aspect system as L1 Albanian learners regardless of the method with which they were taught, based on their WIHIC questionnaire preferences toward the LdL Method, it can be said that the best method for teaching tense and aspect, and combinations, is the one that promises significant results and the one that is most liked by the students, namely, the LdL Method.
A starting point for this investigation was the fact that more than one third of the learners at SEEU fail the Morphology 1 exam. The fact that all three methods helped the learners to perform significantly better in the post test, both written and spoken, indicates that the problem
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is not in the methodology used at SEEU. In addition, the fact that all of them preferred all three methods by giving similar answers on the WIHIC questionnaire indicates that their motivation is also not a factor that might be affecting the huge number of failure of Morphology 1. Since neither the type of method nor the attitudes of the learners affected the results and the statistically significant improvement, the conclusion is that there are other factors that cause the SEEU students to fail the Morphology 1 course in great numbers. One of the most likely reason that stands out is the time frame of the course. Morphology 1 covers all lexical class words including verbs and their features (among which are tense and aspect). This means that over the course of 15 weeks the learners go through much more material than they did in the experimental setting of my study. This leads to the recommendation that the Morphology 1 course would achieve better results if taught over a longer period of time.
14.2. Contributions of the study
The conclusions of this study are theoretically, empirically, and educationally applicable. All three aspects of these contributions to research are addressed and clarified in the following sections.
14.2.1. Theoretical contributions
The theoretical contributions of this study include several points that facilitated my research overall, and served as pedagogical pointers and advantages.
Establishing what tense and aspect are in different languages (cf. Chapter 2) and in English (cf. Chapter 3 and 4) facilitated the description of the Albanian tense-aspect system (cf. Chapter 5) and the comparison of it with English (cf. Chapter 6). The two major issues that were challenging here was the portrayal of tense and aspect in both linguistic and pedagogical books (cf. Chapter 7), and the provision of a complete picture of the past time tense-aspect combinations in Albanian using a cumulative approach. The settling of the issues of the separateness of the categories of tense and aspect in English and Albanian facilitated the instructional setup up and the lesson plain for the teaching experiment that I undertook.
Before the research could be carried out it needed to be made clear how linguistics books (cf. Chapters 2 and 3) and pedagogical books (cf. Chapter 7) describe tense, aspect and tense-aspect combinations, and what the exact number of theses and combinations was. Once it was
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established that tense and aspect are different categories in both English (cf. sections 3.1. and 3.2.) and Albanian (cf. sections 5.1. and 5.2.), these languages could then be compared to each other to see whether there would be any areas for concern in an instructional environment.
Hence, Chapter 6 revealed that the target tense-aspect combinations in English and Albanian have more similarities than differences. For instance, in section 6.1., the description of E
PAKRYERA showed that this tense form in Albanian can be used for progressive, repetitive or habitual actions in the past just like the Progressive and Habitual Past in English. The difference is that E PAKRYERA can be paired with the progressive particles po and duke to indicate progressiveness.
E KRYERA E THJESHTË, just like the Simple Past in English (cf. section 6.2.), can be used for actions that finished before the moment of speaking. This one similarity (as opposed to the four other uses of this tense form) in use and inflectional realization of the verb form in both languages was expected to be a pedagogical advantage.
E KRYERA was found to be similar in form and use to the Present Perfect in English (cf. section 6.3.), since both use the auxiliary verb ‘have’ and both can link a past action to the current moment or display a resultative consequence. Unlike the Present Perfect in English, E KRYERA can be used to refer to actions in the future, a pedagogical concern which was not confirmed by the data that was provided by the participants in my study.
MË SË E KRYERA (past perfect) (cf. section 6.4.), which in Albanian can be used for past actions completed before another action in the past, where the two actions may or may not be connected to each other depending on the context, was found to be a counterpart of the Past Perfect in English without any pedagogical concerns.
The differences of the target tense-aspect combinations were few and included a smaller number of concerns outlined here. What was identified as a pedagogical concern about E
PAKRYERA was the possibility to use the same inflectional form for expressing progressiveness and habituality, which was not the case in the tests after all. E PAKRYERA can be used for habitual and progressive actions with the same form, whereas in English the special habitual form needs to be used for habitual actions while the Past Progressive can be used for actions that were in progress in the past. This carries a pedagogical concern if the English Past
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Progressive is used for both habitual and progressive actions by L1 Albanian learners since this is possible in Albanian57.
Next, when comparing E KRYERA E THJESHTË to the Simple Past in English (cf. section 6.2.), it was shown that these two forms have more differences than similarities, since E KRYERA E
THJESHTË can be used to stress relevance to the current moment or a resultative action; to indicate a mbarëkohor ‘timeless’ reference, for future actions, and as a replacement of E
KRYERA (present perfect). The pedagogical concern here was that the L1 Albanian learners might stretch the use of E KRYERA E THJESHTË and use the Present Perfect instead.
The apprehensions raised about E KRYERA (present perfect) (cf. section 6.3.) were that it can be used to refer to actions in the future and replace Simple Past actions. Since the Present Perfect cannot be used in this way in English, this was a reason for concern. The pre-test and the post-test for all groups involved in the experiment confirm that this did not happen during my experiment.
E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR (pluperfect) (cf. section 6.5.) was identified as different from the Past
Perfect in English in two ways. First, E KRYERA E TEJSHKUAR uses a past form of the verb
‘have’, and second, when used with MË SË E KRYERA, it is used to indicate chronological order of events in the past. Since in English this is achieved with the Past Perfect and the Simple Past, this difference could lead to a tendency to use a combination of two perfect combinations in one sentence in order to indicate chronological order. The equivalents of the present perfect progressive and past perfect progressive in Albanian shows that ere is no perfect progressive in Albanian. However, there are forms that can denote progressiveness in the past called përcjellore pohore. This non-finite gerundive affirmative form was thought to be a pedagogical advantage.
One way to account for these differences between the counterparts was to raise the students’ awareness of the ways that the English counterparts are used, especially in the areas where these are used differently in the two languages. In addition, the interaction of tense and tense- aspect combinations were compared to each other (following Larsen-Freeman et al.’s (2001:4)
57 The Past Progressive and Habitual Past were not tested as tense-aspect combinations in my experiment and therefore the pedagogical concern mentioned here cannot be accounted for. This could be a starting point for further research.
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recommendation) in activities with and without contexts in order to provide the learners with a full spectrum of how the target tense forms operate.
14.2.2. Empirical contributions
The empirical contributions of this study included finding support for the success and efficiency of three different teaching methods (Traditional, LdL and Five-Stage) in teaching tense-aspect combinations by using a proficiency test and a written and spoken pre- and post- test, testing performance in contextualized and decontextualized activities, and by using a WIHIC questionnaire aimed at shedding light on the students’ perceptions of the respective teaching method.
The WIHIC questionnaire revealed that the students did like the Five-Stage but gave the LdL Method the highest ratings (cf. sections 12.4.1. and 12.4.2.). Nevertheless, it was not anticipated that the students taught in the Traditional Method would portray positive attitudes towards this method.
The written pre- and post-test showed that regardless of the correlation of the proficiency test with the written pre-test (cf. section 12.2.1.), all three groups significantly improved during the training period. This finding disproves hypothesis 1 (cf. section 11.1.), since the Five-Stage group was not the best method for teaching tense-aspect combinations.
This study also evaluated the performance of the three groups in contextualized and decontextualized activities in the written tests with the aim of finding out which method would help to improve the performance in contextualized and/or decontextualized activities and the application of tense form knowledge in different contexts. Since the Traditional group was mainly instructed by using decontextualized activities and the Five-Stage and the LdL group by using a variety of contextualized and decontextualized activities, it was initially expected that the Traditional group would perform better in the decontextualized activities while the other two groups’ results would be better in the contextualized activities. The finding indicated that the Five-Stage Method was the best teaching method for improving performance in activities with and without contexts when compared to the LdL and the Traditional group, and this therefore provided support for hypothesis 2 (cf. section 11.1.).
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All in all, it cannot be denied that all three methods had significant results in different areas. Since only one hypothesis, namely hypothesis 2, was supported in part (by the results showing a better performance in contextualized activities), it can be concluded that the Five-Stage Method has an advantage over the other teaching methods to encourage an increased performance of tense-aspect knowledge in contextualized and decontextualized activities. As a second conclusion, the method that showed significantly better results and was the most favored by the students can be considered the best and the most preferred of all three methods, and that is the LdL Method. Here it needs to be stated that this might be true only for these cognitively advanced university level learners and not universally for all learners.
14.2.3. Educationally applicable implications
On the level of application, the theoretically and empirically justified contributions will contribute to the curriculum development of certain courses taught at the South East European University, Tetovo, Macedonia. The findings of this study indicate that even though the Traditional Method has been around for a while and has been criticized, this does not mean that this method is truly ineffective. At the same time, however, the method should not be used simply due to its straight-forwardness and convenience. On the contrary, teaching methods like the Five-Stage Method and the LdL Method, consist of a variety of teaching techniques and learning processes which reach out to all students’ learning styles and more importantly to their individual and unique needs.
Finally, the educationally applicable implication of this study with regard to the SEEU curriculum for courses like Morphology 1 and 2 and Academic Skills 1-6, is that for the sake of integration of tense forms or grammar units in general, and for the sake of providing the students with teaching and learning variety (including different teaching and learning techniques and processes), these teaching methods or at least some of their elements should be integrated into the traditional teaching method. Moreover, in these courses (Morphology 1 and 2) the teacher’s aim is to help the students perform well in both contextualized and decontextualized activities for which, as the data show, the Five-Stage Method is the best.
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14.3. Limitations of this study
There are of course aspects of this study which could be considered as limitations or shortcomings. Since there are many factors that affect a research process, like every other empirical investigation, the current one is no exception.
The downside to relying solely on the achievement of the students in the spoken test is that entire conversations, debates and interactions in English cannot be recorded outside of class (at least in my experiment) and then tested for the correct use or even any use at all of the target tense forms; hence measuring internalization is challenging and it is difficult to account for with retestable and replicable certainty.
Another concern in this study that can be considered as a limitation is the slight possibility that the WIHIC questionnaire results were influenced by the desire of the participants to please the teacher. This could have been due to the fact that the students might have had the urge to show the teacher that they had a positive attitude for either method. Moreover, the close ratings of the three methods, which were all positive, were unexpected and surprising even though they were anonymous and there was no way for the teacher to know who filled out which questionnaire. Nevertheless, the fact that there were considerable differences for several key items in particular scales of the questionnaire, provided enough grounds for drawing conclusions regarding students’ attitudes towards the teaching methods and to conclude that the LdL Method was the most favored one of them all.
There are also limitations applicable to individual methods. For instance, the participants in the Five-Stage group did not only learn the use and meaning of tense-aspect forms in decontextualized activities like the Traditional group did, but also had to learn the application of these combinations in different contexts, which could have added to their work load in the class and could therefore have slowed down the integration process of tense forms into speech. The Five-Stage group was learning the tense-aspect forms, the way they interact and even substitute one another in different contexts as opposed to only learning the form and meaning as the traditional and the LdL groups did. This could have influenced the performance of the students in the Five-Stage group in the spoken post-test since they received more information at once and probably needed more time to process, digest and apply this information. This inclines me to make the prediction that if the Five-Stage group were given more time instead
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of only 15 weeks, and if they were to be delayed-post tested, they would produce significantly better results than the Traditional group and the LdL group.
The limited training period can be seen as an overall limitation that could have affected the results for all three teaching methods. If the students could have been taught in the three different methods over a longer period of time, then this might have provided different results which could have contributed to making more solid generalizations. In this case, it could have been tested whether the Traditional group was not significantly better than the other two groups in the post-test as it was in the pre-test, due to a learning curve that they might have achieved.
What can be seen as a limitation especially for the LdL Method is the fact that every student- teacher only had a single teaching session opportunity. The student preferences of this method could have matched the results, which means that this method could have been significantly better than the other two if there had been time and the opportunity for numerous teaching sessions for the student-teachers which would have strengthened their knowledge of the English tense-aspect system.
14.4. Suggestions for future research
The suggestions for further research are several. Some of these recommendations could further extend the current research and lead to more elaborate findings when additional factors are considered and further elements are included. Initially, what could be further investigated is the retention of the acquired information using all three methods after a certain period. This would involve a delayed post-test in order to test whether the retention of the tense forms is evident in either written or spoken form, or in both. This would furthermore test which method fosters retention and contributes to lifelong learning and the acquisition of these forms, and their integration into speech after a delayed period. In fact, this was one of the aspects of the current study which was initially intended to be researched, however due to unforeseen circumstances it could not be carried out.
Another suggestion for future research is to teach the same students using all three methods and then elicit preferences based on the comparison of all three methods provided by the same students, rather than teaching them in one particular method on which they express their
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opinions. In this way, the WIHIC questionnaire would provide more in-depth information about the learners’ preferences.
An additional aspect that could be researched in the future is the integration of the tense forms into spontaneous speech generated outside of the classroom in various contexts. The spontaneous speech would be spontaneous in the full sense of the word, which could be pre-, post- and delayed post-tested in order to test retention. This would give further insight into finding out whether the tense forms have been integrated into their spontaneous speech in formal and especially in informal conversations. One way of investigating this could be by getting the participants’ consent to record their conversations in English with friends with whom they only interact in English, and conversations with instructors whose first language is English (which is common at the SEE University, Tetovo, Macedonia). The same can be done during the post-test and the delayed post-test in order to investigate the integration of tense- aspect combinations into speech after the training period.
Furthermore, it would be beneficial if future research concentrated on investigating the influence of the three teaching methods on participants with different first languages. This would provide findings which would not only shed light on language transfer but also on the success of the instructional methods in the teaching of the English tense forms. More specifically, if one of the groups with the same L1 performed differently from another group with a different L1, this would indicate that the L1 did have a considerable influence on language learning. This would indicate that there is indeed a crosslinguistic influence which will affect the outcome regardless of the teaching method used. On the other hand, if both groups with different L1 were to perform similarly, this then would indicate that there is no L1 influence and that any possible or potential language learning difficulties could be pinned to the instructional method or the intralinguistic features of the target language. It should be added that including groups of two different L1 was another initial idea for the current study, which unfortunately had to be abandoned due to insufficient number of L1 Macedonian participants.
Finally, as mentioned in the introduction of my study (cf. section 1.2.), competence in contextualized activities is thought to foster integration of grammar or tense forms into speech (Willis, 2003). This could be tested by investigating whether better performance in contextualized activities means better integration into speech. This aspect would be a valid
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starting point for further research where the result of the contextualized experiment could be correlated with the spoken test in order to find out whether performance in contextualized activities does foster integration of tense forms into speech.
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16. Appendix
Appendix 1
TRADITIONAL METHOD SAMPLE LESSON
The activities in the traditional lesson plan include: translation of sentences; translation of texts; translation and memorization of rules; deductive application of tense-aspect rules; fill- in-the-blanks in sentence-level format; generalization and exceptions to the rule about tense and aspect and the target tense-aspect combinations. The macrostructure of the lesson consists of three main steps: presentation, practice and production.
Step 1: Presentation
The presentation stage involves presentation of tense forms one by one followed by practice in decontextualized activities followed by a production stage, where the students get the chance to apply the learned knowledge for that lesson. Sample material that is used for the presentation stage can be seen in Extract 16-1:
Extract 16-1: Explanation of Simple Past by Murphy (1997: 10)
In the stage of presentation, the students are encouraged to translate the rules into their native language and they are expected to make an effort to memorize the rules and uses of each tense, aspect or combination so that these can be used in the next stage.
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Step 2: Practice
In the stage of practice, the material that is introduced in the stage of presentation is tested. The activities test whether the students know how to change the verb form in a given sentence as in Extract 2, while their knowledge along with their matching skills is tested with exercises like the one presented in Extract 3.
Extract 16-2: Simple Past exercise by Murphy (1997: 11)
Extract 16-3: Simple Past exercise by Murphy (1997: 11)
The stage of practice, where knowledge learned in the stage of presentation is applied is then carried over into the stage of production. Step 3: Production
For the production stage the students are instructed to provide sentences by using a given tense- aspect combination (cf. Exercise 1) in order to see whether they have acquired the tense form and use. Alternatively, as part of the production stage, activities that involve translation are also used (cf. Exercise 2).
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Exercise 1: Write 6 sentences in Simple Past 3 of which will have regular verbs and the other 3 with irregular verbs. 1.______2.______3.______4.______5.______6.______
Exercise 2: Translate the following sentences into English.
1. Unë kurrë nuk kam qenë në Indi. ______Afati i fundit për të aplikuar ka kaluar. ______Të shkruarit poezi është një nga gjërat e mia të preferuar. ______Prindërit e saj ishin shumë krenarë kur ajo diplomoi. ______Takimi është shtyrë për shkak të rrethanave të paparashikuara. ______
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Appendix 2
FIVE-STAGE METHOD SAMPLE LESSON
The activities in the Five-Stage Method’s lesson plan include activities designed according to the learning stages of this method. The stages (improvisation, recognition, system building, exploration and consolidation), the description of the stages and the activities developed for each one are illustrated below. IMPROVISATION STAGE This stage involves improvising with the knowledge the students have without any introduction to the material or rules. This stage proceeds without feedback and correction on the teacher’s side since production is the main aim.
Interactive Production Activity 1 (free activity with adverb stimuli): Ask another student to give examples of things that they do or have done by using the following key words: often for two hours already before you went to class last Saturday
Production Peer Activity 2 (activity with partial sentence stimuli): In pairs, compose sentences using the words provided:
1. a friend is asking another friend: What/You/Do/Last Friday
2. a writer at an interview is asked: What/You/Write/Recently
3. two friends haven’t seen each other in a long time, one asks the other: What/You/Do/Lately
4. a student hasn’t studied and asks for help during the exam and the teacher says: You/Should/Ask/For Explanation Before The Exam
5. the administrator asks the student: What/You/Do/For The Past Several Weeks)
6. a friend is asking another friend: You /Pay/Your Semester Fee/Before/You/Do/Your Schedule?
7. the bachelorette asks the bride: For How Long/Date Guys/Before/Find/Man Of Your Dreams
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RECOGNITION STAGE In this stage the students are expected to recognize the tense forms and the accompanying adjectives in various contexts. Individual Activity 1 (controlled activity with adverb stimuli): Read the following text and identify actions that happened at a different time. (Taken from: http://visokoobrazovanie.blogspot.com/2011/03/cheating-and-plagiarism-at- macedonian.html)
Cheating and plagiarism at Macedonian universities The first time I encountered mass cheating at a Macedonian university was in a course I taught on technical writing. Sometime in the third week of classes I decided to give a short quiz. There were about 35 students in the class in a room with about 45 seats. I was warned by colleagues that cheating in the Macedonian educational system from the first grade through the university is endemic, so I decided to give the students a long lecture on cheating and warned them that anyone caught cheating will fail the quiz. At that time the university had no general policy on punishment for cheating. Cheating has become a culturally acceptable practice in Macedonian schools. If you walk into a very large university classroom with small number of students you will notice that all the students sit grouped tightly together. The purpose, of course, is so that they can help each other. There were several empty seats in my classroom, so I tried to encourage students to spread out a little bit. However, it was still not possible to leave an empty seat between students. As soon as the quiz was distributed students began to whisper with their neighbors. No matter how often I warned them, the whispering would not stop. Eventually I realized that I was going to have to invalidate the quiz, but I decided to let the students complete it anyway just so that I could continue observing how students go about cheating during exams. I noticed in the very first row one female student requesting help from her neighbor. I warned her twice to stop it, but to no avail. As soon as I would turn my head away from them, the cheating would continue. Finally, I decided to stand right in front of her and observe her from no more than two feet away. That did not seem to bother her at all, and she continued cheating through the remainder of the quiz. The practice of cheating was so widespread that I finally decided to reduce the number of quizzes during the semester, and I also requested a proctor to help me monitor the process.
Individual Activity 2 (controlled activity with adverb stimuli): Identify in the text below which tense goes with which adverb: Maggie got a job a week ago. She has already worked in publishing in her previous job. However, she was worried about her first piece of writing because she hadn’t written anything creative since her last job. Therefore, she has been writing all day long yesterday. When she was finished, she was pleased with her writing skills since she hasn’t written so well in a long time. She finally had the confidence to start the job she had been wanting for ages.
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SYSTEM BUILDING STAGE The System Building stage involves explicit presentation of rules and forms with clear grammatical explanations. The teacher presents the use, form and the extended aplications of the tenses in various forms (scales, example sentences, or comparisons). Extracts 4 to 9 are used to illustrate the stage of System Building. For instance Extract 4 below which illustrates the Past Progressive on a time scale, is an example of how systems of rules can be built in this stage.
Extract 16-4: Past Progressive form and use by Murphy (1997:12) In this stage the teacher can make use of grammar books which offer explanations of how the accompanying adverbs are used with a particular tense as Murphy (1997: 12) did in Extract 16-5 below:
Extract 16-5: Present Perfect form and use by Murphy (1997: 14) In Extract 16-6, the Present Perfect Progressive is exemplified first and then analyzed for form and usage by Murphy (1997).
Extract 16-6: Perfect Progressive form and use by Murphy (1997: 18)
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The approach of building systems by using comparison can be seen below where the Present Perfect and the Present Perfect Progressive are illustrated and exemplified for a clearer contrast.
Extract 16-7: Comparison of the Present Perfect Simple and the Present Perfect Progressive in form and use by Murphy (1997: 20) Furthermore, the teacher can elicit differences between various tense forms by identifying the difference of the tense forms, their use and accompanying adverbs as in Extract 16-8.
Extract 16-8: Comparison of the Present Perfect and the Past Simple in form and use by Murphy (1997:28)
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A similar comparative approach of presenting tense forms can be done in the stage of System Building with Extract 16-9 where the Present Perfect Progressive is compared to the Past Perfect Progressive which highlights the importance of aspect and its role in the English tense- aspect system.
Extract 16-9: Comparison of the Present Perfect Progressive and the Past Perfect Progressive in form and use by Murphy (1997: 32) The stage of System Building can also be established with some activities. Some sample activities (cf. Activities 1-2) are presented below.
Activity 1: Write example sentences for the 5 tense forms exemplifying the different uses. (taken and adapted form: Evans and Dooley, 2008: 157-158).
Simple Past: We use the Simple Past: for an action that occurred at a definite time (stated or implied) in the past. Eg. ______She for actions that happened immediately after one another in the past. Eg. ______She for habits or states which are now finished. Eg. ______She
Present Perfect: We use the Present Perfect (have + past participle) for: an action that happened at an unstated time in the past. The emphasis is on the action, the time when it occurred is unimportant or unknown. Eg. ______She an action which started in the past and continues up to the present, especially with stative verbs (see above) such as be, have, like, know, etc. Eg. ______She
274 a recently completed action. Eg. ______She personal experiences or changes. Eg. ______She
Present Perfect Progressive: We use the Present Perfect Progressive (have + been + verb - ing): to put emphasis on the duration of an action which started in the past and continues up to the present. Eg. ______She for an action which started in the past and lasted for some time. It may still be continuing or has finished already with the result visible in the present. Eg. ______She to express anger, irritation or annoyance. Eg. ______She for repeated actions in the past continuing to the present. Eg. ______She
Past Perfect: We use the Past Perfect (had + past participle): for an action which happened before another past action or before a stated time in the past. Eg. ______She for an action which finished in the past, and whose result was visible at a later point in the past. Eg. ______She for a general situation in the past. Eg. ______She
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Past Perfect Progressive: We use the Past Perfect Progressive: to put emphasis on the duration of an action which started and finished in the past, before another action or stated time in the past, usually with for or since. Eg. ______She for an action which lasted for some time in the past and whose result was visible in the past. Eg. ______She
As another activity for the System Building stage, the students can reproduce the introduced forms and uses and the accompanying adverbs in the table below, followed by an accuracy review by the teacher. Activity 2: Reproduce the forms, uses and the accompanying adverbs of the tense forms.
Tense forms: Use Form Adverbs Sentences Simple Past Present Perfect Simple Present Perfect Progressive Past Perfect Simple Past Perfect Progressive
EXPLORATION STAGE This stage explores how the different tense forms work in decontextualized and contextualized activities as well as it discovers further applications and uses of the tense forms. The activities that can be used in this stage are exemplified below (cf. Activities 1 to 3). Activity 1: Choice the correct answer. (Hewings, 2005: 240). 1. Kathy ______a few minutes ago. A has left B leaves C left D had left 2. We ______to the tennis club since we moved here. A have belonged B belong C belonged D are belonging 3. After she ______hospital, she had a long holiday. A leaves B is leaving C has left D left 4. When he realized I ______at him, he ______away. A looked…was turning B was looking…turned C was looking…was turning D looked…turned 5. When the builders where here I ______them cups of tea all the time. A was making B am making C made D make 6. When I went into the bathroom, I found that the bath ______. A overflows B overflowed C had overflowed D is overflowing
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Activity 2: Complete the text by putting the verbs you make up in the correct tense form. I was very young when I ______my first love. She ______me for quite some time before she first spoke to me. One day she had written a love letter which I didn’t know about and she ______for me in front of the school building. By the time I ______out, she had left and I never knew about this. Finally, I ______about her love for me at a party, when she gave me the letter she had been wanting to give me for such a long time. It was then when I asked her “Why ______for so long to tell me this?” She smiled and said that she had always known that I was the one for her. Then she whispered in my ear “I am glad I ______this long”. Yesterday ______our anniversary and we ______for 20 years now. Activity 3: Error correction.
Extract 16-10: Error identification exercise by Nettle and Hopkins (2003: 46) CONSOLIDATION STAGE In the stage of Consolidation, the knowledge that has been presented, analyzed and practiced in the previous stage is now prepared for immediate production. Activities 1-3 show how the students can be engaged in spontaneous production with no time for preparation.
Activity 1 (adverb stimuli interaction): Think of a question (without writing them down) to ask another student of your choice and use one of the following adverbs: yet; already; still; ever; never; for; recently, etc. e.g. S1: Have you read a book recently? S2: I haven’t read a book recently.
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Activity 2 Spontaneous Story: the teacher will start a story by saying: ’Once upon a time….’ and will let the students continue the story any way they like by saying a sentence using the tenses taught: e.g. T: Once upon a time there was a very old man. S1: The old man had lived alone his whole life. S2: However, one day while he was playing the flute something fell from the sky.
Activity 3 (Interview): Create several questions to interview a colleague who is applying for a teaching job: 1. Have you ever ______. 2. What have you ______in your previous job? 3. What skills/experience gained in the past ______.
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Appendix 3
LDL METHOD SAMPLE LESSON
LdL Sample Lecture In the LdL Method the students followed the same syllabus like the other two groups. Nonetheless, the lectures prepared by the students varied in terms of variety of activity types as well as preparedness and material load. Moreover, the lectures organized by the students consisted of a collection of activities and games in order to engage the students. Their choice of activities was limited to the course books provided by the teacher that were already being used in the other methods. Most of the student-teachers preferred the use of power point presentations and activities used involved group work and fostered interaction. A typical lecture provided by the student-teachers is sampled below. Activity 1: The student-teachers starts the class by involving the students in a power point presentation correction activity. The first slide of which is the first picture followed by the final slide where all the mistakes and accompanied adverbs have been identified.
Extract 16-11: A power point presentation slide of an editing activity (taken and adapted from Nettle and Hopkins (2003: 46)).
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Extract 16-12: A power point presentation slide of an editing activity with answers (taken and adapted from Nettle and Hopkins (2003: 46). In the explanation stage the student-teacher would use explicit explanations from various books in order to explain the use and form of respective tense form (cf. Extracts 16-13 and 16- 14).
Extract 16-13: Form and use of the Past Progressive by Nettle and Hopkins (2003: 24).
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Extract 16-14: Form and use of the Past Progressive by Nettle and Hopkins (2003: 24). The explanation in the LdL Method is followed by differnet kinds of anctivities that the student-teacher prepared or borrowed from various sources. Exercises 1, 2 and 3 usually consist of a collection of handouts, handed out to the students, illustrated in Extracts 15 to 17. Exercise 1: Transform the following sentences into questions:
Extract 16-15: Activity taken from Nettle and Hopkins (2003: 22)
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Exercise 2:
Extract 16-16: Simple Past and Past Progressive activity from Nettle and Hopkins (2003: 27).
Exercise 3: Read the article about some unusual Christmas cards. Why are the unusual?
Extract 16-17: Activity from Nettle and Hopkins (2003: 41).
The last activity that the student-teachers liked to finish the class with, was an interactive activity or game. One of these is illustrated here.
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Game 1: Game Tic Tac Toe For this activity the student-teacher divides the students into two groups where groups 1 can be marked with O and group 2 with an X. The groups unanimously pick a number and answer the question correctly which for this particular activity is the Simple Past of irregular verbs.
Table 16-1: The table on the white board. Table 16-2: The answers to the game.
1 2 3 1 tear - 2 shut- 3 rise- tore shut rose 4 5 6 4 dig- 5 swear- 6 sweep- 7 8 9 dug swore swept
7 tear- 8 wear- 9 seek- Table 16-3: The answers to the table. tore wore sought
o x x
x o x
x x o
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Appendix 4
PROFICIENCY TEST
The proficiency test consists of three parts: a listening, reading and writing test. These are illustrated in the following pages.
Note: All the parts for the proficiency test in this dissertation have been taken from Cambridge IELTS 7 2009 illustrated below with the corresponding page numbers.
Listening Proficiency Test taken from Cambridge IELTS 7 (2009: 56-57) and reprinted with permission from Cambridge University Press.
Questions 1 and 2
Complete the notes below. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer. Example Answer Type of job required: Part-time
Student is studying 1______. Student is in the 2 ______year of the course.
Questions 3-5 Complete the table below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.
Position available Where Problem
Receptionist in the 3 ______evening lectures
4 ______in the Child Care Centre too early
Clerical Assistant in the 5 ______evening lectures
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Questions 6-10 Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
STUDENT DETAILS Name: Anita Newman Address: 6 ______Room No. 7 ______Other skills: Speaks some Japanese Position available 8 ______at the English Language Centre Duties: Responds to enquiries and 9 ______Time of the interview: Friday and 10 ______a.m.
Reading Proficiency Test taken from Cambridge IELTS 7 (2009: 26-29) and reprinted (with adapted question numbers) with permission from Cambridge University Press.
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-14, which are based on Reading Passage below.
EDUCATING PSYCHE Educating Psyche by Bernie Neville is a book which looks at radical new approaches to learning, escribing the effects of emotion, imagination and the unconscious on learning. One theory discussed in the book is that proposed by George Lozanov, which focuses on the power of suggestion. Lozanov's instructional technique is based on the evidence that the connections made in the brain through unconscious processing (which he calls non-specific mental reactivity) are more durable than those made through conscious processing. Besides the laboratory evidence for this, we know from our experience that we often remember what we have perceived peripherally, long after we have forgotten what we set out to learn. If we think of a book we studied months or years ago, we will find it easier to recall peripheral details- the colour, the binding, the typeface, the table at the library where we sat while studying it- than the content on which we were concentrating. If we think of a lecture we listened to with great concentration, we will recall the lecturer's appearance and mannerisms, our place in the auditorium, the failure of the air-conditioning, much more easily than the ideas we went to learn. Even if these peripheral details are a bit elusive, they come back readily in hypnosis or when we relive the event imaginatively, as in psychodrama. The details of the content of the lecture, on the other hand, seem to have gone forever. This phenomenon can be partly attributed to the common counterproductive approach to study (making extreme efforts to memorise, tensing muscles, inducing fatigue), but it also simply reflects the way the brain functions. Lozanov therefore made indirect instruction (suggestion) central to his teaching system. In suggestopedia, as he called his method, consciousness is shifted away from the curriculum to focus on something peripheral. The curriculum then becomes peripheral and is dealt with by the reserve capacity of the brain. The suggestopedic approach to foreign language learning provides a good illustration. In its most recent variant (1980), it consists of the reading of 285 vocabulary and text while the class is listening to music. The first session is in two parts. In the first part, the music is classical (Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms) and the teacher reads the text slowly and solemnly, with attention to the dynamics of the music. The students follow the text in their books. This is followed by several minutes of silence. In the second part, they listen to baroque music (Bach, Corelli, Handel) while the teacher reads the text in a normal speaking voice. During this time they have their books closed. During the whole of this session, their attention is passive; they listen to the music but make no attempt to learn the material. Beforehand, the students have been carefully prepared for the language learning experience. Through meeting with the staff and satisfied students they develop the expectation that learning will be easy and pleasant and that they will successfully learn several hundred words of the foreign language during the class. In a preliminary talk, the teacher introduces them to the material to be covered, but does not 'teach' it. Likewise, the students are instructed not to try to learn it during this introduction. Some hours after the two-part session, there is a follow-up class at which the students are stimulated to recall the material presented. Once again the approach is indirect. The students do not focus their attention on trying to remember the vocabulary, but focus on using the language to communicate (e.g. through games or improvised dramatisations). Such methods are not unusual in language teaching. What is distinctive in the suggestopedic method is that they are devoted entirely to assisting recall. The 'learning' of the material is assumed to be automatic and effortless, accomplished while listening to music. The teacher's task is to assist the students to apply what they have learned paraconsciously, and in doing so to make it easily accessible to consciousness. Another difference from conventional teaching is the evidence that students can regularly learn 1000 new words of a foreign language during a suggestopedic session, as well as grammar and idiom. Lozanov experimented with teaching by direct suggestion during sleep, hypnosis and trance states, but found such procedures unnecessary. Hypnosis, yoga, Silva mind-control, religious ceremonies and faith healing are all associated with successful suggestion, but none of their techniques seem to be essential to it. Such rituals may be seen as placebos. Lozanov acknowledges that the ritual surrounding suggestion in his own system is also a placebo, but maintains that without such a placebo people are unable or afraid to tap the reserve capacity of their brains. Like any placebo, it must be dispensed with authority to be effective. Just as a doctor calls on the full power of autocratic suggestion by insisting that the patient take precisely this white capsule precisely three times a day before meals, Lozanov is categoric in insisting that the suggestopedic session be conducted exactly in the manner designated, by trained and accredited suggestopedic teachers. While suggestopedia has gained some notoriety through success in the teaching of modern languages, few teachers are able to emulate the spectacular results of Lozanov and his associates. We can, perhaps, attribute mediocre results to an inadequate placebo effect. The students have not developed the appropriate mind set. They are often not motivated to learn through this method. They do not have enough 'faith'. They do not see it as 'real teaching', especially as it does not seem to involve the 'work' they have learned to believe is essential to learning.
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Questions 1-4 Choose the correct letter: A, B, C or D.
1 The book Educating Psyche is mainly concerned with A the power of suggestion in learning. B a particular technique for learning based on emotions. C the effects of emotion on the imagination and the unconscious. D ways of learning which are not traditional. 2 Lozanov's theory claims that, when we try to remember things, A unimportant details are the easiest to recall. B concentrating hard produces the best results. C the most significant facts are most easily recalled. D peripheral vision is not important. 3 In this passage, the author uses the examples of a book and a lecture to illustrate that A both of these are important for developing concentration. B his theory about methods of learning is valid. C reading is a better technique for learning than listening. D we can remember things more easily under hypnosis. 4 Lozanov claims that teachers should train students to A memorise details of the curriculum. B develop their own sets of indirect instructions. C think about something other than the curriculum content. D avoid overloading the capacity of the brain. Questions 5-10 Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage? Write: TRUE if the statement agrees with the information FALSE if the statement contradicts the information NOTGIVEN if there is no information on this
5 In the example of suggestopedic teaching in the fourth paragraph, the only variable that changes is the music. 6 Prior to the suggestopedia class, students are made aware that the language experience will be demanding. 7 In the follow-up class, the teaching activities are similar to those used in conventional classes. 8 As an indirect benefit, students notice improvements in their memory. 9 Teachers say they prefer suggestopedia to traditional approaches to language teaching. 10 Students in a suggestopedia class retain more new vocabulary than those in ordinary classes.
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Questions 11-14 Complete the summary using the list of words, A-K, below. Write the correct letter A-K
Suggestopedia uses a less direct method of suggestion than other techniques such as hypnosis. However. Lozanov admits that a certain amount of 11 ______is necessary in order to convince students, even if this is just a 12______Furthermore. If the method is to succeed, teachers must follow a set procedure. Although Lozanov's method has become quite 13 ______the results of most other teachers using this method have been 14 ______.
A spectacular B teaching C lesson D authoritarian E unpopular F ritual G unspectacular H placebo I involved J appropriate K well known
Writing Proficiency Test taken from Cambridge IELTS 7 (2009: 79) and reprinted with permission from Cambridge University Press.
You should spend about 40 minutes on this task. Write about the following topic:
As most people spend a major part of their adult life at work, job satisfaction is an important element of individual wellbeing.
What factors contribute to job satisfaction? How realistic is the expectation of job satisfaction for all workers?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Write at least 250 words. ______
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Appendix 5
SPOKEN PRE- AND POST-TEST
EVALUATOR’S SHEET
I Personal Narrative: Choose one of the provided topics and discuss it in at least 5 sentences: most influential moment in your live, happiest moment, idols, dream profession as children, learning to swim/cycle/play an instrument …
II Topic discussion with questions prompts: 1. Men have always been trying to dominate women. a. When have you started to notice that? b. For how long has this been going on? c. Have you ever done something to change this? 2. How long did it take you to learn English prepositions? a. When did you start learning English prepositions? b. For how long have you been learning English prepositions? c. Have you ever done extra-curricular activities to improve your English? III Adverb Stimuli: Use the following words to make a sentence with: yet; already; still; ever; never; for; since; ago;
IV Sentence Stems: Make a sentence that starts with:
1. I ______never______2. I______ago. 3. I have been ______4. I ______already ______that______5. Before I started my studies at SEEU, I______6. Last year, I ______
V Question/Answer (Note: Please say full sentences.)
Present Perfect Progressive: Have you been taking English classes outside school before you started at SEEU? If yes, for now long? Have you been considering studying abroad recently? Past Perfect Progressive: How long had you been learning to swim before you could swim on your own? When had you been interested in studying English since?
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Present Perfect: Have ever you eaten Chinese food? Has anyone from your family ever been to the USA? Past Perfect: Had you learned pronunciation before you started college? Had you driven a car before you got you driving license? Simple Past: Was it easy for you to decide what faculty to join? How long did it take you to create your first schedule at SEEU?
VI Translation: please translate the statements into English:
Present Perfect Progressive: How long have you been studying English for? Albanian English Sa kohë e ke studiuar gjuhën angleze? Past Perfect Progressive: How long had you been going to school before you started your studies/college? Albanian English Sa vjet ke skuar në shkollë para se filloi me studimet? Past Perfect Simple: Had you ever seen a snake before you went to the ZOO? Albanian English A kishe parë ndonjëherë gjarpër para se shkove në kopsht zoologjik? Present Perfect / Simple Past (testing the awareness of the time/tense relationship): I didn’t see her today. Maybe I will see her tomorrow / I haven’t seen her today. Maybe I will see her later. Albanian English Nuk e kam pare sot. Ndoshta do ta shoh nesër. Nuk e kam pare sot ende. Ndoshta do ta shoh më vonë.
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PARTICIPANT’S SHEET
I Personal Narrative: Chose one of the provided topics and discuss it in at least 5 sentences: most influential moment in your live, happiest moment, idols, religion, dream profession as children, learning to swim/cycle/play an instrument, etc…
II Topic discussion with questions prompts: 1. Men have always been trying to dominate women. 2. How long did it take you to learn English prepositions?
III Adverb Stimuli: Use the following words to make a sentence with: yet; already; still; ever; never; for; since; ago;
IV Sentence Stems: Make a sentence that starts with: 1. I ______never______2. I______ago. 3. I have been______4. I ______already ______that______5. Before I started my studies at SEEU, I______6. Last year, I ______
V Question/Answer: Please listen to the questions that the interviewer will ask and answer then in full sentences (the evaluator is the one who has the questions and asks the participants; cf. evaluator’s sheet above).
VI Translation: please translate the statements into English: Albanian English Sa kohë e ke studiuar gjuhën angleze? Sa vjet ke skuar në shkollë para se filloi me studimet? A kishe parë ndonjëherë gjarpër para se shkove në kopsht zoologjik? Nuk e pash sot. Nuk e kam parë sot ende.
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Appendix 6
WRITTEN PRE- AND POST-TEST
I Write a paragraph stating what your opinion is on one of the following topics. (Note: Make sure to write a topic sentence, supporting sentences and a concluding sentence.)
1. Men have always been trying to dominate women. 2. How long did it take you to learn English prepositions? Agree or disagree using 5 sentences. ______
II Use 5 of the following words to make 5 sentences on any topic you desire: yet; for 12 hours!; since I last saw you; ago; by the time; as soon as, all day yesterday;
1. ______2. ______3. ______4. ______5. ______
III Complete the following sentences any way you desire: 1. A year ago ______2. I have never______3. Recently ______4. I had already ______before______5. ______for several years.
IV Answer the following questions using full sentences: 1. Have you been taking private English courses outside of school? ______2. How long had you been learning riding a bike before you could ride on your own? ______3. Have ever you eaten Japanese food? ______4. Had you ever driven a car before you got you driving license? ______5. Was it easy for you to decide what faculty to join? ______
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V Translation: please translate the statements into English in the spaces provided below: Albanian English Sa kohë e ke studiuar gjuhën angleze? Sa vjet ke shkuar në shkollë para se të fillosh me studimet? A kishe parë ndonjëherë gjarpër para se të shkosh në kopsht zoologjik? Nuk e pash sot. Nuk e kam parë sot ende.
Contextualized vs. Decontextualized Activities Exercise 1: Complete the sentences by putting the verbs in brackets in the correct tense. (taken and adapted from Hewings, 2005: 7) 1. Recently, research ______(show) that cycling as a results can help patients overcome their illness. 2. In 1788, he ______(write) his last great work in Vienna. 3. My doctor ______(tell) for over a year now that smoking is bad for me. 4. When the phone rang, I ______(fall) asleep, so that I didn’t hear the phone. 5. She ______(suffer) from the flu for a whole week, before she was interviewed.
Exercise 2: Complete the text by putting the verbs in brackets in the correct tense. I was very young when I ______(meet) my first love. She ______(know) me for quite some time before she first spoke to me. One day she had written a love letter which I didn’t know about and she ______(wait) for me in front of the school building. By the time I ______(go) out, she had left and I never knew about this. Finally, I ______(find out) about her love for me at a party, when she gave me the letter she had been wanting to give me for such a long time. It was then when I asked her “Why ______(you/wait) for so long to tell me this?” She smiled and said that she had always known that I was the one for her. Then she whispered in my ear “I am glad I ______(wait) this long”. Yesterday ______(be) our anniversary and we ______(happily/marry) for 20 years now.
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Exercise 3: Put the verb phrases from the box in the correct position in the text below. (taken and adapted from Hewings, 2005: 13) have also written have found has increased have been planning has been neglecting has cut has announced spoke invested has been running
Kenneth Sparks, the Opposition spokesperson for science, talks to a television interviewer: The previous government (1) ______huge amounts of money into the Centre and I think it's terrible that the present government (2) ______this cut when the number of cases of influenza (3) ______. The Centre (4) ______successfully for many years. But this decision is just typical of this government. It (5) ______health research ever since it was elected, and (6) ______back on spending on science generally. Although the government says that the cut is necessary because of the recent world economic problems, I (7) ______evidence that they (8) ______this for some time. I (9) ______to the Minister about this yesterday and (10) ______to the Prime Minister demanding that the decision should be reversed.
Exercise 4: Put the verb phrases from the box in the correct position in the sentences below. (taken from: http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbs14.htm) went had travelled had been working had been crying have been waiting haven’t seen had already worked
1. It is already 9:30 PM and I ______here for over an hour. If John does not get here in the next five minutes, I am going to leave. 2. Did you hear that Ben was fired last month? He ______for that import company for more than ten years before they fired him and he ______in almost every department. 3. I ______Jessica lately. Maybe she ______on vacation last week. 4. Sarah ______almost the whole world by the time she turned twenty-five. 5. When Melanie came into the office yesterday, her eyes were red and watery. I think she ______.
Exercise 5: Put the adverbs from the box in the correct places in the sentences below. (sentences: 1 and 2 are taken and adapted from Hewings, 2005: 11) recently; before; since; as a result; every evening; yet
1. As Geoff was introduced to Mrs. Snape, he realised that he had met her ______. 2. During the previous week, I went to the gym ______. 3. At the conference, scientists reported that they had found a cure for malaria ______. 4. I haven’t read any of Austen’s novels______. I will start soon. 5. I have been swimming for hours and I feel exhausted ______of that. 6. I had been saving ______Christmas for a new laptop.
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Exercise 6: Write the most suitable adverb to complete the text below: a long time; since; already; for ages; ago; lately; all day long
Maggie got a job a week ______. She has ______worked in publishing in her previous job. However, she was worried because she hasn’t written anything new ______. She was concerned about her first piece of writing because she hadn’t worked on anything creative ______her last job. Therefore, she has been writing ______yesterday. When she was finished, she was pleased with her writing skills since she hasn’t written so well in ______. She finally had the confidence to start the job which she had been desiring ______.
Exercise 7: Correct the sentences that have mistakes below. (Sentences 1, 2, 7, 11 are taken and adapted from Hewings, 2005: 7, 9, 11) 1. The scheme was now in operation for a year and has been hailed as a great success. 2. We've had enormous problems recently with ants in the kitchen. We just can't get rid of them. 3. I have bought this watch yesterday. 4. By the time the teacher finally arrived, we had been waiting for over an hour. We almost left the classroom. 5. Where were you Daniel? I waited here for 5 minutes. 6. The house looks so much bigger now that we've painted the walls in brighter colours. 7. I saw many pictures of the pyramids before I went to Egypt. 8. They never went to Germany. 9. The Earth has been formed about 4,500 million years ago. 10. She drove for 3 years now.
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Appendix 7
MODIFIED WIHIC QUESTIONNAIRE
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Figure 16-1: Page 1 of modified WIHIC questionnaire
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Figure 16-2: Page 2 of modified WIHIC questionnaire
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Appendix 8
WIHIC QUESTIONNAIRE FREQUENCY ANALYSIS RESULTS
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LdL WIHIC questionnaire results in percentage (%) Almost Item Almost Never Seldom Sometimes Often Always Item 1 0 8.3 25 29.2 37.5 Item 2 0 12.5 45.8 25 16.7 Item 3 4.2 8.3 33.3 45.8 8.3 Item 4 8.3 4.2 45.8 25 16.7 Item 5 4.2 4.2 37.5 41.7 12.5 Item 6 0 16.7 45.8 25 12.5 Item 7 0 0 12.5 29.2 58.3 Item 8 0 4.2 4.2 33.3 58.3 Item 9 0 0 8.3 29.2 62.5 Item 10 0 0 16.7 20.8 62.5 Item 11 4.2 0 20.8 20.8 54.2 Item 12 54.2 4.2 25 0 16.7 Item 13 0 4.2 37.5 12.5 45.8 Item 14 0 12.5 20.8 45.8 20.8 Item 15 0 0 20.8 25 54.2 Item 16 0 0 16.7 45.8 37.5 Item 17 8.3 4.2 29.2 45.8 12.5 Item 18 4.2 8.3 37.5 33.3 16.7 Item 19 20.8 8.3 29.2 25 16.7 Item 20 0 4.2 8.3 20.8 66.7 Item 21 4.2 8.3 12.5 29.2 45.8 Item 22 0 8.3 45.8 33.3 12.5 Item 23 0 12.5 37.5 20.8 29.2 Item 24 0 0 12.5 29.2 58.3 Item 25 0 0 12.5 25 62.5 Item 26 4.2 8.3 41.7 25 20.8 Item 27 0 8.3 45.8 33.3 12.5 Item 28 0 12.5 37.5 20.8 29.2 Item 29 0 4.2 12.5 33.3 50 Item 30 0 0 4.2 29.2 66.7 Item 31 4.2 0 8.3 16.7 70.8 Item 32 4.2 16.7 12.5 50 16.7 Item 33 4.2 12.5 25 45.8 16.7 Item 34 41.7 16.7 29.2 12.5 0 Item 35 0 12.5 25 20.8 41.7 Item 36 4.2 12.5 16.7 37.5 29.2 Item 37 4.2 4.2 12.5 37.5 41.7 Item 38 4.2 0 20.8 54.2 20.8 Item 39 4.2 4.2 16.7 41.7 33.3 Item 40 4.2 16.7 41.7 16.7 20.8 Item 41 0 12.5 25 20.8 41.7 Item 42 4.2 12.5 16.7 37.5 29.2 Item 43 4.2 4.2 20.8 33.3 37.5 Item 44 0 0 12.5 16.7 70.8 Item 45 4.2 8.3 8.3 8.3 70.8 Item 46 0 4.2 8.3 25 62.5 Item 47 4.2 4.2 20.8 33.3 37.5 Item 48 0 0 12.5 16.7 70.8 Item 49 4.2 8.3 8.3 8.3 70.8 Table 16-4: WIHIC questionnaire frequency analysis results of the LdL group… 300
Traditional WIHIC questionnaire results in percentage (%) Almost Almost Item Seldom Sometimes Often Never Always Item 1 0 11.8 23.5 58.8 5.9 Item 2 0 5.9 64.7 23.5 5.9 Item 3 0 11.8 52.9 29.4 5.9 Item 4 23.5 23.5 23.5 17.6 11.8 Item 5 0 11.8 29.4 35.3 23.5 Item 6 0 23.5 23.5 47.1 5.9 Item 7 0 5.9 17.6 29.4 47.1 Item 8 0 0 17.6 17.6 64.7 Item 9 0 5.9 0 58.8 35.3 Item 10 0 0 11.8 47.1 41.2 Item 11 0 0 5.9 29.4 64.7 Item 12 11.8 64.7 0 11.8 11.8 Item 13 0 0 5.9 23.5 70.6 Item 14 17.6 29.4 52.9 0 0 Item 15 0 0 17.6 29.4 52.9 Item 16 0 5.9 5.9 35.3 52.9 Item 17 5.9 5.9 47.1 35.3 5.9 Item 18 5.9 0 17.6 47.1 29.4 Item 19 17.6 23.5 47.1 5.9 5.9 Item 20 0 0 41.2 29.4 29.4 Item 21 0 23.5 17.6 41.2 17.6 Item 22 11.8 5.9 29.4 52.9 0 Item 23 11.8 5.9 35.3 29.4 17.6 Item 24 5.9 0 11.8 29.4 52.9 Item 25 0 5.9 17.6 29.4 47.1 Item 26 11.8 5.9 64.7 11.8 5.9 Item 27 0 11.8 0 52.9 35.3 Item 28 0 0 5.9 17.6 76.5 Item 29 0 0 5.9 47.1 47.1 Item 30 0 5.9 29.4 52.9 11.8 Item 31 0 5.9 17.6 29.4 47.1 Item 32 11.8 47.1 23.5 11.8 5.9 Item 33 5.9 11.8 52.9 17.6 11.8 Item 34 0 11.8 23.5 17.6 47.1 Item 35 11.8 5.9 11.8 35.3 35.3 Item 36 11.8 5.9 23.5 17.6 41.2 Item 37 5.9 17.6 11.8 11.8 52.9 Item 38 0 17.6 23.5 35.3 23.5 Item 39 0 5.9 11.8 29.4 52.9 Item 40 11.8 47.1 23.5 11.8 5.9 Item 41 5.9 11.8 52.9 17.6 11.8 Item 42 0 11.8 23.5 17.6 47.1 Item 43 0 0 5.9 17.6 76.5 Item 44 5.9 0 0 5.9 88.2 Item 45 0 0 0 11.8 88.2 Item 46 5.9 0 11.8 5.9 76.5 Item 47 0 0 5.9 17.6 76.5 Item 48 5.9 0 0 5.9 88.2 Item 49 0 0 0 11.8 88.2 Table 16-5: WIHIC questionnaire frequency analysis results of the Traditional group
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Five-Stage WIHIC questionnaire results in percentage (%) Almost Almost Item Seldom Sometimes Often Never Always Item 1 3.7 7.4 37 40.7 11.1 Item 2 3.7 11.1 44.4 25.9 14.8 Item 3 7.4 18.5 48.1 18.5 7.4 Item 4 7.4 14.8 40.7 29.6 7.4 Item 5 3.7 3.7 25.9 37 29.6 Item 6 0 7.4 33.3 33.3 25.9 Item 7 3.7 3.7 11.1 25.9 55.6 Item 8 0 0 7.4 25.9 66.7 Item 9 3.7 3.7 7.4 18.5 66.7 Item 10 0 0 3.7 33.3 63 Item 11 0 3.7 11.1 33.3 51.9 Item 12 29.6 22.2 22.2 14.8 11.1 Item 13 3.7 0 14.8 22.2 59.3 Item 14 22.2 37 25.9 11.1 3.7 Item 15 0 0 18.5 29.6 51.9 Item 16 3.7 7.4 22.2 18.5 48.1 Item 17 3.7 3.7 48.1 29.6 14.8 Item 18 7.4 7.4 22.2 44.4 18.5 Item 19 11.1 11.1 40.7 14.8 22.2 Item 20 7.4 0 14.8 44.4 33.3 Item 21 3.7 18.5 48.1 22.2 7.4 Item 22 3.7 11.1 29.6 25.9 29.6 Item 23 3.7 11.1 37 33.3 14.8 Item 24 3.7 0 7.4 40.7 48.1 Item 25 0 3.7 14.8 33.3 48.1 Item 26 0 11.1 29.6 44.4 14.8 Item 27 3.7 11.1 29.6 25.9 29.6 Item 28 3.7 11.1 37 33.3 14.8 Item 29 0 3.7 7.4 18.5 70.4 Item 30 0 0 11.1 25.9 63 Item 31 0 3.7 3.7 22.2 70.4 Item 32 0 11.1 33.3 33.3 22.2 Item 33 0 3.7 18.5 55.6 22.2 Item 34 29.6 25.9 33.3 7.4 3.7 Item 35 0 14.8 25.9 14.8 44.4 Item 36 3.7 7.4 48.1 29.6 11.1 Item 37 3.7 0 7.4 51.9 37 Item 38 3.7 7.4 48.1 22.2 18.5 Item 39 0 3.7 29.6 40.7 25.9 Item 40 3.7 14.8 44.4 7.4 29.6 Item 41 0 14.8 25.9 14.8 44.4 Item 42 3.7 7.4 48.1 29.6 11.1 Item 43 0 3.7 11.1 7.4 77.8 Item 44 0 0 0 11.1 88.9 Item 45 0 0 0 7.4 92.6 Item 46 0 0 11.1 18.5 70.4 Item 47 0 3.7 11.1 7.4 77.8 Item 48 0 0 0 11.1 88.9 Item 49 0 0 0 7.4 92.6 Table 16-6: WIHIC questionnaire frequency analysis results of the Five-Stage group
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