Teaching Issues Related to the Tenses - Coursework Example

Affiliation Teaching Issues Related to the Differences and Similarities between the Present Perfective and the Simple Past Present perfect tense is used when describing actions that begun in the past, but still are continuing in the present time, or those that already happened in the past but are linked into the present happenings. On the other hand, simple past tense is used where actions happened in the past and have no relation with the present, whatsoever. There are several issues that arise when teachers teach this topic and students as well experience difficulties while trying to understand. Teaching ESL students can be a very intimidating task because these students have other first languages from their home, other than English, which proves to be a challenge for teachers to teach them. Usually, teachers take broad coursework in language arts, math, science, or other content fields and acquire teaching for working with students. Nevertheless, these customary teacher training fields do not serve in readying the teachers for the great number of English language learners in the United States. Current teachers have a new obligation that involves providing English input for these ESLs. In other words, all U.S. school teachers are expected to be aware of all the English aspects, including grammar, which hinders ESLs. If these teachers are to work as prototypes of English for ESLs, then it is necessary for them to know the types of difficulties these students have. In addition, they should be able to problems ESLs have and be deal with those problems. What is the meaning of ESL grammar? There lacks solid emphasis on the second learning language in the formal educational systems (McCuddy; Michael, p.618). The teachers apply the academically suggested methods without necessarily taking into consideration their learners as well as their own potential challenges. They may, however, not be aware of challenges that are severe and may consequently obstruct students’ learning of English grammar. In addition, they do not select the type of training that would present lesser challenges and issues to their learners. Students view their lectures as some sort of a grammatical threat, and therefore, their attitude in the first place; create some difficulties for the teachers. It takes long before a certain class acknowledges and accepts the teacher, hence making the learning experience a long and slow one. Student’s mindset too, regarding their not being natives, makes it harder for the teachers to reconfigure them and instill a new perspective in their minds (Cooper; Karyn; White, p.137). Consequently, after these teachers cover these topics, due to the availability of other non-native students in the institutions, the chances of the students reviewing and even practicing their new knowledge are rare. Most of them seek peers with whom they share the same home language, and instead of practicing, they end up engaging in other fields that don’t necessarily relate to the topics learnt in class. Additionally, same home background prevents these students from engaging with natives, making them lose chances in advancing and learning how the tenses are applicable in normal usage. The learners, though aware of the rules of tenses, fail to apply them in their own use of the English language. The fact that language is dynamic and its meaning regularly change makes it harder for ESL students to keep up with the updates, resulting to slow adjustments on awareness for such changes (McCuddy; Michael, p.618). Similarly, cultural dissimilarities in styles of communication and inclinations are also significant, in that, when teaching, ESL student vary with the level of value towards the way of teaching. For example, some culture, would value class-held discussions in relation to the said topic, while others perceives it as irrelevant and only values whatever the teacher says directly. It, is therefore a significant challenge, since, a teacher cannot entirely disregard a student’s cultural believes. Lack of confidence for these students is yet another challenge associated, in that, it prevents them from having a smooth interaction with the native speaking peers. It is largely contributed by their lack of good English, which results to embarrassment, hence resulting to limited opportunities of enhancing the language speaking and practicing. Also, their lack of insight on popular culture proves another difficulty in their efforts to interact. Otherwise, if they were to be aware, they would effortlessly mingle and as a result end up advancing their skills in the language or any other academic topic thereof (Mahrooqi; Rahma; Vijay; Thakur; Roscoe, p.20). During sessions that involve classroom group functions with the native speakers, ESL students usually fail to contribute into them, additionally, due to their humiliation about their English. Furthermore, they fail to contribute because of the cultural dissimilarities: their inborn cultures may regard silence and personal work at school, preferably, instead of the social interaction and speaking in class. The collaborations have been associated with the extension to student-teacher interactions as well. In most typical classrooms, discussions overseen by a teacher is the most usual form of lesson. In this situation, some ESL students will refuse to contribute, and regularly have trouble understanding teachers since they speak seemingly very fast, do not use graphical assistances, or use native idioms. The students also have difficulty getting included in supplementary activities with native speakers for the same reasons. They tend to fail in joining additional activities due to the language obstacle, their cultural stress on academics over extra activities, or lack of understanding of traditional entertainments in their current country (Alexiadou; Artemis, p.156). The native speakers of English know how to be fluent in the language, although they do study its official rules. For them, the word grammar is usually identical to learning labels like, fragments or base nominatives as well as lists of mistakes to evade. Therefore, for the native speakers, they are taught about the eight fragments of a speech, like the difference between lay and lie and the meanings of loose and lose. They are also taught about not to say I doesn’t, you and me or we should have go. Instead, they know that they should say, I don’t, you and I and we should have gone. They are also taught on how to use present perfect tense and the simple past tense. However, for the ESLs is dissimilar in that, the same way they tend to have a pronunciation accent when they talk, their English also tend to have a grammar accent. It further means that their grammar use sound centrally to one spoken by a native speaker. There are those mistakes that can be simply amended, though others can take ages to fix. Some of them are usually petty but others make these student’s sentences or information unfathomable (Alexiadou; Artemis, p.154). Although the native teachers can amend the errors with ease, they happen to have no clue on how to clarify to these students about why the wrong sentence constructions are not possible. Therefore, this incapability is viewed as normal, since the native speakers never commit those mistakes and are thus never educated on any guidelines for making sentence structures. ELSs has heard terms like, my mom have been to Kansas one time or my mom went to Kansas once, but cannot quite place a figure on the difference. Typically, whenever they ask for elaboration from the native speakers, they are met with diverting explanations such as, that’s how it should be said in English and so on. All the explanations never give a clear teaching because none of the answers given explains why the sentences should be said in a certain way and not the other (McCuddy; Michael, p.618). Notably, the native speakers are not ready to elaborate the English grammar constructions to the non-native speakers. Most advanced students, however, know how to use these tenses, but when to use them proves to be a little confusing for them. The major problem involved when constructing a present perfect structure is learning the past participles. Most of them are fixated, formed with ed or d, example, worked, lived at the end. However, there are those that tend to be entirely irregular, and those structures have to be remembered e. g gone, ridden, been, said told or bought. Teachers also find difficulties as other tenses tend to be similarly explained from website, but when it comes to present perfect, available information appear to be slightly varying from each other (Cooper; Karyn; White, p.139). The ESLs disadvantaged as compared to their counterparts, natives, who are exposed to learn their language throughout their lives as well as natural exercise. If they were to be given enough time, they would acquire the language naturally; unfortunately, most have no time for that. They are expected to work in English quickly, with most of them undertaking high-stakes assignments within a short period of only a few months. Their disadvantage is topped up by the fact that most of them lack exposure to the language at their homes. In addition, when attending same classes with other ESLs, their contact with native speakers can be limited, making them have less opportunity in learning how the tenses should be used (Mahrooqi; Rahma; Vijay; Thakur; Roscoe, p.20). The lectures are their main source of the language; therefore, any elaborations made by those lecturers tend to be a key source of English input. Lack of ESL grammar affects both the teachers and the students in general. When teachers lack the knowledge on ESL grammar issues or even how to elaborate them, they pose negative outcome to the students. For instance, when evaluating an ESL’s exam paper, a teacher may highlight errors remarking that the student should pay more attention to his/her English, awkward or too many mistakes. All those remarks clarify nothing and demonstrate poor teaching (Davydova; Julia, p.210). Mentioning to students that they should focus a lot more on their tense construction instead when truthfully the teacher cannot expound on the mistake fails to assist them on learning anything meaningful. The teachers, also, find these errors confusing, even though they are a usual and expected segment of second language achievement. The confusion makes them not to correctly evaluate the student’s understanding of content, since the ESLs grammar accent deters the clarity of his/her answers. However, the teachers who have become further conscious of the typical ESL mistakes are in a much better position to evaluate them and in turn look for some ways to explain. However, a large number of teachers lack the ability to explain the mistakes and since teachers train on what they know, they hence don’t teach ESLs regarding relevant grammar problems. The aftermath is integration of the mistakes after repeated unexplained corrections which in turn pose serious negative outcomes. Determining the level of a reading passage is another vital example of knowing ESL grammar. Teachers usually enquire about the grade level of a particular content for reading. While the calculation is not difficult for native speakers to determine, it tends to be tedious for the non-native readers to determine. A native speaker will put into considerations, some factors like, the number of words in a sentence, sentences in a paragraph and the number of syllables in a word. All these are put into consideration when calculating the reading strains of content. The stress on counting, mostly the syllables area, however, can be considered not to work so well on the non-native’s ability to read. Additionally, the non-native understanding on where to draw a line when referencing a past event and a past yet continuing event is lower compared to the native learners (Davydova; Julia, p.212). The teachers who are conversant with the ESL grammar points are able to polish a reading to evaluate its ESL grammar. Passages of transitional difficulty may contain present perfect tense, particularly when irregular verb structures, such as, have lit or have lit are applied. Present perfect is one of the major tough parts of ESL grammar, since both the form and usage is complex. ESLs view “have” as possess or own, not as a supplementary verb, and the indispensible past participle forms can be confusing too. For example, I’ve gotten a documentary book is not similar to I’ve got a documentary boo. In addition, present perfect tense can be applied in reference to a past event. For example, I have worked in this company since last year, as a current event. Or, after I have worked here for one year, I can get another occupation, as a future event. ESLs are technically confused by a verb tense that can apparently be applicable for any time: the present, past, and the present. More advanced passages might contain past modals such as must have gone or shouldnt have taken, which are especially problematic because the meaning of past modals does not always overlap with that of present forms (Davydova; Julia, p.213). Rationally, teachers tend to teach what they know. The grammar teachers should, therefore, be conversant with the knowledge of ELS grammar, so as to better tackle all issues that arise. The new knowledge can equip them to be improved sources of English input for the ELSs, hence promoting improved teaching as well as improved learning. In conclusion, it is evident that the issues associated with tense learning, either from the student point of view or the lecture is still persistent. Students still continue to experience tremendous difficulties from diverse areas, yet their numbers continue to rise every day. It, therefore should be put into account, how to deal with these issues, since the root of the problems have already been identified. It makes no sense that students should travel to far states and return home with the same problems they had, especially with regard to English. A recommendation about institutions coming up with ways in which all these issues can be resolved, while at the same time maintaining the student’s cultural background, is necessary. Movements that encourage more interactions between the natives and the non-natives in schools should be formed. Their formation will result to a more interacting experience between them, hence, reducing embarrassment and instead encouraging academic discussions. Lectures should also learn to understand each student’s culture, such that he/she is able to draw a line between what is expected and what is not. Work Cited: Alexiadou, Artemis. Perfect Explorations. Berlin [u.a.: De Gruyter, 2003. Print. Cooper, Karyn, and Robert E. White. Burning Issues: Foundations of Education. Lanham, Md: ScarecrowEducation, 2004. Print. Davydova, Julia. The Present Perfect in Non-Native Englishes: A Corpus-Based Study of Variation. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2011. Print. Mahrooqi, Rahma, Vijay S. Thakur, and Aan Roscoe. Methodologies for Effective Writing Instruction in Efl and Esl Classrooms. , 2015. Internet resource. McCuddy, Michael K. The Challenges of Educating People to Lead in a Challenging World. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer, 2007. Internet resource. Read More