The Most Challenging Aspect of Teaching English to Non-Native Speakers of English

The Most Challenging Aspect of Teaching English to Non-Native Speakers of English

  • Submitted By: sunshiny
  • Date Submitted: 06/12/2014 9:23 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 569
  • Page: 3

I believe the most challenging aspect of teaching English grammar to non-native English speaking students would be verb tense, in particular, the past tense. This tense has several different categories and could be confusing from a foreign perspective, especially! Many native English speakers, including myself, speak these verb tenses correctly yet cannot explain the rules of any particular choice we have made in our speech. It has become second nature to us. Looking at this closely, starting with the easiest, the past simple; I believe this to be not so difficult to teach. Ex: Mary walked to school today. It is a simple statement whereby an action has been completed and is spoken about. It is straightforward. My “perceived” difficulty in teaching the past tense would be the other three forms of the past tense: the past continuous, the past perfect, and the past perfect continuous.
I anticipate, at least for now, that to explain an action that is already completed, or continuing, or will be completed in the future, would be challenging to teach, especially when explained to non-native English speakers. Most other languages do not have this type of complexity, making learning English an extreme challenge for the learner. Verb tense delineates time. It has been my experience that there are languages in the world that make no reference to time at all and others very little. This is a huge situation for us to ponder as we embark on this new adventure! In the following example, using the past continuous tense, we have something going on in the background (doing dishes), while another action or activity completes, (doorbell rang). In English it is correct to put this altogether making one sentence. Ex: I was doing the dishes when the doorbell rang. In the past perfect, an earlier past is mentioned in the same sentence about the past. Ex: When I was introduced to his parents in the office, Juan had already gone home. Lastly, there is the past perfect continuous...

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