Postgraduates' Historic Present Proficiency And Perceptual Learning Styles: A Correlation Study

Historic present (hereinafter referred to as HP) is widely used in social life, but due to the differences of languages, it is hard for Chinese students to master. Even postgraduates majoring in English make similar errors. In abstracts of graduation theses, the tense of projection verbs and reporting verbs must be paid attention to, but a review of abstracts of 20 English postgraduates'M.A. theses indicates they also ineffectively employ HP. Previous studies of tense acquisition and historic present features like forms, references and usages show acquiring HP requires perceptual abilities and efforts. Based on the two aspects of perceptual learning styles, analyses are carried out: under the influence of language, social, and psychological factors, perceptual learning styles affect HP proficiency. And what are the relationships between different modalities of perceptual learning styles and HP proficiency. Reid's learning style questionnaire (Perceptual Learning Style Preference Questionnaire) is used for the survey whose participates are 96 English majoring postgraduates from Changsha University of Science and Technology and another 96 English Majoring postgraduates from Hunan Normal University. The perceptual learning style preferences of different subjects are calculated, and statistical analysis and correlation analysis are carried out to test and verify whether the perceptual learning styles correlate with HP proficiency.The research results show that (1) Postgraduate-learners majoring in English have a low proficiency in HP learning; (2) Postgraduate-learners majoring in English prefer visual learning style and individual learning style, followed by auditory, tactile, kinesthetic learning styles, most of them do not like the group learning style; and (3) It is the visual learning style that has strong positive correlation with HP proficiency, and tactile learning style has moderate positive correlation with HP proficiency, and the auditory learning style and individual learning style have weak negative correlation with HP proficiency, and the kinesthetic learning style and group learning style have weak positive correlation with HP proficiency.Based on the findings, relevant suggestions and strategies for the teaching and learning of HP come out to improve postgraduates'HP proficiency. Teachers should vary their teaching styles to meet the demands of different perceptual learning styles of students, and organize situational classroom teaching activities related to HP. Postgraduate-learners should match their own perceptual learning styles to different learning materials in the process of learning HP, adjust and develop visual and tactile learning styles, conduct HP task-based learning to improve HP proficiency.