Error Analysis On Students' Learning Of English Tense And Aspect In Junior Middle School

In second language acquisition,one of the primary tasks for a learner is to acquire the basic language structures of the target language,among which the tense and aspect system is very important.So in the field of second language learning and teaching,the tense and aspect system is one of the major subjects for scholars to study.In our country,students learn English formally from primary schools,and because of the differences of tense and aspect systems in English and Chinese,the acquisition of English tense and aspect is one of the learning difficulties for both learners and teachers.Students in junior middle schools are at the beginning level of English learning,so the study about their learning situations is important.Based on the second language learning theories such as contrastive analysis,error analysis and interlanguage,the study is conducted for a thorough analysis on the error types,as well as the causes,related to tense and aspect acquisition of junior middle school students.The subjects are the fourth-year-students and English teachers from Yantai No.10 Middle School,and the research instruments include test papers,questionnaires and interviews.There are three research questions:(1)What is the error frequency related to all the tenses and aspects required in the English Curriculum Standards(2011)?(2)What are the common errors that students often make when they use English tense and aspect?(3)What are the possible factors that influence the acquisition of English tense and aspect?Through the research,there are three major findings:(1)Among all the types of English tense and aspect required in the English Curriculum Standards(2011),there is an order that learners make errors from a high frequency to a low frequency: Present Perfect >Simple Past >Present Progressive >Simple Present >Past Progressive.(2)There are three major types of errors about English tense and aspect: a.Errors caused by choosing wrong tense and aspect;b.Errors caused by avoiding to use aspect or overusethe aspect;c.Errors caused by writing wrong verb forms.(3)There are four possible influencing factors: a.The negative influence due to some similar language rules in target language;b.The negative influence due to overuse of mother tongue;c.Improper learning strategies and leaning attitudes;d.The negative influence of learning environment.Based on the major findings,some pedagogical suggestions are provided for both English teachers and students,such as choosing scientific teaching methods,adopting a positive attitude towards errors,and minimizing the negative influence of both mother tongue and target language,and so on.