DISMANTLING AND ANALYSING MULTI-PARAGRAPHS TO IMPROVE THE USE OF PRESENT AND PAST TENSES IN WRITING AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS

Autoři

  • Chandra Mohan Vasudeva Panicker Faculty of Social Science, Arts and Humanities, Lincoln University College, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46827/ejel.v9i5.5665

Klíčová slova:

grammar, present and past tenses, sentence structure, genres, dismantle

Abstrakt

Grammar is the backbone of language, providing a set of rules and principles that govern the structure, formation, and usage of words and sentences. This study aims to “dismantle” paragraphs from non-friction material, learn the usage of present and past tenses in these sentence structures, and apply this knowledge in writing sentences containing present and past tenses. A pretest-post-test control group design was employed. The participants of this study would consist of 20 college students who were randomly assigned to a treatment and a control group. Both groups were exposed to the same classroom conditions except for the intervention. Only the treatment group was given intervention. The respondents’ scores were measured at two points, pre-test and post-test. This was followed by a semi-structured interview in which three participants from the treatment group were interviewed. The findings revealed improved participants’ use of present and past-tense writing based on the difference between the pretest and the post-test results. The interview data also revealed that the participants were able to construct more accurate sentences using these tenses. Interestingly, the study respondents said that this activity had made them pay close attention to sentence structures when they read materials in the English language. Exposing students to different genres and studying sentence structure thoroughly can help improve students' grammar, specifically present and past tense, in their writing.

 

Article visualizations:

Hit counter

Biografie autora

  • Chandra Mohan Vasudeva Panicker, Faculty of Social Science, Arts and Humanities, Lincoln University College, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

    Dr. Chandra Mohan Vasudeva Panicker is currently an Assistant Professor and a Coordinator for the Ph.D in Education program at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities at Lincoln University. He has a PhD in Education (TESL), a master’s degree in education (TESL), a Bachelor of Arts degree and a post-graduate certificate in Training of Trainers from Mark and John University, Plymouth, United Kingdom. He has more than 25 years of experience as an English language teacher and lecturer and 25 years of experience as a Head of the Language Department in an Institute of Teacher Education. He has published several articles in international journals and wrote a book on higher-order thinking skills. He has also presented papers at international conferences. His research interests are thinking skills, creative writing, metacognition, assessment and English language teaching and learning.

Reference

Biber, D., & Conrad, S. (2009). Register, Genre, and Style. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511814358

Celce-Murcia, M. (2002). Why It Makes Sense to Teach Grammar in Context and Through Discourse. In E. Hinkel & S. Fotos (Eds.), New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms (pp. 119-134). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Retrieved from https://www.routledge.com/New-Perspectives-on-Grammar-Teaching-in-Second-Language-Classrooms/Hinkel-Fotos/p/book/9780805839555

Gupta, A. (2023). Mastering the Use of Tenses in Your Research Paper. https://paperpal.com/blog/academic-writing-guides/language-grammar/tenses-in-research-paper

Joshi, Y. (2013). Using past and present tenses in research writing. Retrieved from https://www.editage.com/insights/using-past-and-present-tenses-in-research-writing

Listia, Rina & Febriyanti, Emma (2020). EFL Learners’ Problems in Using Tenses: An Insight for Grammar Teaching. IJET (Indonesian Journal of English Teaching). 9. http://dx.doi.org/10.15642/ijet2.2020.9.1.86-95

Sabar, A. (2020). Tense and Aspect in the English Language: A study about newly arrived students with Arabic as their mother tongue. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1429992/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Swales, J. M., & Feak, C. B. (2012). Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills (3rd ed.). University of Michigan Press. Retrieved from https://press.umich.edu/Books/A/Academic-Writing-for-Graduate-Students-3rd-Edition2

Thongtum, T. & Intasena, A. (2023). Enhancing Learning Achievement in Sentence Structure among Grade. Higher Education Studies; Vol. 13, No. 4. https://doi.org/10.5539/hes.v13n4p59

Stažení

Publikováno

2024-11-11

Číslo

Vol 9 No 5 (2024)

Sekce

Articles

Licence

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

 

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

 

  1. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

 

  1. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).