A Comparative Study on Sri Lankan University Students’ Ability to Learn Tenses of English Language

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume IV, Issue VI, June 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186

A Comparative Study on Sri Lankan University Students’ Ability to Learn Tenses of English Language

Harsha Amarasinghe*, H.H Senevirathne
Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka
*Corresponding Author

Abstract:- English language has turned out to be such a crucial aspect of higher education, as it has become a global language to teach numerous subjects at the university level. It could understandably have a major impact on the education in a country like Sri Lanka, which includes very few native speakers of English. However, one of the issues faced by university students in Sri Lanka is not being able to understand English tenses. Hence, this study attempts to investigate student’s ability to learn English tenses. A case study was put in place to analyze the data collected through cluster sampling from three government universities of Sri Lanka, and it was discovered that most of the students struggle to understand the past tense while they tend to produce reasonably better sentences in present and future tense. Another notable finding was the students’ lack of knowledge on verb forms, which is instrumental in mastering past tense. Students also seem to find ways to produce accurate future tense sentences using the helping verbs ‘will’ or ‘would’ along with the base form of verbs. The study has provided sufficient evidence to conclude that it is necessary to focus more on the past tense in comparison to present tense and future tense in order to improve the English writing skills of university students in Sri Lanka.

Keywords: English Tenses, Present Tense, Past Tense, Future Tense, University Students of Sri Lanka

I. INTRODUCTION

A proper understanding of tenses is the key to mastering any language. Hence, the tenses have become a major component in English language learning and that is one of the reasons why tenses have been given a considerable attention at school. Usually, the best students from schools enter the university and after 13 years of learning English, they are expected to be fluent in this language, which has unfortunately not been the case. The lack of English knowledge within university students has been a major issue in most of the government universities. The manner in which the university students use English during spoken activities in particular indicates how they are struggling with the tenses, but the performance during a spoken activity could be influenced by factors such as anxiety, poor presentation skills and lack of communication skills in addition to knowledge in tenses.

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