Comparative Study on the Use of Communicative Oriented Instruction and Traditional Grammar Instruction in Teaching Verb Tenses to College Students
Chapter I Introduction
Today’s competent professionals are the ones who possess the following qualities: critical thinking, initiative and communication skills. The said skills answer the question how can a graduate land a job suited to the education he or she received as shown by People’s Managers Association of the Philippines’ podcast, “Book Smart is not Enough,” on You Tube (2011). Critical thinking is weighing all possible solutions to a problem and choosing the best one that would solve the problem. Initiative is going beyond the minimum requirements of a particular task and communication skill is using oral and written English language effectively in one’s daily activities. This paper aims to address the third skill by examining how a student would acquire a second language efficiently in order to become an effective communicator. In this regard, the study is geared to look for answers how grammar [specifically verb tenses] will be best learnt by college students who need to acquire strong command of the English language needed by the market.
From a linguistic standpoint, what makes Filipinos learn English with difficulty is the fact that the language itself is different from their native language; this is evident in the tense-aspect system of both English and Filipino as English has four aspects [simple, progressive, perfect and perfect progressive] while Filipino only has three [perfective, imperfective, AND contemplative]. From inflection to meaning, the difference would be clearly visible as this grammatical item functions differently in both two languages except the perfect and progressive aspect’s meaning. If by nature these two languages are different, therefore, learning English tenses will be very crucial for second language learners who rely on the experiences they have. Larsen and Freeman (2006) identify these learners as beginners [who rely on the first language (L1) as a source of hypothesis on how the second language works (L2)] and more
Today’s competent professionals are the ones who possess the following qualities: critical thinking, initiative and communication skills. The said skills answer the question how can a graduate land a job suited to the education he or she received as shown by People’s Managers Association of the Philippines’ podcast, “Book Smart is not Enough,” on You Tube (2011). Critical thinking is weighing all possible solutions to a problem and choosing the best one that would solve the problem. Initiative is going beyond the minimum requirements of a particular task and communication skill is using oral and written English language effectively in one’s daily activities. This paper aims to address the third skill by examining how a student would acquire a second language efficiently in order to become an effective communicator. In this regard, the study is geared to look for answers how grammar [specifically verb tenses] will be best learnt by college students who need to acquire strong command of the English language needed by the market.
From a linguistic standpoint, what makes Filipinos learn English with difficulty is the fact that the language itself is different from their native language; this is evident in the tense-aspect system of both English and Filipino as English has four aspects [simple, progressive, perfect and perfect progressive] while Filipino only has three [perfective, imperfective, AND contemplative]. From inflection to meaning, the difference would be clearly visible as this grammatical item functions differently in both two languages except the perfect and progressive aspect’s meaning. If by nature these two languages are different, therefore, learning English tenses will be very crucial for second language learners who rely on the experiences they have. Larsen and Freeman (2006) identify these learners as beginners [who rely on the first language (L1) as a source of hypothesis on how the second language works (L2)] and more