Construction of English Grammar Syllabus: Focus On the Construction of

Simple Sentences

ADBUL HALIM BIN IBRAHIM, M.Ed. ABDUL GHANI BIN HJ ABU, Ph.D.

KOD PENYELIDIKAN: 01-03-26-08

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UNIVERSITIPENDIDIKAN SULTAN IDRIS 2009

DECLARATION

We hereby declare that the work in this report is our own except for the quotations and summaries which have been duly acknowledged.

Date: 30 August 2009 Signature: Name: Abdul Halim bin Ibrahim. Head Researcher

Ill

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It would not have been possible to complete this study without the great support and help of a number of people whom we would like to acknowledge and thank.

First of all, we would like to express our deepest appreciation to the Research Management Centre, UPSI, for the research grant and all the facilities provided for us to conduct and complete this study.

Secondly we also want to extend our special thanks to the Dean of Faculty of Languages and all the staff who had provided all the necessary help in the course of the study.

We also extend sincere thanks to many dear friends at the Faculty of Languages, who provided us valuable thoughtful insights and comments in conducting this study.

Finally, we wish to express our sincere gratitude to all the school heads, teachers and students who had volunteered and given us the opportunity to collect all the data needed for the study.

IV

ABSTRACT

The ability to produce and understand sentences is prerequisite to learning but many

Malaysian students face serious problem in producing and understanding them. In this

study, the knowledge and skills of simple sentence construction among 600 rural/urban

students were investigated; observation and interviews with their teachers were carried

out to investigate whether teachers taught sentence building. The students were asked to

translate 80 Bahasa Melayu sentences into English. Their sentences were analyzed for

accuracy and errors based on 8 different sentence patterns and different forms such as

questions and passive. The results show that students' ability to construct sentences was

very poor. The easiest sentence pattern was NP + be + NP and the most difficult pattern

was NP + VP in the perfect. Their skills in forming all question forms were poor

especially in using correct auxiliaries. The poor ability to construct simple sentences was

evident due to the negligence of teachers in teaching the skills.

V

ABSTRAK

Pengetahuan dan keraahiran dalam membina ayat simpleks merupakan prasyarat dalam

pembelajaran walhal ramai pelajar menghadapi masalah untuk membina ayat simpleks

yang gramatis. Di dalam kajian ini, pengetahuan dan kemahiran membina ayat simpleks

di kalangan 600 orang pelajar Melayu diselidiki dengan menggunakan ujian terjemahan.

Pemerhatian dan temu-bual dilakukan terhadap guru untuk mengetahui sama ada mereka

mengajar kemahiran membina ayat. Sebanyak 80 ayat Bahasa Melayu daripada 8 jenis

pola merangkunii bentuk pernyataan, pasif dan soalan digunakan dalam ujian. Ayat

terjemahan ke dalam bahasa Inggeris oleh pelajar dianalisa bagi menentukan ayat

gramatis atau tidak. Dapatan menunjukkan kemahiran pelajar sangat rendah. Pola ayat

simpleks NP + be + NP adalah mudah dan bentuk NP + VP dalam kala perfect and

perfect progressive amat lemah penguasaannya dikalangan pelajar. Kemahiran membuat

soalan amat lemah terutama dalam penggunaan kata bantu auxiliariy. Kelemahan ini

sangat ketara memandangan guru tidak memberi perhatian sewajarnya dalam mengajar

pengetahuan dan kemahiran membina ayat simpleks.

Table of Contents

Page

Declaration Acknowledgements Abstract Abstrak

1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0

9.0

10.0

Introduction The components of grammar The focus of grammar lesson Teaching of ESL/EFL Objectives Research Questions Methodology Results 8.1 Research Question 1 8.2 Research Question 2 Discussions 91. Research Question 1 9.2 Research Question 2 Implications on Teaching References Appendices

ii iii iv v

1 6 18 20 25 25 26 32 32 35 39 39 40 41 56

vii

List of Tables

Page

Table 1 Framework of analysis 32 Table 2 Present Tense - Positive 32 Table 3 Positive Present Tense Wh, Tag and Yes/No Questions 33 Table 4 Negative Simple Present 33 Table 5 Negative Simple Present Wh, Tag, Yes/No questions 33 Table 6 Simple Past 34 Table 7 Simple Past Wh, Tag, Yes/No questions 34 Table 8 Negative Simple Past 35 Table 9 Negative Simple Past Wh, Tag and Yes/No questions 35 Table 10 The focus of language lessons 36 Table 11 Spontaneous respond to the focus of language lessons 36 Table 12 The focus of language lessons 37 Table 13 Integrating grammar with skills 38 Table 14 Dimensions of language units 42

List of Figures

Page

Figure 1 The contents of a language lesson 18 Figure 2 Sampling Procedures 28

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1

The decline of the English language in Malaysia has been a major interest among

educators, the public and the Ministry of Education (MOE). Many academicians

acknowledge the deterioration in the standard of English Language among primary and

secondary school students and believe it is inevitable due to the fact that English is no

more the medium of instruction in schools (Asmah, 1981). In order to improve the

standards of English, in 2002, MOE introduced a very controversial policy, the teaching

of Mathematics and Science in English (Etems). However, many studies on Etems have

shown that the policy is discriminating the rural students and very unpopular among the

Malays. Recently, MOE reverses its English policy on Etems but the debate on falling

English standards in the country reignited when the deputy prime minister suggested

making English a compulsory pass before getting a high-school certificate. The many

scenarios reveal that English language is going to be a major challenge in the education

system especially in upgrading the competencies among Malaysian students for many

years to come.

Many studies have shown the disparity between the urban and rural students in

mastering English even though it has always been taught as a second language in

Malaysia. Many perceived it as a foreign language especially the rural students and in

fact, English does not play any part in their lives outside school. Unlike the urban

students, the rural students also suffer from a lack of access to good English teachers and

materials. It is questionable whether the syllabus and learning materials supplied by MOE

suit the learning strategies of the rural students. For example the communicative

approach which is currently advocated has many controversies when applied to students

learning English as a foreign language.

Swan (1985) believes that during the mid 1980's, the English Language Teaching

(ELT) profession underwent a major paradigm shift from the focus on communication to

the focus of form and structure in teaching language learners. This change started when

some educators began to question many aspects of Communicative Language Teaching

(CLT). One of the problems of ELT has been in the inability to define exactly what is

2

meant by "communicative language teaching." Jennings and Doyle (1996) state that CLT

has contributed to "unprincipled eclecticism varying from teachers to teachers". Shortall

(1996) points out that the "failure to clarify CLT has allowed for a wide range of

approaches (e.g. Silent Way, Notional-Functional, etc.) to be called communicative." He

also reports that popular applications of many of these approaches have tended to reduce

or to reject the explicit teaching of grammar. Skehan (1996) states that this trend in CLT

to focus on verbal fluency over formal accuracy "runs the risk of learners becoming

confined to the strategic solutions they develop, without sufficient focus for structural

change or accuracy," (1996:30). Ratnawati (1996) claims that many Malaysian teachers

have problems in integrating language lessons within the framework of language skills

and grammar, and topics. Batstone (1994) also warns that such an unbalanced approach

to language teaching can lead to the early fossilization of the learners' language skills

(1995:229). The result has been a renewed interest on the part of many language teachers

in Pedagogic Grammar (PG). Many language teachers have expressed that it is necessary

to consider correcting the imbalance between fluency and accuracy caused by the ELT

community's obsession with CLT.

In Malaysia, CLT was adopted in the early 1970s. CLT is based on the notion that

learners as communicators are naturally endowed with the ability to learn languages and

the target language system in many predictable and unpredictable acts of communication

which arises both in classroom interaction and in real-world situations. Learners develop

language competency from lessons in the classroom as well as subsequent use of the

language outside the classrooms (Yalden, 1987). This approach is normally associated

with the Canadian immersion programs which aim at the achievement of both academic

and L2 learning through an integration of language teaching and content teaching. It

generally has great successes in many areas of the students' language development (e.g.

listening comprehension, fluency, functional abilities, confidence in using the L2);

however, these learners have also been found to have problems in some aspects of the

target language (TL) grammar, especially in morpho-syntactic areas, even after many

years in these programs (Harley & Swain 1984; Swain 1985; Harley 1986, 1992). Swain

(1985) argues that one of the important reasons for this is that these learners engage in

too little language production, which prevents them from going beyond a functional level

3

of L2 proficiency. Many teachers adapt immersion programs without being aware or

without even considering the nature of the learners' background. For example, the

immersion program in Canadian classrooms actually consisted of French speaking

students as well as English speaking students. This situation provides a good environment

for French speaking students to use English with their English speaking friends and is

able to benefit from it. However, the situation in Malaysia is not the same. Even though

students of different races are put together in the national school, most of them hardly

speak English. The situation does not permit Malay students to use and improve English

as the French students do in Canadian immersion programs with their English speaking

classmates.

The other important consideration which is normally neglected by teachers is the

students' different linguistic backgrounds. Settings refer to places where formal

acquisition and learning occur such as schools. A natural setting for L2 acquisition is one

where the L2 is used normally for everyday communicative purposes. The rural setting is

similar to the learning of English as a foreign language (EFL) where students learn and

use English only in the classrooms. There is no support from the environment that

permits students to use the L2 purposefully in a natural interactive communication. The

urban setting is similar to ESL setting where students have a lot of support from the

environment especially in the use of L2 in interactive communication outside their

classrooms. The difference between urban and rural setting is based on the interactive

use of language and support from the environment and not demographic in the normal

sense. Some teachers fail to address the different needs of students in their classrooms.

For example, there are native speakers whose home language is English, and who learn

the language naturally from their parents who use the English language at home or in

their neighborhoods. However, the majority of students, especially those who live in rural

areas whereby the contact with the English language is very minimal, learn English in a

foreign language setting (Mohd Sofi, 2003). These students are normally deprived of

quality input and obviously they will need different types of input to help them learn the

L2 effectively.

Malaysian students come from a mixed language background and are being

exposed to the English language in different ways. Different settings permit different

4

opportunities for language input and use in areas where Malays is the dominant group.

For this group, Bahasa Malaysia will usually be the main language used in

communication. In the urban setting, English is used more widely among the Malay

students since they have the privilege of interacting with other people in the environment

apart from their teachers. The use of English outside the classroom enables the students

to practice and improve their language, especially through conversational interaction.

Urban setting therefore is similar to learning English as an L2 (ESL) where it provides

learners with the opportunities for naturalistic exposure and conversation with fluent

English speakers in the classroom as well as in the community. The rural setting on the

other hand is similar to learning an L2 in a foreign language setting (EFL) which limits

students' exposure to the input provided only by the teachers and the opportunities for

natural use of the language such as conversation is constrained as this is done only with

teachers through classroom and textbook experiences. With different quality of exposure

to the target-language (TL), urban students normally have richer language input as

compared to rural students and these differences might affect the learning of ESL/EFL.

Currently, not all teachers would instantly welcome a resurgence of pedagogic

grammar in TESL (Kerr,1993). Chalker (1994) notes that many classroom teachers

equate grammar with the acquisition of some set of rules that are at times contradictory

and at other times confusing. In Japan, a survey of the preferences of 572 English

language learners showed that grammar was ranked as the least favorable item for study

in a language lesson (Ryan,1996). This implies that grammar as a concept means

different things to different people. For people who speak English as their first language,

grammar is often connected to Structuralist Grammars. However, in Malaysia and many

other countries, it relates to the communicative approach. Tonkyn (1994) relates how the

influence of structural grammar went through a steady decline by the late 1960s.

Linguists and educators alike disagreed on the best way to teach grammar, and years of

research advised against the teaching of structuralist grammars either to native speakers

or second language learners (Hillocks & Smith, 1991).

Grammar is an abstract system of rules (Chomsky, 1976) and because it is

abstract it poses great problems for teachers who have little procedural knowledge of the

language and limited teaching techniques or approaches to produce successful grammar

5

lessons (Kamarul Kabilan, Muhammad, 2007). The abstract nature of language makes it

difficult for teachers to organize aspects of grammar and consequently the subject matter

becomes unexciting and dry. Gribbin (2005) notes that grammar often goes untaught and

concedes that students have had limited success with grammar competence whether the

content is taught in or out of context. Pillay (1995) indicates that teachers are unclear of

the role of grammar in the KBSM teaching of English. Similarly, Abdul Halim and

Mariam (2007) note that teachers do not teach linguistic cues in reading but focus on the

topics as if they are subject matter teachers.

Many educators wish to improve this area of their practice as Gribbin (2005) and

Nunan (2005) confess to being tempted to "desert teaching grammar altogether," because

the success rate is so small in terms of making the connection between grammar exercises

and writing (Nunan, 2005, 71). Mariam and Abdul Halim (2006) note that it is true that

grammar is taught solely in isolation or solely through out of context approach.

However, if a systematic strategy is employed by incorporating both isolated and out of

context instruction students will learn that grammar and writing are intricately related

which builds sentence structure understanding and promotes awareness, growth and

improvement in writing and reading complex, meaningful works (Sams, 2003, 57).

The quality of L2 instruction in schools depends on the quality of input provided

by teachers based on suitable teaching techniques used in the classrooms (Ellis, 2006).

Learning L2 in explicit teaching classrooms requires critical comprehensible input,

whether it is from the natural speech or explicit teaching (Norris & Ortega, 2000). A

learner must have perceptual ability that will determine how much the learner will

receive from the input. The different quality of input significantly provides different pace

of acquisition among the learners. The input reveals how well learners have prepared

themselves to infer morpheme forms from a continuous speech stream or explicit

classroom teaching. They do not receive the speech stream as a discrete sequence of

individual sounds. The input and the perceptual ability together are the basis for any

learners to acquire a morpheme for understanding and producing larger linguistic units

such as words, phrases or sentences. Without adequate input, a learner will not be able to

develop morphological knowledge or lexicon, let alone a language. Hence, without

6

proper perception of input, a learner cannot receive adequate input, and therefore cannot

acquire any language properly (Norris & Ortega, 2000).

Effective teachers provide better input to the students in terms of good language

models, easy presentation and suitable learning experiences (Larsen-Freeman, 1990,

Burden & Byrd, 2003; Ornstein & Lasley, 2004). Even though, all teachers have to use

the syllabus provided by the Ministry of Education, the interpretation of the syllabus is

crucial in determining a successful learning program such as using suitable learning

materials and teaching approaches. There is no way a student in a foreign language

acquisition (FLA) environment can get good language input if the teacher does not

provide it. Quality input obviously depends on the quality of teaching and the ability of

the teachers in teaching the subject and whether they can motivate learners to learn

effectively. One of the most used teaching methods in Malaysian schools is the

communicative method or approach. However, there is a conflict between the official

syllabus, the textbook syllabus and the examination syllabus putting teachers in a

dilemma over what to teach (Pillay & North, 1997). The official syllabus and the

textbooks stress topics or themes; whereas, teachers focus on examinations by teaching to

the tests rather than developing the language skills. It is therefore unclear whether

teachers develop the skills of segmenting the language units explicitly or implicitly based

on the communicative approach in teaching grammar or specifically vocabulary.

2.0 The Components of Grammar

Ability to construct correct sentences is perhaps the most fundamental of language skills,

and writing a simple sentence or having a simple conversation is anything but a simple

process, particularly if someone is learning a new language. Simple sentences are not

easy sentences. The term simple is used by teachers for first language learners but for L2

learners the more appropriate term should be basic simple sentences. The only simple

thing about simple sentences is that it requires only a subject and a predicate (e.g. He

slept). In many cases, simple sentences are constructed using more complex phrase

structures (e.g. The ruler of Palembang).

7

Language units are abstract concepts which require teachers to discuss each unit

in terms of forms, structure, functions and meaning. Figure 1 depicts the matrix of

language unit and its dimensions which ESL/EFL students need to know in order to be

competent and teachers are required to develop these concepts in the teaching of

grammar especially in sentence construction. In this way the abstract concepts can be

concretized in order to help learners to learn. The language units must be understood

when ESL learners want to construct or process sentences in English. Language

knowledge of all the units is required in order to construct a full sentence. However, in

conversation, a fully formed grammatical sentence is sometimes not needed if a word

suffices.

A word is called a free morpheme—a unit of language that can stand on its own

and convey meaning (bus, apply, often). In contrast, bound morphemes are always

connected to words. These include prefixes, such as un- or pre-, as well as suffixes, such

as -tion, -s or -ed. Often, during the pressure of speaking, it is difficult for English

learners to use the expected suffixes—especially if their native language does not utilize

these kinds of morphemes as grammatical markers.

At the initial stage of language acquisition, students must be able to learn

morphological parses and be able to discriminate different morphological and syntactic

segmentation of different linguistic units such as morphemes, words, phrases, clauses and

sentences which are meaningful in the target language. In acquiring morphemes, students

have to discover whether certain affixes are bound or free morpheme. For example, a

student learning English must be able to discover that the word-initial unit, re is a prefix,

and also that the word remake is prefixed, where as the word retail, probably is not, even

though it begins with re. Later, a learner must discover the syntactic and semantic

properties associated with each affix in the language, in order to be able to produce and

understand new words. For example, an ESL/EFL learner must discover that re is a prefix

that is attached to verbs to create other verbs with different meanings (e.g. re + make).

However, to learn the morphological properties of an affix, the learner must first of all

notice the existence of that affix (e.g. re + make).

Knowledge on morphemes is very important in the development of first and

second language (Hannahs & Stotko, 1997; Bardovig-Harlig, 1999, 2000; Salaberry &

8

Shirai, 2002). Morphemes are the smallest meaningful linguistic units used to build other

units, such as words, phrases, utterances, and syntax. Therefore, knowledge on

morphemes is very important in learning word building, semantics or pragmatics in any

language (Bardovig-Harlig, 1999, 2000). The acquisition of morphemes is considered as

a significant initial step towards the proper development of language competence (Pinker

& Prince, 1992; Bardovig-Harlig, 1999, 2000; Murphy, 2000; Salaberry & Shirai, 2002).

Many language development studies, for example those found in Berninger (2001) and

Green et al, (2003) show that morphological knowledge is the basic linguistic knowledge

which is important in the learning of reading and writing, listening and speaking skills

(Carlisle, 2000).

Grammatical morphemes include both bound and free morphemes. Verbal and

nominal suffixes like past tense ed in Ali jumped and the plural s in Birds are flying are

bound grammatical morphemes, and free are like those of the auxiliary verb be in

constructions like Ali is running and as in copula be, Ali is here as well as auxiliary-do in

Do you play football? and the articles in the bird and a bird. Grammatical morphemes are

structure class which are different from content morphemes such as the noun bird and the

verbs play and fly..

A word is a unit which is an element or a part of a phrase, a clause, a sentence and

discourse level. A sound or a combination of sounds represent symbols and communicate

a meaning. Words contain morphemes which can be single or a range of morphemes. A

word is the smallest free form in a language; on the other hand a morpheme is the

smallest unit of meaning. Words are combined to form other units of language.

Basic forms of words:

• Verb: means a doing word that usually denotes an action, an occurrence or a

state of being.

Examples: help, bring, sing, make

• Noun: a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing or abstract idea.

Nouns are usually the first words we learn.

Examples: book, neighbor, friend

9

• Adjective: modifies a noun or pronoun by describing, identifying or

quantifying words.

Examples: tall girl, sweet home, blessed person

• Adverb: modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a phrase or a clause. An

adverb indicates manner, time, place, cause, or degree and answers

questions such as 'how,' 'when,' 'where,' and 'how much'.

Examples: down, yesterday, upstairs

• Articles: A small word that comes before a noun. There are two types of articles.

Examples: Definite article - the

Indefinite articles - a, an

• Determiners: Comes at the beginning of noun phrases but they are not

adjectives.

Examples: The moon, this house, my doll, a nice day

• Suffix: An affix which has been placed at the end of a word

Example: girls, worked, kindly

• Prefix: An affix which has been added to the front of a word

Examples: misunderstand, underestimate, unexpected

In teaching vocabulary, a teacher is required to address not only the meaning of words

but also the rules of word formation and structures. For example,

1. Colorful

Beautiful

Grateful

2. Dancer

Runner

Singer

noun + ful

same pattern

verb + er

same pattern

Different forms of words produce different functions, for example, verb forms

show an acting situation, adjective words describe certain situations, people or things,

tense words show current happening, actions that have taken place before and will talce

11

adverbial in sentence structures. Prepositional phrases function as post-modifiers of a

noun in phrase structure, post-modifiers of an adjective in phrase structure and as

adverbials in sentence structures.

A clause is two or more words that contain a verb marked for tense and a

grammatical subject. Independent clauses are complete sentences that can stand on their

own ("Juan went to work"), whereas dependent clauses cannot ("While Juan was going

to work . . ."). In contrast, a phrase is two or more words that function as a unit but do not

have a subject or a verb marked for tense. These include prepositional phrases ("in the

hospital" or "after school") and infinitive phrases ("to drive" or "to move up"). Clauses

and phrases do not usually appear alone in formal writing, but they are quite common in

speech. Both clauses and phrases can be utterances, as can individual words, the next

level in the pyramid. A clause is an expression including a subject and predicate but not

constituting a complete sentence. The basic kind of sentence consists of a single clause

and more complicated sentences may contain multiple clauses including clauses

contained within clauses.

An adverbial clause contains a subject and a full verb. An adverbial clause begins

with a subordinating conjunction, which makes the clause subordinate or dependent. For

example: I saw the movie before I left for Ipoh. The adverbial clause has a subject (I) and

a fall verb (left). It is introduced by 'before', so it is a dependent clause. This means that

it cannot stand alone: 'before I left for Ipoh' would not be a full sentence. It needs a main

clause (T saw the movie'). An adverbial clause, then, is a dependent clause that does the

same job as an adverb or an adverbial phrase.

A relative clause is also called adjectival clause because it modifies a noun

phrase. It begins with relative pronoun such as who, whom, whose, that or which. For

example, (a) The students who are active in sports will be healthier and (b) There is a

new book that shows good moral values.

Clauses are structured in exactly the same patterns as sentences. Any clause can

be identified as transitive active, transitive passive, intransitive linking or intransitive

complete. In other words, when one knows the patterns of sentences, one also knows the

pattern of clauses. For example:

13

command is. For example (a) Pass the paper to her and (b) Wash the windows! (4) An

exclamatory sentence is a more forceful version of a declarative sentence, marked at the

end with an exclamation mark. It shows strong feelings. Declarative, imperative, or

interrogative sentences can be made into exclamatory sentences by punctuating

them with an exclamation mark. For example (a) Stop that man! and (b) Wow, what a

wonderful surprise!

Sentences can be transformed into various forms such as WH questions, yes/no

questions, negative forms and so on. For example, a base form 'He is fine' can be

transformed as the following.

How is he? WH question

Is he fine? Yes/ No question

He is fine, right? Tag

He was fine. Simple past tense

He is not fine. Negative contraction

Pattern

Carries a same collection of structure.

Example: Subject + Verb + Object

She + carries + a book.

She + eats + rice.

He + plays + hockey.

They + collects + stamps.

Same SVO

Structure.

Structure

The sentence struture consists of a subject and a predicate. The subject names the topic

and the predicate tells about the subject. A sentence with one subject and one predicate is

called a simple sentence. The receiver of actions is called the object. A Simple sentence

contains only one clause. Usually the sentence has a subject as well as a predicate and

both the subject and the predicate may have modifiers. Simple sentences can range from

very short to very long independent clauses. For example, (a) The girl ran into her

bedroom. This simple sentence has one independent clause which contains one subject,

girl, and one predicate, ran into her bedroom.

14

A compound sentence consists of two or more independent clauses. These clauses

are connected either with a semi-colon or with a comma and coordinating conjunction

such as for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so and others. For examples, 'Tan wanted to be a

lecturer, so he applied for masters program'.

The clauses are connected with a comma and the coordinating conjunction 'so,'

which indicates that a relationship exists between the two, and that this relationship is one

of'cause/effect.'

A complex sentence has one dependent clause which is headed by a subordinating

conjunction or a relative pronoun, joined to an independent clause. For example, (a)

Because I couldn't fall asleep last night, I'm very tired today, (b) I'm very tit'ed today

because I couldn't fall asleep last night.

The dependent clause begins with the subordinating word "because"; so, although

it contains the subject "I" and the predicate "could (not) fall," it is not a complete

sentence. In the complex sentence, however, the dependent clause is connected to the

independent clause I'm very tired today; consequently, this is a complete sentence.

The function of a sentence refers to the purpose in communicating an idea. A

declarative sentence is used to indicate a statement. Most sentences used in

communication are declarative. An interrogative sentence is used to indicate a question.

An interrogative sentence is noted by its ending punctuation, a question mark. An

exclamatory sentence is used to indicate an exclamation, or an expression of thought

mixed with a strong emotion. Like an interrogative sentence, an exclamatory sentence is

noted by its ending punctuation, an exclamation mark. An imperative sentence is used to

indicate a request or a command. An imperative sentence will always use the second-

person "you" form in the subject and the predicate

Concepts of Tenses and Aspects

One of the biggest issues in L2 learning is L1 interference and this is very true for

Malay students in the EFL setting. In order to develop good understanding of the

concepts of language knowledge, issues of language interference must be tackled from

the early stage of explicit teaching of grammar rules. For example, Bahasa Melayu does

not incorporate tenses in the verb forms but it shows "time" using adverbial of time.

15

Bahasa Melayu sentences are normally in the present. Aspects of verb are usually not

shown in sentences and sometimes can be not specific.

In English, many linguist believe that there are only two tenses and four aspects,

however, many prescriptive grammarians will list about 16 tenses (inclusive of aspects).

The framework of this study adopts the earlier classification and will use it to explore

differences and smiliarities of L1 and L2 in preparing suitable concept building and

aspects for the Malay students.

Simple Present Tense

1. The sun rises in the east. Matahari naik dari sebelah timur.

Simple Past Tense

1. The sun rose in the east. Matahari naik dari sebelah timur(semalam).

(If the sun rises in the west today)

English uses affixes (ed,) to show the past where by in Bahasa Melayu there is no affixes

used to show the past tense.

Progressive Present Tense

1, The sun is rising in the east when we take our breakfast.

Matahari sedang naik semasa kami makan pagi.

Progressive Past Tense

2. The sun was rising in the east when we took our breakfast.

Matahari sedang naik semasa kami makan pagi (semalam).

English uses the auxiliary be to denote progressive. English be is a structure word

whereas in Malay, the progressive aspect is marked using sedang a content word. The

difference between a content versus structure word can provide different strategy in

learning this aspect.

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Perfect Present Tense

3. The sun has risen. Matahari telah naik.

Perfect Past Tense

4. The sun had risen when we reached the town.

Matahari telah pun naik semasa kita tiba di bandar itu.

5. I have seen him. Soya pernah melihat beliau.

6. I had seen him. Soya telah melihat beliau.

7. I haven't seen him. Soya tidak pernah melihat beliau.

The perfect tense in English is denoted by auxiliary have, which is a structure word,

whereas in Malay, telah or pernah are structure words used to show perfectness.

Present Perfect Progresssive Tense

8. I have been playing football since 1970

Saya bermain bola sepak semenjak 1970

Saya masih bermain bola sepak semenjak 1970

9. I have stayed here since 2000

Saya masih tinggal di sini semenjak tahun 2000

Saya telah tinggal di sini semenjak tahun 2000

10.1 had stayed here since 2000

Saya pernah tinggal di sini semenjak tahun 2000

The idea of perfect progressiveness in English is a little different from the Malay

version. Different Malay auxiliaries (kata bantu aspek) are' used to captui'e the meaning

of perfect progressive and thus create problem when translating the meaning in perfect

progressive.

In learning, learners normally do not produce the correct forms of these linguistic

units when they first try to use them in communication. The process of construction of