Investigating English Language Students’ Causes of Tense Errors in Essay Writing.

Abstract

he ultimate Purpose of all EFL students is producing an organized, neat and error-free essay .Writing a correct essay is a crucial and challenging task for every English learner especially first year EFL students at Ibn Khaldoun University Tiaret. In fact, they commit a significant number of tense errors in writing essay. Thus, the present study attempts to investigate the EFL students causes of tense errors in writing essay and to find out some solutions to reduce committing such errors .The researcher used the descriptive analytical approach to describe the data collected via using a test given to the first EFL students at Ibn Khaldoun University. The sample is twenty one students who were chosen randomly. Two separate questionnaires were completed by six teachers and twenty one students reflecting their attitudes and views towards the different aspects. This work consists of three main chapters: The first one is devoted to some definitions and concepts of errors, error analysis, tenses ,aspects, and writing .The second one presents the practical work in which the data is gathered and analyzed and discussed. The third chapter presents the results obtained in this study as well as some recommendations. The Result obtained from the analysis of the students’ and the teachers’ questionnaire and the analysis of the short essays revealed first year EFL students make a lot of tense errors and the main causes of them are overgeneralization and the interference of their first language (Arabic). Finally, a number of recommendations were handed for the teachers and the students that may help them to write correctly and reduce tense errors.