The Acquisition of English Tenses and Aspects’ Categories by Saudi EFL Undergraduate Female Students at the University of Tabuk

Abstract

The goal of this research is to investigate the acquisition of English tenses and aspects’ categories by Saudi EFL undergraduate female students at the English Language Center (ELC) at the University of Tabuk in Saudi Arabia for the academic year 2018/2019. The sample of this study consisted of 30 female undergraduate students majoring in English Language and Literature. This quantitative –qualitative research used two research instruments are; questionnaire survey and pre-/post-tests.  The findings of the research showed that the uses of tenses and aspects’ categories differ from one student to another. Also, the results showed that only 47.8% of the students have provided the correct forms of simple past tense and past progressive tense. In addition, the findings showed that the category English present tense turns out to be most problematic for Saudi EFL undergraduate female students when learning and acquiring English language, particularly at the university of Tabuk/ Female Section. This research recommends that further future research be conducted in this context.

Keywords: Acquisition, Tenses, Aspects, Categories and EFL.