Mohammad Mahdi Pourarian & Dr. Kamran Janfeshan
Kermanshah Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran
There has been a dispute for many years over how to teach grammar effectively. However, it is observed that in spite of teaching grammar so extensively, students are unable to produce grammatically correct sentences. One of the difficult grammatical areas for ESL/EFL students to master is the English verb tense-aspect system. Narrative writing can be used to teach time tenses. The present study aims to investigate the impact of using narrative writing on the retention of time tenses among Iranian intermediate EFL learners. The study also investigated the role of gender in the grammar tenses retention of language learners. 80 intermediate language learners from four language institutes took part in this study. They were divided into an experimental group and control group. During the treatment, the experimental group received instruction on English tenses through presenting narratives and practicing narrative essays. Meanwhile, the control group learned time tenses through explicit grammar instruction. The instruments of the study were an Oxford Placement Test and a grammar test used as the pretest and the posttest. Results of the study showed that using narrative writing had a significant effect on the retention of time tenses among intermediate EFL learners in language institutes. However, gender did not have a significant effect on the retention of grammar tenses among the participant of the study. Findings of the study had implications for teachers, students, materials developers and policy makers.
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Second International Conference on Current Issues of Languages, Dialects and Linguistics (WWW.TLLL.IR), 1-2 February 2018, Ahwaz.
