Urdu-Medium Learners’ Confusions in Learning English Past Simple Tense

Abstract

This paper describes learners’ confusions in the usage of the Past Simple Tense of English. The study is based on the qualitative paradigm. Selinker’s theory of Interlanguage is used to analyze data. The participants belonged to a public sector college of Pakistan where Grammar Translation Method is used to teach English. The researcher administered an Urdu-to-English translation-based test to a sample of 25 participants. Then the researcher collected the learners’ reasons for making word combinations. He also performed contrastive analysis of the faulty chunks of translated text as an alternative technique of data analysis. Findings highlighted the following reasons for errors in usage: (1) over-extension of the one-to-one correlation of L1 and L2 items, (2) over generalization of collocation patterns, (3) superimposition of personal time scale, (4) structure transfer of verb phrase, (5) over emphasis of pastness by repeating the finite verb.