Tense Instruction and Writing Development: A Quasi-Experimental Study with Pakistani EFL Learners

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of tense instructions among elementary level English as a foreign language (EFL) learners of district Faisalabad, Pakistan. It observed the importance of tense mastery for effective written communication and this research also explore how explicit tense-based instructions help to improve the accuracy and fluency in the writing of the students. It employed quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test design and total 60 individuals were involved and equally divided into two experimental and control group. The experimental group was given explicit present, past and future tense-based instructions with the help of PPP (presentation, practice and production) model while the control group just followed the regular curriculum-based lessons. Data was collected in the form of written tasks from both groups before the intervention of instructions and after the intervention and results were quantitatively analyzed. The statistical results showed significant improvement in the writing performance of experimental group after the intervention of the instructions. These results support to the effectiveness of tense instructions for the improvement of grammatical accuracy and writing proficiency among English as a foreign language (EFL) learners of Faisalabad, Pakistan. This study also highlights the importance of form focused instructions in teaching communicative language to EFL learners within such contexts where students have limited or no exposure to English outside their classroom.