Past vs Previous in EFL Teaching of L1 Slavic Students

Abstract

In Germanic and Slavic languages, the Verb is the most extensive grammatical item, which causes most of the troubles for second language learners. It has been noticed that Slavic L1 learners of English make mistakes in using verb forms due to the transfer of their L1 grammatical system (grammar concepts) onto the English language. The goal of the paper is to show how the wording of grammatical explanations in English influences the conceptualisation of grammatical items. The paper refers to one of the most probable sources of such misunderstanding – the way grammatical forms are named and explained in frequently used course books and grammars of English, which leads to a corrupted or limited understanding of the functionality of a grammatical form in L1 Slavic learners. The practical clues presented below might be beneficial for authors of course-books, FL language teachers and teacher trainers in solving the dilemma between the implicit vs explicit approach to teaching grammar, in constructing concept questions and formulating clear explanations in class.