Aleph
Volume 9, Numéro 3, Pages 329-346
2022-06-25

Diagnostic Testing As An Effective Tool For Learning Case Study: A Study Of Difficulties Encountered By Efl Learners When Using Tenses In English



Authors : Benamor Zohra . Benmostefa Nawel .

Abstract

This research work aims at investigating how data obtained from diagnostic grammar tests should be examined, interpreted and used to improve instruction and support students’ grammar learning. Two research instruments were used to answer the questions raised by this study; a diagnostic grammar test and a pupils’ questionnaire. The analysis revealed that the target learners encountered serious difficulties in using tenses in English. It involved the types of errors and the real causes behind making them using error analysis method. One of the most important interests of this research was to determine whether the errors were due to L1 interference or the intralingual factors. This is for the purpose of benefiting from these data in making appropriate instructional decisions. This work is composed of two parts, a theoretical background of diagnostic testing and error analysis method and a practical part that includes both the results and analysis of the study. Both quantitative and qualitative research approaches were used with a sample of 41 participants from a high school in Naâma, Algeria. The final results revealed that the most frequent grammatical errors that those learners committed in learning English tenses, from the most common to the least ones, were found to be wrong tenses, wrong verb forms, erroneous tenses and verb forms, the absence of the infinitive form after ‘to’ and wrong verbs. Another significant finding is that most of such errors were not due to L1 interference but to intralingual factors. Based on the data obtained from diagnostic assessments, teachers can make efficient educational decisions that improve the quality of grammar teaching as well as learning. These decisions involve adapting school curricula, teaching objectives, teaching materials, teaching strategies, classroom techniques and using individualized instruction whenever it is necessary.

Keywords

Diagnostic, Grammar, Test, Grammatical errors, Error analysis, Tenses, Interlingual errors, Intralingual errors, instructional decisions, remedial teaching

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