On Teaching Future Time To EFL Learners: Problems And Solutions

Abstract

This study in all its overall presentation seeks to give a comprehensive account of the difficulties involved in teaching future time to students who learn English as a foreign language; and the (pedagogical) solutions humbly suggested for learners, teachers, text-book writers, linguists and psychologists since they are expected to be the best who can deal with the problems that impede the acquisition of the foreign language concepts. The work like many language teachers' works is a reaction to the frustrating state of the students who cannot use their knowledge in a real communicative situation. It spotlights the reasons of students' inefficient use of the English future structures; and projects, through a questionnaire, the most possible reasons of this problem propounding some useful techniques to overcome the problem depending on what is written in the literature of language learning and teaching. The study tackles the topic of tense and time as an entrance to investigate the nature of future structures. Apart from presenting a pedagogical view of future time references, it provides almost all the constructions used to express futurity and the indications they refer to getting use of the idea of Fleischman's time-line. The study ends with many results, findings and pedagogical suggestions. Keyword: Futurity, Pedagogy and pedagogical grammar, EFL acquisition, Tense and time, Time-Line