Reasons for the use of past verb tenses by Mandarin-speaking ESL learners

This exploratory study investigated the contexts in which a group of native Mandarin English as a second language learners, with high knowledge of the simple past tense, used the present perfect, past perfect and past progressive on a fill-in-the-gaps task. The participants frequently correctly used the past perfect form on a task item requiring these forms, but they also often oversupplied the present perfect, past perfect and, to a lesser extent, the past progressive, on the task. Participants who correctly supplied the past perfect had a higher overall level of grammatical knowledge than those who did not. On a verbal protocols task, the learners reported that the presence of adverbials sometimes led them to their choice of the present perfect or past perfect. The oversuppliances of the past progressive were primarily atelic activities. These results mirror other studies in the confusion between past tense forms, influence of adverbials and lexical aspect. They may also possibly indicate L1 influence from Mandarin. Keywords: Past perfect, past progressive, present perfect.