Teaching Present Perfect Aspect to EFL Students Using Translated Writing Methods

Present perfect aspect does not exist in Korean language and learning this aspect has always been a challenge for Korean EFL learners. Often gap filling and multiple questions are used after the class period, nonetheless successfully completing the tests do not reflect the full acquisition of this aspect for the learners. Present perfect aspect is commonly used in news reports in real life and research indicated that nearly 70% of the random news articles used present perfect than simple past. Therefore using news articles with the translated method should be an effective way to teach the EFL learners. Study found that multiple choice and gap filling tasks were not able to reflect the learners’ acquisition and meaningful differences were found between the traditional two tasks and the translated writing method using the news article. These findings could be applied to classroom settings not only during grammar lessons but also during writing classes where extended composition is required. Expanded studies could also be applied to other perfect aspects with various subjects not limiting to news articles.