Why do ESL students have trouble with these?

Question

1. Past perfect tense.

Why do they find this concept so hard to understand? Is it because they only think in terms of simple past? Because they can't understand why someone would want to talk about an action that happened before another action?

2. Forming questions that start with 'will you' or 'would you'? Is it because they can't understand the difference between can and will?

Details would be appreciated.Thank you.

Answer 1

Past perfect does exist in Spanish, but I would say that it just takes patience to teach it.  I'm a certified bilingual teacher in TX, but even kids in general ed classrooms have problems with the past perfect.  Most kids don't really use past perfect.  So, I would definitely say to be patient, and try different techniques.

With sentence structure in Spanish, you never have to write "will you" or "would you".  The fact that it's a question is implied by the question marks and/or voice inflection only.

Side note:  Try to think positively about who your kids are and what they know... and don't know.  In your question, you asked if it's because they "can't...".  The answer is no.  It's not because they can't.  As teachers, we just have to be patient and try more ways to teach them, until they get it.

So... good luck!  I hope that helps!

Answer 2

I was an ESL student, I barely could speak any English.

But that wasn't hard for me at all.

1.It might be because their languages don't have that, so it's completely new for them.

2. It's because they don't understand what's will and would, just try with really basic sentences like:

I will play, will you play?

I actually couldn't understand that once, but it was because I didn't know that when you're asking the "will, would, may, etc.." needs to be before the pronoun.

In my case, I speak Spanish.

Good luck

Answer 3

Because English is a difficult language and many of our structures don't exist in other languages. It isn't because they can't learn it, it is simply a very difficult task.