The Usage of Tense and Aspect in the Written English of Some Selected Secondary School Students in Nigeria

The verbal group of English is the most crucial part in the structure of English and it constitutes a source of considerable difficulty for second language learners. The major aim of this paper is to find out the level of competence of the participants in the usage of tense and aspect features of English especially in their active, productive language use. The participants are 60 Senior Secondary Year Three students who were given a guided composition to write. Our findings showed that the different verbal group forms and their meanings posed different problems to the learners. On the basis of our findings we offer suggestions that can lead to a better understanding and usage of the features investigated.