ACQUISITION OF GRAMMATICAL ASPECT BY IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS

This study investigated the acquisition of grammatical aspect by Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. The main question addressed in this study was whether Iranian EFL learners could distinguish conditions under which they must use either the perfective aspect or imperfective aspect. A group of 110 adult, Persian-Speaking learners of English both at BA and MA levels in English teaching major Took a Michigan test based on which they were assigned to two levels of proficiency namely, low and high were selected. A test of Grammatical Aspect was then administered to detect the factors which affect their choice of perfective and imperfective aspects. The results showed that temporal-linguistic and knowledge based semantic factors affected the learners understanding of perfective and imperfective aspects. They also showed that proficiency level affect learners to understand different types of grammatical aspects. Telic, Transitive, and Inanimate features are the best combination for determining the temporal grammatical perfective aspect. As for imperfective aspect, Atelic, Intransitive, and Animate temporal features are the best combination for understanding grammatical imperfective aspect.