Abstract:
Writing sentences without making mistakes in the application of tenses is important to express the intended meaning. In Sri Lankan context, even though the students are learning English as a second language from the elementary level, and even at tertiary education, they make mistakes in English tenses. The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of oral approach to internalize the structure of tenses. Fifty first year students from the Faculty of Business Studies at Vavuniya Campus were selected as the random sample of the study and the study was conducted for three months using quantitative and qualitative research methods. Pre-tests and post-test were conducted to evaluate the students‟ progress. According to the pre-test, 43 students (86%) made mistakes in tenses while only 7 students (14%) formed accurate sentences using the tenses. Therefore, all the tenses in English were taught one by one and at the end of the teaching of each tense, 15 minutes were allocated for oral practice. Each student in the classroom was given a chance to produce at least 10 sentences orally and when they made mistakes, they were corrected by the researcher. After three months, a written test was conducted. This post-test revealed that 48 students, 96%, wrote sentences using the tenses correctly, while only 2 students, 4%, made mistakes again. Compared to pre-test, the number of students who wrote sentences using correct structure of tenses in the post-test increased by 41 which is 82% of the total sample. The number of students who made mistakes have been reduced to 4% which was 86% in the pretest. The results show the dramatic improvement of internalization of the tenses through oral approach. Students could form grammatically correct sentences promptly on various topics using correct structure of tenses. Further the students became very active, interactive and entertainers through the practicing in the classroom. Thus the study recommends that oral approach is more effective to internalize the English tenses.
