The Impact of the Heavy Use of English Tenses on the Students s' Comprehension of the First Intermediate

Abstract

This study surveys the pedagogical challenges that emerge from Unit One of the Activity and the Students’ books in the English for Iraq for 1st intermediate students, with an emphasis on the disconnect between its communicative aims and its grammatical tenses density. Using Douglas Biber’s Multi-Dimensional Analysis model along with Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory, the study seeks to quantify the linguistic burdens and the effect of intensive use of tenses within a single unit placed on 1st intermediate students. An analysis of the Student and Activity Books reveals heavy use of tenses that can obstruct rather than smooth the communicative aims of the textbook and its users. Through the eight lessons of the unit, students need to be involved with four tenses, in which the domination of the past tense is noticeable, where the Past Simple (45.2%) is dominant, but Present Simple shows less presence (26.2%); on the other hand, Past Continuous has (16.7%) compared with Present Continuous (11.9%). The findings suggest that clear cognitive load is induced by the English syllabus. The real problem is that students s must master and memorize all the forms of each tense, including affirmative, interrogative, and negative moods; add to that the morphological changes such as regular suffixes (ed, es, ing), irregular verbs of past form, and they need to recognize tense markers or adverbial forms. This case mantel burden, which can be exacerbated in the case of continuous forms, which appear in Lesson 3 without any previous introduction. In addition, the alternation between Arabic and English enforces more strain on working memory due to construction differences between the two languages. The study claims that such grammatical difficulties result in learning processes, and consumes classroom time, and delay the language enhancement that the textbook’s goals aim to achieve. Therefore, the study recommends reducing the heavy use and number of tenses to one per study unit, making sure that each tense comes with all its forms and morphological needs, and following a chronological timeline of tenses to ease cognitive load on students. The study concludes with specific and general recommendations for the educational system