Proficiency-Level Differences in the Use of Temporal Adverbials by Albanian Learners of English
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1610.03Keywords:
tenses, temporality development, temporal adjuncts, Albanian (L1), English (L2)Abstract
This study investigates how Albanian university students at different proficiency levels (first, second, and third year) express temporal reference in English writing, examining whether lower-proficiency learners rely more heavily on explicit temporal adjuncts (e.g., yesterday, last week) while more proficient learners shift toward accurate tense-aspect verb morphology. A cross-sectional design was employed with 36 Albanian ESL university students divided into three proficiency groups (n=12 per year). Participants completed three written narrative tasks targeting past, present, and future temporal reference. A total of 684 sentences were analyzed for temporal adjunct type and frequency, as well as verb tense and aspect distribution across proficiency levels. Temporal adjunct usage followed an unexpected non-linear, inverted-U pattern, peaking at the intermediate level (70.7% in Year 2) before declining in Year 3 (65.4%). Despite advancing proficiency, all groups maintained 75%–80% reliance on simple tenses, with progressive aspect usage remaining low (5.7%–7.6%) and perfect aspect emerging only in Year 3 (7.2%), driven primarily by past perfect acquisition. These findings challenge linear acquisition models, suggesting that temporal expression development in Albanian ESL learners involves dynamic interaction between lexical and morphological systems rather than simple substitution. The persistent reliance on simple tenses across all levels points to enduring L1 transfer effects from Albanian's implicit aspectual system, with Year 2 representing a critical reorganization phase in temporal expression development.
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