Fossilization in the Learning of the Present Simple Tense

Abstract

This paper presents cognitive problems of the Urdu-medium learners in their usage of the present simple tense. The term used to label the distorted concepts is fossil. This study was based  on  Corder's  framework  of  error  analysis. The  participants  were 25  grade-XIII students of an Urdu-medium college. A test of Urdu sentences was administered, and later unstructured interviews were conducted to know the learners' reasons for their faulty usage. Contrastive analysis of the sentences in the test was also performed. The findings of the study were: one-to-one correlations of NL1  and TL2  items, fixation of a specific linear order, confused time scale, and overlooking of intervening items.