Many people say that grammar is not at all important for learning English. It may be partially true but not exactly.

The Arab students struggle to cope with the language because their foundation of English seems fragile. Even after the graduation , the students struggle to speak and write English. A common and serious problem the Arab students encounter is the use of past form of verbs. It is not uncommon to hear from the learners that they never knew that the past form of ‘write’ is ‘wrote’ or ‘swim’ is ‘swam’. This ignorance forces them to use present forms of verbs to describe a past event which could be quite confusing to a foreigner. This present verb usage has gone so deep into the minds of most Arab students. As an English teacher, I keep correcting their wrong usage quite often as I converse with them. As Arabic language doesn’t have the past form , the English learners in this region find themselves trapped in the snare.

To make you understand the seriousness of the challenge in ELT, I give you some ‘reasons for leave’ written by some of our students who have finished their graduation.

1. the bus is coming late and there is damage and the road is crawded.
2. because my grandfather is die.
3. the accident is happen and the road is stop and I am came from ………
4. I was go to the hospital.
5. I go to the hospital.(instead of ‘went’)
6. I have a strong stomach ( ache)
7. my friend is on the hospital.

I hope that you can understand the challenges the teachers face. The traditional methodologies don’t help . Your suggestions are welcome in dealing with this problem.

I want you to notice that the learners were graduates and diploma holders who had one-year intensive English course in the first year of their college study. I found out that the many teachers in college were more interested in completing the syllabus than making the students understand the right use of the language. I don’t try to find fault with the teachers. Because most institutions are worried about just completing the recommended syllabus. It may be relevant to other main courses of study. But language learning is entirely different. Being the universal language, English breaks the cultural barriers and unite people. It is the medium of communication. The objective of teaching English is enhancement of communication. If the learner emerges without any change at the end of every class hour, the methodology is not up to the mark.
In a particular teachers’ forum, a teacher came out with the complaint that the recommended English books or materials were not good. She was not happy because the students did not respond positively. The prominent point is that it is not what kind of books you recommend but the kind of methodology you apply in teaching English. The teacher plays a vital role inside the class not the books. A creative teacher creates creative students.

In the beginning, I spoke to the students about these past forms of verbs and asked them to be conscious when they spoke English. It didn’t work out much. I prepared the list of V1, V2, V3 and distributed to the students. Students were asked to repeat as the teacher read it aloud. The rhyming of the three forms like ‘sing –sang- sung’ created some interest. But the expected change was not found. It still remained a challenge.

To deal with this problem, the teaching of tenses is indispensable. A thorough and meticulous drilling is inevitable. The miracle happened one fine day. I taught them ‘Direct and Indirect speech’. The students learnt this with amazing interest. As they started learning to report a speech, their use of past forms improved a lot. They were given a lot of sentences to transform from direct and indirect and vice-versa. Then they were asked to report the conversations they had with the friends or family members. It performed the miracle I was longing for. The students were able to report well using the past forms of verbs. I strongly recommend this grammar for the Arab learners of English. It helps them a lot to change their language. Students can be encouraged to change conversations into indirect speech. It is a time-consuming exercise but surely the best one for Arab students.