La influencia de la lengua materna en el aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras

Abstract

A study was carried out to determine Spanish-speaking learners’ perception of the English present progressive; using a grammaticality judgment test and retrospective interviews. These metalinguistic data were analyzed taking into consideration a linguistic description of the Spanish progressive periphrastic construction; in order to reach conclusions about the influence of the native language. It was concluded that the students perceive similarity between Spanish and English as to the progressive form; however; they distinguish distance as far as use; complicating conceptualization of the English present progressive. Some pedagogical implications of the findings are given.