Abstract

The current paper presents the findings of a research study examining the acquisition of the English Present Perfect by Malay learners of English. Our main objective was to determine whether the structural features of Malay language could influence Malay ESL learners' acquisition of present perfect forms in English. The instruments used consist of three elicitation tasks: a cloze task, a Grammaticality Judgement Task (GJT), and a translation task. Written output from the participants of two levels of English proficiency (advanced and intermediate) whose first language is Malay and second language (ESL) is English was collected. The data analysis provides evidence that even the advanced proficient group faced the persistent difficulty to acquire the English present perfect. The difficulty is the result of interacting factors such as the markedness, there being no equivalent form to express the English present perfect in Malay, and the complexity in meaning and the ambiguous nature of the English present perfect. The paper concludes with a discussion on the implications of our findings.