Résumé:
The current study attempts to identify the main difficulties students face in using
past complex tenses including: past perfect, past continuous, and past perfect continuous.
Through highlighting and finding out the errors students make while applying these tenses
in their writing two research questions are raised: 1) What kind of difficulties students
encounter in applying the past complex tenses in written expression classes? 2) What kind
of errors students produce while using the past complex tenses in their writing. Data for
this study were collected using a grammar test that was given to a sample of fifty third
year students at Mohammed Seddik ben Yahya university . Moreover, a questionnaire was
administrated to ten written expression teachers at the department of English of the same
university. The results obtained from this study showed that the most problematic tenses
are past perfect and past perfect continuous, students have less difficulties concerning the
past continuous in comparison with the rest past complex tenses. Furthermore, students
face difficulties in using the past complex tenses in their writing both at the level of use
and form. Regarding the tense use, Most of the students struggle to apply the past complex
tenses appropriately within the context. They feel confused to differentiate between their
complex uses. They either substitute the tense with other tenses, or use simpler tenses to
avoid their complexity. Regarding the tense form, the main types of errors are omission,
addition, Misordering, and misformation. Students find it challenging to offer the correct
form that suits each tense in their writing. Consequently, teachers are recommended to
provide a deep explanation concerning the functions and forms of tenses; especially those
are rarely used in order to overcome all kinds of confusion that can lead students to avoid
using these tenses in their writing.
