DEVELOPMENTAL STAGE OF ENGLISH COPULA WH-QUESTIONS OF PRESENT TENSE IN MATRIC LEVEL PAHARI SPEAKERS

Abstract

Over the last few decades, questions related to developmental studies have attracted significant attention and remained the focus of English language teaching research. The researcher, being an English teacher, at Secondary School Level found that our learners show very weak mastery in simple English structures. The present study aims at exploring developmental stage present in English copula Wh questions of present tense in the interlanguage of Secondary School Level Pahari speakers of Murree. Further it aims to explore how the teacher can teach these interrogatives effectively. Data were collected from randomly selected two boys' and two girls’ Secondary Schools of Murree. Randomly selected 40 learners, 10 from each school were taken as the subjects of the study. The questionnaire contained 31 Pahari questions written in Urdu script to be translated into English question equivalents and a grammaticality judgment test. Data were analyzed using Statistical means and percentages. The results show that the Secondary School Level learners of this study are at stage three of their English copula Wh questions development. Pedagogical implications and suggestions are given at the end.