After the discussion of the past simple, it is time to discuss the past progressive. The book key (see Section 7.1.2) expected a past progressive form in 15% of the slots, and Table 27 displays the slots where the past progressive was the expected form, with the number of students who provided the expected form. The table also includes any other forms that seemed to be attempts at forming a progressive, and the corresponding past simple (only in the standard past simple form: e.g., for was watching, the standard past simple is watched). Slot 108 expects the passive past progressive and is discussed in Section 8.3.3. As we can see, students provided the expected past progressive form with varying success, from only 19% to 77%; the mean was 53% (168 students). This implies that roughly half of the students could provide the past progressive in contexts where it was expected. The highest proportion of students formed the past progressive in slot 25 (... while the doctor ___ (still/talk) to Trevor) with was still talking, 82 This count covers all slots in the test as opposed to only those requiring the past tense at the beginning of
but the word still did not have a similar effect in slot 16 (Trevor ___ (still/shout) in his study), although the percentage there was also higher than the average. The form with obviously in slot 17 (He and Lucy ___ (obviously/have) a serious row) had the smallest proportion, only 19%. Students did not seem to readily understand the simultaneity of action between slots 16 and 17, perhaps because they were in different sentences.
Table 27. Slots where the past progressive is the expected form, excluding forms with greater teacher disagreement
Slot Expected form The past progressive given as expected83 % of all forms Any other progressive (-ing) given84 Corresponding past simple 10 was watching 153 48% 2 152
16 was still shouting 189 59% 18 66
17 were obviously having
60 19% 8 139
25 was still talking 247 77% 19 49
27 was not shouting
/ wasn’t shouting 154 48% 9 115 32 was watching 145 45% 5 164 35 was pouring 170 53% 10 118 48 was standing 113 35% 1 171 50 was talking 192 60% 1 120 58 was looking 217 68% 8 92 77 was talking 196 61% 48 49 91 was looking 173 54% 4 138 93 was walking 172 54% 1 141
It is unclear why students felt more tempted to provide the progressive in slot 25 (... while the
doctor ___ (still/talk) to Trevor) than in other slots, but one possible explanation is the word
while before the slot, which may have helped students identify a typical context for the progressive; it could also be the combined effect of while and still, since the word while before slot 35 (while I ___ (pour) it) did not have quite the same effect on the use of the progressive. The word when after slot 91 (I ___ (look) for him when ...) may also have served as a clue for using the progressive. Slot 77 (... what he ___ (talk) about) again shows evidence of hesitancy with reported speech, as there were a number of present progressives suggested for this slot (is talking by 23 students and some other forms), and the pure –ing form (talking) was given by 15 students.
83 Double forms are not included in cases where they contain both the progressive and the simple form. When
both of the forms contain the progressive, they are included.
Slot 46 (when I ___ (walk) into the village) is not included in the table above, because in this slot, teachers seemed equally willing to accept the progressive as well as the simple past form, albeit with some individual variation in which was actually considered the better form. Students greatly favoured walked in this context, as it was given by 221 students as opposed to 90 students (28%) providing was walking. Other –ing forms were provided three times, and there were two double forms as well, with both walked and was walking offered. Perhaps these two students agreed with the teachers in finding the two equally suitable in the context.
Students whose first language was Swedish or who were bilingual scored slightly worse than Finnish-speakers with the past progressive. Their success rate varied from 19% to 62%, while the range was from 19% to 77% for the entire student population. The bilingual and Swedish- speaking students struggled particularly with slot 17 and scored the best with slots 25 and 58. Their overall accuracy rate with the past progressive remained 41%, which is lower than the mean of the entire population, which was 53%. It may be that Swedish-speakers have more difficulty associating the progressive with the structure hålla på att göra than Finnish-speakers with the structures –massa and –essa (see Section 5.1). However, there were only five bilingual and 16 Swedish-speaking students, and more research is needed to see if the finding depends on the L1 and whether it is generalisable.
In conclusion, students were not as proficient with the past progressive as they were with the past simple, but there was variation among the slots, and further research would be needed to explore why students preferred to provide the progressive in some of these slots. The results do not provide support for the assumption that students would be more inclined to provide the progressive with particular types of verbs (see Section 4.1). For example, while both stand and talk are activity verbs, the success rate for stand was 35%, but it varied from 60% to 77% for the three instances of talk. However, since this study did not specifically target the difference between various types of verbs and the provision of a particular aspect with them, it does not contradict the aspect hypothesis or discourse hypothesis (see Section 4.1), either.