Exploring the Difficulties in Learning English Grammar Rules in Functional English/ESP Classrooms, a Study into the Context of Southern Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

The key objective of the current study was exploring the difficulties in learning English grammar rules in functional English classrooms at the public sector colleges, universities. The present research was planned to use a mixed-method type and respondents were male & female on equal ratio and SPSS, version 23 was used to extract percentage and cumulative percentage. The source of data used in the study was a structured questionnaire. The most important aim of this research was to look at the barriers and difficulties of the students of the South Punjab in learning English as the target language especially learning the rules of English grammar which become a great ordeal and cause of making errors and mistakes in learning various skills of L2 in functional English courses. The majority of the learners responded that they fall into different difficulties while learning the grammar rules of L2 such as subject-verb agreement, plural markers, or rules related to tenses, confusion in using forms of the verb, difficulty in memorizing two-word verbs, confusion in using verb tense, difficulty in using phrasal verbs and idiomatic expressions might be caused by the linguistic circumstances of the students. English teachers should properly direct and motivate their l2 learners in this perspective and they must opt their lecture on grammar by making difference between English, Urdu, or other regional languages so that they could eradicate the difficulties of English grammar faced by the learners.