La variación gramatical y el aprendizaje de los tiempos verbales del pasado en el contexto del español como lengua extranjera

In this study, we carry out a detailed analysis of some of the linguistic features of the pretérito perfecto compuesto (present perfect tense) in order to show its implications within the Spanish Foreign Language teaching and learning context, where this particular tense is usually explained in a very simplistic way. This will give us an idea of current trends on Spanish grammar variation and more in particular about the evolution of the pretérito perfecto on both sides of the Atlantic. This study is divided in two parts. The first part reviews from a theoretical point of view, the general description of the present perfect tense in Spanish. The second part is empirical and includes an analysis of the present perfect tense from the perspective of applied linguistics, using data from Spanish as a foreign language learner’s corpus, the ‘Corpus de aprendices de español’. After having described the sociolinguistic landscape of the present perfect in the Spanish-speaking world, we will track the effects of grammar variation in the context of Spanish as a foreign language teaching and learning.