Difficulties of the grammatical system of the English language for Russian speakers and their overcoming

Abstract

The article is devoted to a systematic analysis of the difficulties of mastering English grammar by Russian-speaking learners and to the search for effective methods for overcoming them; the aim of the study is to construct a quantitative model of error dynamics and to assess the impact of different instructional approaches on their remediation under the conditions of typological divergence between the English (analytic) and Russian (synthetic) languages. The empirical base includes a specially compiled corpus of more than 1,2 million word tokens of written and spoken production from 450 respondents at levels A2-C1 over 24 months, as well as results of standardized tests; automated and manual error annotation was carried out, a usage correctness index and an error persistence coefficient were computed, and methods of analysis of variance and correlation–regression analysis were applied. A quasi-experiment compared three methodologies: the grammar-translation method (control), a communicative approach, and an adaptive digital platform with personalized delivery and spaced repetition. The results showed that 65-70% of errors are concentrated in the article system, the aspect – tense forms of the Perfect group, and phrasal verbs; the dominant error for the Perfect is the substitution of the Present Perfect by the Past Simple (62,8%), indicating a conceptual rather than a formal nature of the difficulty. Even at the C1 level there remains a notable persistence of errors involving the zero article (15,3%), confirming deep fossilization of categories lacking morphological expression in Russian. In the acquisition of phrasal verbs over six months, the correctness index increased by 7,6 percentage points in the control, by 19,4 percentage points under the communicative approach, and by 26,4 percentage points with the adaptive platform, demonstrating the advantage of personalized instruction. A strong association was found between the persistence of article errors and the substitution of Present Perfect (r=0.81), and multivariate modeling identified the leading predictors: typological divergence (~40% of variance), absence of conceptual analogues (~25%), and instructional method (~20%). It is concluded that a shift is needed from uniform rules to adaptive, context-oriented, and technologically mediated strategies that form new conceptual models; practical solutions are proposed: diagnostic metrics, principles for exercise design, and the deployment of intelligent tutoring systems to personalize learning trajectories.