Job Discussion Forums

[dduck]

[dmb]

john, with regard to goldilocks. When the continuous is used the focus is on the action but when the simple is used the focus is on the result. Is it not?

[johnslat]

Dear mjed9,
I suspect you have be right - although I consider

"Did you eat yet" or, as it sounds in American English "Jeet Jet"

to be a mistake / improper usage.

But then, for an American, I believe I'm more careful than most of my compatriots regarding the usage of the past / present perfect tenses.

Dear dmb,
When you use the terms "continuous" and "simple", you're talking about the present perfect continuous and the present perfect simple, right? If so, I'd agree that the PPS tends to focus on the result while the PPC speaks more about the action.

Dear dduck,
Maybe it IS the other way around. And maybe it's just the omission of " the " in that sentence:
"Hamad has moved chairs" ( "Hamad has moved THE chairs")
that made it "sound strange" to me.


Regards,
John

[shmooj]

John, I hear you... but I'm not so sure that present perfect doesn't extend into future time in some way, particularly continuous forms. I'm aware that "have" cannot take a continuous form for possession so it might not be the best example to explore this, but if I come up with this example:

I've been having these headaches for years now.

... would you concede that there is some future implied here i.e. that the speaker is concerned how long they might last or what to do about them? I feel that the example does have some implication for the future.

Going back to "have" for possession, sure, you are going to possess something in the future too but at the point you say "I've got a car." that is irrelevant as much as the future is irrelevant in "I've lived here for a year." Both seem examples of present perfect to me.

Certainly, if I concede this point, it makes it easier to swing it by students as then it follows a rule and is not an exception that, as you said, would confuse "SOME" students.

[shmooj]

[FGT]

The fundamental purpose of Present Perfect is that we (US or UK) use this to link past and present time. Similarly, past perfect is used to link two past times and future perfect is used to link a future time with an earlier time.

Yes, there are differences in usage between US and UK. Generally UK speakers use PP when US (may) use past simple.

There are differences between the continuous and simple form and, broadly speaking, I would agree that action vs result, and duration dictate which one uses.

As for "have" vs "have got" ; the former is more common in US, the latter more common in spoken/informal UK, but UK favours "have" for formal written usage.

In my opinion, "have got" is present perfect because it fulfills the criterion of linking past and present. Eg: I was born with green eyes, I have them now, therefore I've got green eyes.

Now the big question: how do you TEACH it?

[mjed9]

I draw a timeline on the board to represent someone's life ... ... I think it makes it rather clear and have received good feedback from this.

I try to simplify its use ... especially if its the first time the student has been properly exposed to it.

1) We use PP to talk about experiences that we HAVE HAD ... when there is on specific reference to time (i.e. I'm not telling you exactly when I did something but just that I have done it) ... as soon as you bring in a specific time reference you have to revert to the simple past.

"I have been to America" (a non-specific past experience)
"When did you go?"
"I went to America last year" (a specific time-referenced past experience)

2) We use PP to express an action that started in the past and is true now.

"I have lived in Outer Mongolia for ten months / since last Tuesday"

This suggests that it is still true now and its usually emphasised through the use of "for" and "since".

3) We use PP to express an action that has been completed in the past and has an effect on now (alhtough this is similar to point 1)

"I have eaten" -> present effect "I am not hungry"
"I have forgotten" -> present effect "I cannot remember"
"I have been crying" -> present effect "my eyes are red"

Its difficult to give anything but a suggestion of how to use this tense correctly. I usually end up telling them that from now on its better to say things like

I have forgotten
I have finished
I have eaten

and hope that their brains will eventually figure out why ... implicit learning!

Feedback?

James

[shmooj]

[dmb]

What about 'I've lived in outer Mongolia for 5 years' and I've been living in Outer Mongolia for 5 years' That's something to do with if you think the situation will continue indefinitely. Is this what John means by usage for the future.
I remember hearing that "perfect"means "complete' But this doesn't fit for "I've been painting the ceiling" (that's why now I'm covered in paint) Maybe i'm finished for the day and I'll resume the task tomorrow???

[schminken]

Well hold the phone here. In grammar books, there is often a section that explains how British/American usage differs in the present perfect. If it is documented as a difference, I wish people would stop calling it a mistake.

This is what people are talking about:

British: I have lost my keys. (Do you know where they are NOW?)

American: You can use the simple past or present perfect to mean the same thing.

I have lost my keys. Have you found them?

or

I lost my keys. Did you find them?

German speakers have a hard time choosing when to use the simple past and when to use present perfect. In German, you use present perfect to talk about things in the past when you are actually speaking. You use simple past when writing. I usually just teach the British rules because I find it's really difficult to go back and say, "Oh and by the way, in American English it doesn't really matter which tense you use. They have the same meaning for Americans." That's really not true either but I could not find an explanation for when how one form is chosen over the other.

Sometimes I will say:

She has gone out for the evening.

Other times I will say:

She went out for the evening.

Why do I pick one form one time and the second form on other occasions?

[dduck]

[leeroy]

In my mind...

Some "grammar points" can be quite clearly correlated to a function or notion. Good coursebooks exploit this link, and try to present grammatical strucures within the context of the topic for that chapter (or page, or whatever...) Grammar makes more sense when it is presented as a function, rather than a description.

For example...

Second conditionals - For hypothesizing
("It would be cool if aliens landed..")

Modal verbs of deduction - For, um, deducing
("He must've told her!")

(Naturally, these grammatical areas aren't restricted to just these functions, and similarly you can perform the same functions in lots of different ways!)

Hypothesizing and deducing are workable functions,

"Stating that an action happened in the past and is relevent now"

Is not. It's simply not "beefy" enough - While a student mind have a need to use a function (like, complaining), I doubt they pause mid-speech and think "Sh*t, how do I imply that thing in the past is still relevant?" very often. It's not functionally sexy.

Most accurate student usage of the present perfect in free speech resembles that which has been learned lexically and functionally, rather than grammatically.

In order for students to use the present perfect as naturally, accurately and fluently as possible in normal communication (which I assume is an important goal for most of us) - they need to be told when to use it, more than why or how.

For example

If you're in London, say this: "I've been in London for x months"
But if you're somewhere else, say this: "I was in London for x months"
If you're looking for something and appealing for help, say: "Have you seen my x?"
Communicating 'statistics' about your life: "I have married 3 times, and have been to 16 countries"

The present perfect doesn't have to be "done" in one lesson, examples of it's usage can be given in small lexical presentations within different contexts (in different lessons). If the topic is "weather", for example

For if it's raining now: "It's raining now"
For it it stopped but is still wet": It's been raining":

(Naturally the presentation of these functions in the lesson should be a little more thorough than the examples above, they're to illustrate the idea rather than what to tell the students exactly...)

OK, enough typing, you get the idea

[johnslat]

Well, I'm going to stick to the "no future in them" ( "them" being the present perfect tenses) principle. Oh sure - you can "assume" something about the future, just as you can when the past continuous is "interrupted" by a past simple action or past time:

"I was taking a shower when the phone rang."

Did you ignore the phone and finish taking the shower? Did you stop showering to answer the phone and then resume your shower afterward? Did you stop, answer the phone, and then do something else rather than finish your shower? Presumably all would be revealed by more context. But the sentence given above offers no clue as to what was going to happen. Same, I'd say, with the present perfect tenses. There may well be instances when you can make a likely, even a very likely, inference about the future:

"I've been living here for many years."

But the only "hard facts" that sentence gives you deal with the past up to the present.
And sorry, schminken, but it's my opinion that your examples:

"I lost my keys. Did you find them?"

ARE grammatical mistakes. Now, certainly languages change. And who knows? At some point in the future, maybe the present perfect tenses will disappear. But as English grammar now stands (or perhaps sits) the present perfect simple tense is supposed to be used for an action in GENERAL (not specific) past time, an action that is NOT finished, over and done with, but is "up to now", "so far", "yet", etc. in meaning.
I used to like to give my students two sentences:

1. Ali never saw snow in his life.

2. Ali has never seen snow in his life.

Both sentences are, of course, grammatically correct but have very different meanings.

Regards.
John

[dyak]

[shmooj]

Aaaahhh Leeroy, I was waiting for somebody functional to turn up.

Glad you have mentioned them. FOr me, function is vital to help students in Japan sort out the mess of tools they were provided with in so called English classes at school. I too start with the function and go from there.

Functions of the present perfect include:

Talking about experiences I've eaten snails.
Talking about recent events He's just got back from Spain.
Sharing exciting news I've passed!
Explaining an ongoing problem I haven't been sleeping well lately.

...there are more.

I think this gives the students a very very good handle on the grammar if they can think in a functional way. Unfortunately they are so used to starting with grammar and thereby stating an irrelevant function through error that it is hard to encourage them to think the other way round.

Anyone else use functional approaches?