Korean Job Discussion Forums

[kingplaya4]

I'm having trouble doing this with my middle school students. My explanations are going right over their heads.

Nevertheless, their basic listening comprehension is good, so if I could think of a very simple way to explain when you use the above tenses it might save some headache. Any ideas?

[shantaram]

You will always have difficulty teaching perfect and conditional tenses. (They're very difficult to teach). Conditional tenses are more difficult.

For perfect tenses, start with present perfect, and get them to talk about their life experiences. Demonstrate it yourself. Get them to do a skit and a role play- "I have been to Jeju Island." "When?" "I went to Jeju Island in 2005." (Get them to replace with pronouns if they are confident).

Wish I could give you advice for how to teach the other uses of present perfect tense, but I don't think the lessons I conducted were any good. Hopefully this gets the ball rolling for you.

PS When you teach past perfect, they'll need to know time clauses, and they'll go straight into writing fragments ("When I go home.") There's a lot of activities you can use to teach time clauses, such as getting 2 students to do something simultaneously/a little bit before the other/after the other and getting other students to correctly identify the activity: "Jung Jin came into the room before Gwan Bong sat down."

[GreenlightmeansGO]

Hmmm...

Present perfect is about experience. No specific time is given. It is not actually about the present.

I tell my students that past perfect is about two events in the past...but that may not help... again, no specific time is given.

And future perfect acts like a deadline.

[kingplaya4]

Hmm, never heard of time clauses before, guess I need to hit the grammar books some more. Greenlight your explanation was good and concise. I think if I find out the translation for "specific" "deadline" and "experience" that should be enough to get them to understand.

[shantaram]

OK- I wasn't sure how much you knew so I didn't want to come across as condescending.

There are tonnes of uses for present perfect- experience, accomplishment (China has won three gold medals), completed actions that started in the past (I have finished). The lines get easily blurred so you need to set out with a clear idea what you are going to teach and stick to that. Essentially, it is always about a completed action in the past which is somehow relevant now. You'll never be able to explain it to a Korean student. You can only get them to use it in stages and build up their experience of using it. If you constantly contrast it with simple past, you can create the idea in their mind that it is not time-specific, which is the key to knowing when to use it.

Drawing a timeline on the board helps with past perfect, but like I said they need to know the relevant time clauses (when he came into the room, before he came into the room, etc) before they start using it or it won't work. It's quite often used with 'already'. You can use pictures too, if you can find one of someone doing something when someone else comes along- "A had already eaten breakfast when B knocked on the door." "Had A already eaten breakfast when B knocked on the door? Yes, A had already... etc" Another good way of teaching it is to find a video and then ask questions about the characters- to use the Korean favourite, Friends- had Chandler finished eating his cereal when Monica came into the room? etc. You could catch them off guard by asking questions about the mechanics of the scene, see which students pay attention to stuff like that.

Don't forget you use past participles with past/present perfect tense: I have driven/written/worked etc. Giving your students a list of pps you are going to use in your lesson is a good idea. Your K teacher will probably have already taught them this. You can find a list of past participles in five seconds on the internet.

PS: Fragments= bad habit that K & Japanese English learners pick up in their writing. They think time clauses/conditional clauses act as sentences in their own right. Because English is spoken like that. (that's an example) When I went to Jeju. Etc. Bloody difficult to get them out of the habit.

PPS: There is no quick and easy way to teach perfect tenses. Your thread caught my attention because teaching perfect tenses is an ongoing challenge and I want to read some other people's ideas.

[Easter Clark]

I've used a schedule and asked students questions about it. For example:

Joe's "To-Do" List

11:15--Meet Fred at PC Bang

11:45--Meet Jane for lunch

12:30--Go to Everland with Bill

3:30--Go shopping for new shoes

5:00--Sister arrives at airport!

etc...

Then you can have them choose the best answer:

*At 11:45, Joe had / hadn't met Fred.

*By the time Joe met Jane, he had already / hadn't yet been to Everland.

Or ask questions:

*Had Joe been to Everland by the time his sister had arrived?

Yes, he had. / No, he hadn't.

*What had Joe done by 5:00? Write sentences.

You can substitute days or months instead of time, i.e. "By Friday Joe had already been to the doctor."

In my case, I had the students (adults) create schedules for themselves, exchange them with a partner, then talk about them with a new partner.

Alternately, you could give them two sentences then have them combine them using the perfect tense:

I called Mr. Clark by his first name. Someone said he was a teacher. = By the time someone said Mr. Clark was a teacher, I had already called him by his first name.

Maybe you could adapt that to suit their interests, something like "Jewelery was popular for six months. The Wondergirls' "So Hot" became #1." = Jewelry had been popular for six months when the Wondergirls' "So Hot" became #1.