Korean Job Discussion Forums

waggo · Joined: 18 May 2003 Location: pusan baby!

I understand the present perfect but I find myself tripping up and confusing my students when I try to teach it.

Do any grammar whizzes out there have any tried and tested approaches to explaining this tense clearly.

Im sure there lots of people out there like me!!

Thanks very much if you can help.

schwa · Joined: 18 Jan 2003 Location: Yap

Hard to explain concisely because it has a variety of uses. Maybe this site will help -- the time line diagrams & examples seem pretty clear & theres some exercises you could print out.
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/presentperfect.html

J.B. Clamence · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

The way I always explain it is this:

A present perfect statement explains a present situation by referring to a past event.

For example:

The village was destroyed by the storm.
What is the present situation of the storm? We don't know. All we know is that at some point in time (when this particular storm came) the village was destroyed. The focus here is on the event, not the present situation. However..

The village has been destroyed by the storm.
Present situation: the village is in ruins, and it is because of this event.

I have been to Japan.
Present situation: I have first hand knowledge of Japan because I have seen it.

The main focus of a PP sentence is the present situation which it explains, and it explains it by talking about a past event, but the past event is not
the main focus of the meaning of the sentence.

This is my own personal explanation that I came up with. I'm not sure how a grammarian would respond to it, but I think it's pretty solid.

matthewwoodford · Joined: 01 Oct 2003 Location: Location, location, location.

That's a great explanation for native speakers but how do you get that across to Korean students?

I often wonder that when I read explanations on grammar or instructions in teacher's manuals too.

manlyboy · Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2005 7:16 pm Post subject:

Ther best concise definition of present perfect that I've come across is: "To refer to events which occured in the past, but are relevant now".

riverboy · Joined: 03 Jun 2003 Location: Incheon

Try using examples by asking Have you ever......? Yes I have no I have not and then Get them to create thier own sentences and examples using that model.

waggo · Joined: 18 May 2003 Location: pusan baby!

I like JB CLamences example about the village, I think that's a good example.
I'm sorry guys but most of you are just saying what the textbooks say to a native speaker.My question was how to teach it clearly,not define it.I could give my students a perfect definition of the tense and they still wouldnt have a clue what I'm talking about.

I agree the best way to teach is through using examples and then follow up with concept checking questions to help differentiate between Past Perfect and Past simple...it's those clear examples that i guess Im trying to weedle out of you..... Very Happy

gypsyfish · Joined: 17 Jan 2003 Location: Seoul

Get the book Teaching Tenses by Will Aitken, Rosemary Aitken. It has good ESL explanations and even some exercises.

Martin Parrot's book, Grammar for Teachers (or something like that is good, too.

manlyboy · Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:16 am Post subject:

Here's an activity that illustrates present perfect's usage pretty well:

Get 20 pictures of different objects and put them in 5 piles of 4.

Go over the meanings of the words "switch", "cover", "turn over", and "take away".

Have a student memorize the 5 pictures on top of the piles and then look away. While they're looking away, switch two of the pictures, cover one up with something, turn one over, and take one away.

When the student looks back, they should describe what you've done to the picture piles using present perfect: "You've switched the tree and the cat. You've covered the knife, etc."

This demonstrates to the students that we use present perfect to describe your actions because even though they happened in the past, they are relevant to the present situation i.e, figuring out what you've done.

matthewwoodford · Joined: 01 Oct 2003 Location: Location, location, location.

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2527/presentperfect.html

There's a nice explanation here of the various uses. I don't have any lesson plans handy though.

bosintang · Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 6:34 am Post subject:

The perfect tenses are the hardest tenses to teach, and the least useful. When I teach perfect tenses to my students, I don't get overly concerned that they fully understand how and when to use the tense. I try to convey that what matters is that present perfect describes an action that has happened at an unspecified and irrelevant time before now. (Adverbs like ever, never, and already help stress this.)

I teach present perfect by first conjugating a list of verbs in both past simple and present perfect, and going through several examples of when to use them.

- Where did you go last year?
I went to Paris last year.
- Have you ever gone to Paris?
No, I haven't. I have never gone to Paris.

I go through enough examples and activities to make sure my students at least understand how to conjugate the present perfect correctly and know the correct conjugation to use when answering a 'Did you/Have you' question. One game I play with this is a "Go Fish"-style game where they have to match questions with the correct answers. (E.g. match "Have you eaten dinner? with "Yes, I have eaten dinner.") After the students are comfortable with this, I'll do an application activity where they actually have to use the present perfect tense in a real-like situation. The activity manlyboy uses sounds good.