Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[kova]

Hi
How to explain to a highschool student future perfect tenses? And what to say when they ask you what's the purpose of it? Why not use for example:
she will master relatives by the end of next week
instead of
she will have mastered the relatives by next week.

Hope you can help.

[Anuradha Chepur]

Future perfect is outdated and we can jolly well use simple future to talk about future perfect.

We needn't teach future perfect. If a curious student has a question about future perfect, you can give him a brief explanation, and then add that it is outdated and he needn't worry himself about it.

[kova]

Thank you for your help but I am afraid I have no choice but to teach future perfect because the school system requires it. It doesn't matter if people use this tense in everyday life or not, students are asked to do it right in their tests.
Any idea would be appreciated!

[Anuradha Chepur]

I can understand how you feel. I know its tricky and frivolous.

May be you can give them some task and ask each one of them how much time they need to complete the task. Then convert the information into future perfect, and see if you can drive home the concept. And then give more such tasks.

You can tell them it serves the same purpose as simple future does, this is an additional structure which was used in olden days, blah, blah, blah.

On the other hand (I don't know in which country you are teaching, and how progressive the system is), but may be you can do your bit by talking to the management about excluding this structure from the syllabus, and moving on with the changing times.

I have I have been of some help atleast.

[Anuradha Chepur]

I mean I HOPE I have been of some help atleast.

[kova]

Thank you for your reply! I only teach in private schools (Slovenia)and give one to one tutoring to highschool students when needed so unfortunately I can't really talk about the system with the management, although I agree it's really unnecessary and it is only confusing the students which is too much of a bother for something they won't even need.

Thanks again!

[Anuradha Chepur]

Yes, curriculum writers for English (who are usually not trained teachers)are a bit conservative and academic in their approach, and one can't do anything about it. This is true of my place, but I am surprised that it happens elsewhere too.

[Lorikeet]

Is the future perfect the tense that occurs in a sentence like, "Don't bother coming to the party so late. By the time you get there, the guests will have eaten all the food." If that's the case, I don't think the meaning is the same if you use "will" but I'm not sure if that's the one you are talking about. It works really well with "by the time" but I have always had to make up lots of examples because it's hard to explain.

[Anuradha Chepur]

O yes it does go well with 'by the time....' as is evident from your sentence. Kova could use this strategy too.

Fortunately, I don't do the kind of teaching where I am bound by a curriculum. I run my own centre where people come for fast track courses. Given the time constraints, I avoid areas like future perfect. If at all I only give a quick explanation and move on.

[CP]

If you tell the students that "perfect" just means "completed," then "future perfect" is easily understood as eomthing that is already completed in the future by the time somehing else occurs. So, "By the time we get there, all the food will have been eaten" tells us that the food has already been eaten--the act is completed--before an even later future event, our arrival.

True, in conversation people tend to use just the future tense when the future perfect is needed, but in writing it is still used, and the student should be able to understand it when it comes up, even if rarely.

Good luck, Teacher!

Yours truly, CP