Dilemmas: Present Progressive for Future & Colloquialism

melmrv · Post by **melmrv** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 3:04 pm

Hello,

I'd appreciate your opinion on my dilemmas.

I'm teaching the Present Continuous for fixed future plans. How would you explain to the student that the following question (What is he doing there? ), though it is in the Present Progressive and could therefor, in theory, be used for the future, in this case cannot be used to enquire about a future plan?

A: My brother is moving to Shanghai.
B: Oh! What is he doing there? (student formed a question in the Pres. Cont. to indicate a future fixed plan which, however, doesn't work in that context)

Does my question make sense?

Also, I am wondering what question can you hear in the following podcast at 1:57. I hear: "How is your life changed in the past few years?" Though I would expect: "How has your life changed in the past few years?" If the first version is being used, what kind of tense is it? Present Passive? And is it a natural sounding question?

1:57
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DFyqiS-ZCY

Very many thanks for sparing time for this.
Mel.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Wed Dec 31, 2014 7:04 pm

Although What's he going to be doing there? or What will he be doing there? are more "correct" (i.e. better given the pedagogical point of future plans), I think What is he doing there? is an OK shorthand (and if it's spontaneous authentic data then you sort of have your answer right there LOL - it was presumably fine and accepted, passed without issue, in the context. Is this exchange also from the Speakout course?). Think of it as maybe expressing something like an unspoken 'going' (as in What's he doing/thinking/etc going there?).

Regarding How is your life changed in the past few years?, it could just be a pronunciation error (/iz/ rather than something like /^z/ or indeed just /z/ - the speaker apparently failed to fully contract the morpheme involved), though if you submitted an undoubted adjective (e.g. 'different' rather than 'changed') and cut the 'in the last few years' (which would help with any Simple Present passive interpretation LOL (I'm assuming you know that a Present Perfect Passive meanwhile would be How has your life been changed...?)) then obviously that would make things "better" from any standpoint that this particular /iz/ = 'is' rather than 'has'.
.