Dilemmatic Grammar

[woodcutter]

The Headway standard goes something like.....(I suppose)

When we talk about the future we can use WILL or PRESENT CONTINUOUS with a future word. We often do that when it is an arranged event.

That'll do, won't it? We are just trying to ease the confusion here, aren't we, rather than create future linguistic PhD students?

[Leslie Simonfalvi]

Tara B wrote:

What ages are the EFL students & teachers at your school?

Thank you for the question. Our students are from 4 1/2 up to dear-old age. No age-limit. And there is no age-limit for the difficulties either.

The teacher trainees start college at 18 or above and after the initial 300 hours of methodology - psychology - sociology - group-dynamics they start teaching in 50 per cent of their time.

Whatever they learn today will be used in their lessons tomorrow. Since they teach 50 per cent of their time, they will bring an unbelievably high number of practical problems as potential case-studies into their own training.

For the first 6 semesters they only learn the absolutely necessary theories, and in the remaining 8 semesters in the University of London TESOL Scheme, they will concentrate on the theoretical backing of whatever they can do in practice.

How do you diagnose your students as LD? Do you differentiate between different kinds of disabilities and adjust instruction to each child?

We teach what we know about the LD Child for two semesters in the college and trainers / teachers / trainees develop eyes for them. We notice more.

Very often the greatest problem is how to make the students forget about the stigma they have received elsewhere. Again the trainees learn about the LD Child through teaching classes with LD children in them.

Leslie

[Metamorfose]

woodcutter wrote

When we talk about the future we can use WILL or PRESENT CONTINUOUS with a future word. We often do that when it is an arranged event.

That'll do, won't it? We are just trying to ease the confusion here, aren't we, rather than create future linguistic PhD students?

That's an interesting point wood, for some people that will really do, they won't give a damn about aspect, the sense of limited period with the continuous forms or the sense of non-factual thing with the modal will, but on the other hand, there always going to be students who want to know the difference between He comes tomorrow at 5 o'clock, He is going to come..., He will come..., are we seeking to reduce confusion or to improve one's skills in the real thing?

José

[woodcutter]

Again though, we are talking about students with special problems. The main gripe that most people have with Headway explanations is that they are too simplistic! Are we going to ratchet up the difficulty for students with special problems? Or is Leslie talking about lengthy Huddlestonesque paragraphs when he refers to "traditional grammar"?

In any case, there are several ways to express the future, and the important difference between them is the different situations in which they are used. There is no point in any further mysticism outside the linguistic philosophy seminar. So, as I said, there are but two options. Explain it, ie mention the situation in which a form will be used (which may involve a bit of terminology to help things along), or don't explain it, and let the subconscious do its magic work.

[shuntang]

Please help me in a problem about English Grammar. Why do we use the Present Continuous Tense for Future in this sentence:

‘John is marrying June next Saturday.’

Please show it to me on a Timeline if possible because I'm a Semantic - Pragmatic child and as such I'm clever enough not to take in anything like 'You know, it is one of those irregular uses of tenses.' I need a better reasoning than that.
[Posted by Leslie Simonfalvi]

I am afraid your example 'John is marrying June next Saturday' is not describing the future. Modal auxiliaries are future tense, all of them: will, shall, may, must, ought to, etc., and their past forms:
Ex: John will marry June next month.

The difference? When the marriage was over, you can still use past tense of "is marrying" to refer to the case:
Ex: Last Saturday John was marrying June. There was a storm hitting the city.
But as for modal auxiliaries, you cannot use their past forms to say the past of the case:
Ex: ?John would marry June last month.
Instead, you have to skip the auxiliary:
Ex: John married June last month.

Then why do we use Present Continuous to say a futurity? Because John is actually doing it right now: John will not just marry June on that day. What about the preparation of the marriage? When he is buying the ring, booking the chapel, or sending invitation cards, he is actually starting the marriage with June. When he is preparing the marriage, we may say, "John is marrying June next Saturday". Present Continuous describes the starting part of the marriage.