I don't think so either. And, like you, I believe that students (and teachers too) could benefit greatly from an exploration of this view. It may not be a perfect description of the core meaning impact of Past Simple verbs, but it sure is greatly superior to the one in the most widespread use these days: *past tense=past time.
I hope your effort catches hold. I'll add to it if I can.
Larry Latham
Grammar is based on viewpoints (?)
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LarryLatham
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Why thank you, sirLarryLatham wrote:I don't think so either. And, like you, I believe that students (and teachers too) could benefit greatly from an exploration of this view. It may not be a perfect description of the core meaning impact of Past Simple verbs, but it sure is greatly superior to the one in the most widespread use these days: *past tense=past time.
I hope your effort catches hold. I'll add to it if I can.
Larry Latham
This, that, these, those....
Good morning all.
In the Preface to his 1956 edition of Learning American English, Grant Taylor gives us some sparse clues to his language teaching philosophy:
"....In developing the present text, the author has attempted to point up the need for [1] a good control over fundamentals and [2] a descriptive (or "realistic") approach to English....A descriptive approach to English is one which stresses the forms which are in constant use by the majority of native speaers of English. Therefore, "correctness" is not determined by rules or tradition but by actual usage." (p. iii)
Keeping that in mind, knowing that the book presents English in a drop by drop fill the glass up manner, that it includes hardly any explanation but rather encourages adivination through context, I wanted to point out some of those first drops given to us.
Lesson one is a bit of simple word structure. How to make plurals of nouns. How to use "a/an" for any thing and "the" for one particular thing. How to specify by modifying the qualities of things with adjectives. The all important subject pronouns. The verb "be" as an equal sign between the subject and the rest of the sentence.
Lesson two gets to the nitty gritty of the distance thing. After a brief presentation of the present tense as a communication of habits, customs, truths, we are given the demonstrative adjectives "this, these, that, those". We usually explain these four words in terms of where the noun is in relation to the speaker, either near or far. We are also given a taste of locating things in time and space with "in / on".
Lesson three, besides giving us the present continuous as a valid way of speaking about current events happening even as we speak, gives us the "there is / there are" concept, that is, something exists somewhere and that somewhere is not in my hand but further away from me. We also get some movement in the game with "to / from".
The past tense is offered for the first time in Lesson six, along with time expressions that would clearly mark the meaning as being not now, not then ahead of us, but rather then behind us. Lesson seven reviews prepositions in expressions of place.
After a bit of object work (direct and indirect) as well as possessive forms (belongs to me or doesn't belong to me) and a brief entry into the wonderful world of "will" as a future marker, we are again given expressions of time that use prepositions, in Lesson nine. In ten we are given two full sections on the use of expressions of time and what verb form we ought to use with them.
This is a book for beginners and low intermediate students, though I have used it despite the level any particular student may have. I find it interesting that before getting into the past tense, the concepts of here and there are fully practiced. Though Mr Taylor does not get into heavy duty theory, it does seem from the structure of his book, that he has at least intuitively chosen a path that simplifies the choice making a student will have to do consciously at an early level. It is here or there, it is mine or yours, it was yesterday or today or right now.
Mr Taylor's book is unfortunately out of print. A number of us were able to get the publisher to print one last run back in the 80's. The book is a little outdated in word choice ("Many people wear hats." "Miss Stewart is my secretary."--that is, I am a man and have an important job in the company while Miss Stewart, being a woman, would naturally be my secretary, certainly never would be my boss¡!) but I have had consistant luck in using its structure in class, from the ten-year-old boy who suddenly says that he finally feels he is learning something in class to the adult student who says, finally, a book with more than three practice sentences per grammar point. Thus being devoted to this book, I am pleased to see that years before "distancing" was clearly defined as an explanitory concept, this distancing was recognized in one form or another and used as part of the foundation for organized, objectified study.
peace,
revel.
In the Preface to his 1956 edition of Learning American English, Grant Taylor gives us some sparse clues to his language teaching philosophy:
"....In developing the present text, the author has attempted to point up the need for [1] a good control over fundamentals and [2] a descriptive (or "realistic") approach to English....A descriptive approach to English is one which stresses the forms which are in constant use by the majority of native speaers of English. Therefore, "correctness" is not determined by rules or tradition but by actual usage." (p. iii)
Keeping that in mind, knowing that the book presents English in a drop by drop fill the glass up manner, that it includes hardly any explanation but rather encourages adivination through context, I wanted to point out some of those first drops given to us.
Lesson one is a bit of simple word structure. How to make plurals of nouns. How to use "a/an" for any thing and "the" for one particular thing. How to specify by modifying the qualities of things with adjectives. The all important subject pronouns. The verb "be" as an equal sign between the subject and the rest of the sentence.
Lesson two gets to the nitty gritty of the distance thing. After a brief presentation of the present tense as a communication of habits, customs, truths, we are given the demonstrative adjectives "this, these, that, those". We usually explain these four words in terms of where the noun is in relation to the speaker, either near or far. We are also given a taste of locating things in time and space with "in / on".
Lesson three, besides giving us the present continuous as a valid way of speaking about current events happening even as we speak, gives us the "there is / there are" concept, that is, something exists somewhere and that somewhere is not in my hand but further away from me. We also get some movement in the game with "to / from".
The past tense is offered for the first time in Lesson six, along with time expressions that would clearly mark the meaning as being not now, not then ahead of us, but rather then behind us. Lesson seven reviews prepositions in expressions of place.
After a bit of object work (direct and indirect) as well as possessive forms (belongs to me or doesn't belong to me) and a brief entry into the wonderful world of "will" as a future marker, we are again given expressions of time that use prepositions, in Lesson nine. In ten we are given two full sections on the use of expressions of time and what verb form we ought to use with them.
This is a book for beginners and low intermediate students, though I have used it despite the level any particular student may have. I find it interesting that before getting into the past tense, the concepts of here and there are fully practiced. Though Mr Taylor does not get into heavy duty theory, it does seem from the structure of his book, that he has at least intuitively chosen a path that simplifies the choice making a student will have to do consciously at an early level. It is here or there, it is mine or yours, it was yesterday or today or right now.
Mr Taylor's book is unfortunately out of print. A number of us were able to get the publisher to print one last run back in the 80's. The book is a little outdated in word choice ("Many people wear hats." "Miss Stewart is my secretary."--that is, I am a man and have an important job in the company while Miss Stewart, being a woman, would naturally be my secretary, certainly never would be my boss¡!) but I have had consistant luck in using its structure in class, from the ten-year-old boy who suddenly says that he finally feels he is learning something in class to the adult student who says, finally, a book with more than three practice sentences per grammar point. Thus being devoted to this book, I am pleased to see that years before "distancing" was clearly defined as an explanitory concept, this distancing was recognized in one form or another and used as part of the foundation for organized, objectified study.
peace,
revel.
Here's another interesting example of subjective closeness and distancing:LarryLatham wrote:I don't think so either. And, like you, I believe that students (and teachers too) could benefit greatly from an exploration of this view. It may not be a perfect description of the core meaning impact of Past Simple verbs, but it sure is greatly superior to the one in the most widespread use these days: *past tense=past time.
I hope your effort catches hold. I'll add to it if I can.
Larry Latham
If I were you, I'd tell her all about it.
If you are a pacifist, I'm Martin Luther King.
The "past" (distant) form in the protasis ("if" clause) of the first example followed by the "would" form of the modal creates an obvious hypothetical distancing between reality and unreality. In the second example, the listener is the one who has used the close form of the verb because he believes, or wants to make others believe he is a pacifist.