Teacher Discussion Forums

Give me any newspaper of today and I will find lots of Simple-Present examples such as these:

Ex1: Recent polls show Bush’s standing with the public has weakened as Americans.....
Ex2: Several groups, including the National Abortion Federation and the Center for Reproductive Rights, plan to challenge the measure in court as soon as it is signed into law.
Ex3: The reality remains that Tung [Hong Kong Governor] will be at the helm until and unless Beijing leaders think otherwise.
Ex4: The 30 new candidates come from around the world, from Australia to Zagreb, Vietnam to Venice, and on the whole follow John Paul’s conservative bent.

These examples convey the clear use of the tense. But grammarians have seen there is a trouble: They can't put them in their grammar books. As these very common examples should be no longer said in Simple Present some days, weeks, or years later, grammar writers forcefully help teachers to explain Simple Present by not reporting them whatsoever. Instead, they carefully select examples that may be very probably still valid in Simple Present -- as long as the grammar book exists:

Exa: Birds sing.
Exb: The earth revolves around the sun.

Now with these carefully selected examples, they may even claim Simple Present is to tell Habit or Permanency, which can no way corroborate those common examples above. Unfortunately, it is incredible but true: grammar books avoid the most commonly used examples, to explain Simple Present tense. Worst of all, while the common examples are not there, they hit a wrong conclusion that depends on the disappearance of the common examples.

What do you say?

Your examples of the use of present simple are certainly better than those along the lines of "Birds sing", because there is a clearer reason - communication - for producing the texts (using the forms) in your examples; in direct contrast, apart from to practise (controlled and simple) form and/or learn some mightily mundane vocabulary, it is hard to think of why anyone would want to enumerate let alone hear such known (and therefore mind-numbingly boring) facts like "Birds sing". So you are right to wonder why they appear in grammars (even supposedly pedagogic ones) quite as often as they do. Is there really any excuse for it?! You have a right to be alarmed, and I share your concern.

The problem is that linguists won't be able to please everybody all of the time, and even if examples that are more authentic or more whatever can be found, it is by no means a given that students will appreciate them in the same way we (teachers, and linguists) do (see discussion re. "authentication" below).

That is, grammars (as opposed to corpora), especially for foreign learners need to take account of PRODUCTIVE needs, and it is not always easy to know exactly what those needs will be. So, unless you are (teaching) a journalist, such examples will not help you to use specific (present simple) "non-journalistic" verbs yourself (although they could well help learners appreciate what present simple "means" generally, and how it is used with "newsy" verbs specifically).

I don't think grammarians "avoid" these examples for the reason you mention (they just make bad/non-specific choices is all), interesting though your point is (in fact, I misunderstood it completely at first and wrote some nonsense - since deleted - that I hope nobody read! ): "But grammarians have seen there is a trouble. As these very common examples should be no longer said in Simple Present some days, weeks, or years later, grammar writers forcefully help teachers to explain Simple Present by not reporting them whatsoever. Instead, they carefully choose examples that may be very probably still valid in Simple Present -- as long as the book exists."

(I think that text as original reported object and text as reformulated by readers in the "real world" is not considered to be a problem, and I am not aware of many linguists who have (patronisingly, on behalf of foerign learners) seriously suggested otherwise (but please tell me more if you got the idea from somewhere or have been developing it yourself...e.g. I'd be interested to see if and how the forms used in text and reformulation differ, distort the timeframe/reference etc)).

The reason for not presenting many examples to students is therefore I think probably more to do with perceived productive needs than "avoidance"; besides, if students want to read papers there is nothing to stop them going and buying one, or consulting a (specialized) corpora! I suppose an answer is to try to achieve "balance" in the input according to what students will encounter and then need (or perhaps choose) to talk about...but this is by no means easy to achieve, as compilers of corpora have found out (see e.g. Kennedy's "An Introduction to Corpus Linguistics").

So the thing to do would seem to be for US to find examples (for productive purposes) that are more relevant and useful in OUR students' lives (which is what most good teachers will be doing already - I myself "bin" that birdy BS almost immediately) - we are in the best position to find out what students need!

A dichtomy between productive needs and reception is not necessarily helpful in the long run, however - I can appreciate that news/the media may well be of personal interest to many students - that is, such students might want to AUTHENTICATE this kind of thing in the classroom or wherever else they have contact with other English speakers more than more (to them) mundane/potentially boring things selected by a well-meaning (unambitious, even?) teacher.

My questions to you then would be: what proportion of authentic (written and spoken) news materials would you think appropriate for students to study, especially regarding their (productive) needs?

By the way, I have been reading some Widdowson by way of Seidlhofer's "Controversies in Applied Linguistics" recently and guess I want to see what people think of the whole question of "authentication" (of authentic materials) by processes of communication (as opposed to just studying?) etc.

Duncan,

What then do you think is the use of Simple Present?

Please put the definition carefully.

Thank you.

Shun Tang

Oops I hope you aren't reading the total rubbish I posted before but have since deleted - that was SO BAD! Please just read what is (finally!) on the board now. Sometimes I forget that what I'm (in the process of re)writing (and often scrapping due to me having totally misread/misunderstood everything, or having gone off at some totally WIERD tangent!) is actually being/going to be read by other people (for a while at least)!

I do sometimes - only very occassionally mind you - write something that makes a tiny bit of sense about grammar, but usually only when I have thought about it for YEARS (see, for example, my posting about functions of rising tags). But your posting was not really about grammar at all...I don't know why I became fixated with THAT notion.

Like, I (might) get back to you, in a few YEARS, about "The Past Family"!

Oops I hope you aren't reading the total rubbish I posted before but have since deleted - that was SO BAD!

If the usage is clear and simple, please retype it here.

Sorry it has GONE - got edited down and finally deleted, to be replaced by what's there now! I really should use word-processing programme and paste it in when I am satisfied I've not made a whopper of a mistake, huh! Maybe I can try to retype what I wrote based on memory...but to save myself and you the torture, dear readers, basically, "all" I did was start spouting about the uses of present simple, and alluding to wooly mammoths in the "How far back does the present go?" thread...so you can see how wrong was the basis from which I wrote that garbage. The only trace left of it is now this (in the above long post):

<<<I don't think grammarians "avoid" these examples for the reason you mention (they just make bad/non-specific choices is all), interesting though your point is (in fact, I misunderstood it completely at first and wrote some nonsense - since deleted - that I hope nobody read! ): "But grammarians have seen there is a trouble. As these very common examples should be no longer said in Simple Present some days, weeks, or years later, grammar writers forcefully help teachers to explain Simple Present by not reporting them whatsoever. Instead, they carefully choose examples that may be very probably still valid in Simple Present -- as long as the book exists."

(I think that text as original reported object and text as reformulated by readers in the "real world" is not considered to be a problem, and I am not aware of many linguists who have (patronisingly, on behalf of foerign learners) seriously suggested otherwise (but please tell me more if you got the idea from somewhere or have been developing it yourself...e.g. I'd be interested to see if and how the forms used in text and reformulation differ, distort the timeframe/reference etc))>>>

Still, if anyone has left their PC on at the same screen since yesterday afternoon, please feel free to paste it in here and embarrass me even more!

I haven't given this question very much attention yet, but it's a valid one, and I for one tend to think that the present tense is widely used in journalism, timetables, (we would say "there comes the bus" or "the train arrives at 11:32");
I wonder therefore whether it's to do with WHO uses it: in journalism a supposedly neutral observer who mustn't be seen to be judging things from a time point of view.

Roger,

I wonder therefore whether it's to do with WHO uses it: in journalism a supposedly neutral observer who mustn't be seen to be judging things from a time point of view.

If Simple Present examples shall be judged in your way, no wonder some persons can't retype the use of the tense instantly. However, I have not any trouble at all to retype the use of Simple Present or Simple Past. In other forums I put it this way:
"Simple Present expresses present time." One more word is one more mistake.
Also: "Simple Past expresses past time". One more word is one more mistake.

Yes, English tense is as simple as this. However, I have never failed to defend my seemingly week promise(s). If anything around here, I am pointing out that conventional grammars are in trouble, as my few questions have implied. Grammar writers explain tenses in so difficult a way that they don't know how to handle anything. They have been deeply puzzled in explaining tenses.

Allow me to give one more example. We all agree we use tenses to tell time. We all agree that. Therefore, you can never explain why grammar writers say “Simple Present expresses habitual action”, as anyone can understand habit is not a kind of time. Simple Present only expresses present habit, obviously. The tense doesn’t logically express past or future habits. Nevertheless, grammar writers correctly use time to explain other tenses; for example, they will say Present Perfect expresses “a past action connected to the present”. But when we pause and think, we will find that a Simple-Present action, like “He gets up early every day”, if analyzed by the time, is also verbatim “a past action connected to the present” -- same as Present Perfect. Then we will not be so surprised why grammar writers cautiously use a different ruler to measure Simple Present. The consequence? Not would any grammar book compare the three tenses side by side: Simple Past, Present Perfect, and Simple Present. The evidence? In any forum I always give a promise to readers: You can never differentiate the use between Simple Present and Present Perfect. No one has yet broken my seemingly impossible promise.

Most people are aware it is difficult to see between Simple Past and Present Perfect in use. And yet most of them do not know there is also another difficulty: the different use between Simple Present and Present Perfect. In short, they use a wrong way to explain tenses. They can finally explain nothing. I have always promised that whatever you say to Present Perfect can be said word for word again to either Simple Past or Simple Present.

Actually, I have a new and easy approach to explain tenses. But before the introduction of it, I have to show to people how the present-day tenses explanation is.

Shun

ExA: "He brushes his teeth every day."
== A present habit. [The sentence conveys a habitual action; Simple Present expresses present time.]

ExB: "He has brushed his teeth every day since he knew how to use the toothbrush."
== A present habit. [Present Perfect equates either Simple Present or Simple Past, not both.]

They are the same habit, and most of all, the same thing of the same time. Here, what you say to Simple Present can be said again word for word to Present Perfect:

...it can simply be assumed that we are basing what we say on what was true yesterday, and are assuming will also be true tomorrow....

Once again, by good luck, I have kept my weak promise. And I hope this luck won't keep away further challenges .

Simple Past of course can also denote habit, but a past one:
Ex3: "Before he uses denture, he brushed his teeth every day."
I wouldn't say that USED TO cannot express past habit, but to express past habit, we don't necessarily use USED TO.

Shun Tang

I am sorry Shun, but I am losing your point. Are you arguing that we should get rid of the present perfect tense because it's useless? (Good luck on that one.) Are you trying to find a better way to explain the use of Present Perfect for people who aren't native speakers and can't rely on native speaker intuition? Pardon me, but it seems your posts are mainly argumentative. Perhaps, as I think you've stated (see, the present perfect works best here ), you might want to show us your new method for regarding tenses instead of spending so much time alienating people? (Okay so maybe you are just alienating me )

Lorikeet,

I have said this:

Actually, I have a new and easy approach to explain tenses. But before the introduction of it, I have to show to people how the present-day tenses explanation is.

And you interpreted my saying as this:

Are you arguing that we should get rid of the present perfect tense because it's useless?

You seemed to have foreseen my approach already. But I haven't said a word about it yet!
===============

You wrote:

Are you trying to find a better way to explain the use of Present Perfect for people who aren't native speakers and can't rely on native speaker intuition?

I am saying that English grammar writers, either native or non-native, shall not hide away past time adverbials for Present Perfect and conclude past time adverbials don’t work with Present Perfect.
===============

I suggest you quote my words so that I may know where is the misunderstanding.

Shun

Then I suggest you make your actual points and explain your new system, so it will be clearer for us. Otherwise we will all argue without being able to see your presentation.