Help...verb tenses.

[askforlisa]

Hi Everyone,

I have just started teaching english and am having trouble with how to boil these down into simple, yet clear explanations or methods to explain these to students:

- Simple tense
- Perfect tense
- Progressive tense
- Perfect-progressive tense

Any games would be great too...as a native speaker, the tenses just come naturally so that may be why it is hard for me to understand!

Thanks for your help

[Macavity]

Hi,
have you read Michael Lewis's The English Verb? If not, it might help you to grasp some of the (not so)obvious points often lost on native speakers. Grammar Practice Activities,CUP, is also good for ideas on how to bring things across in a fun way. But as I say, if not already read, Lewis is your point of departure!

[askforlisa]

Thanks for your help with this topic. I'll try and get a copy of the book you mentioned.

Just one question though, do you personally have any ways to explain when to use those tenses to students?

Thanks again, greatly appreciated!!!

[fluffyhamster]

You might consider starting going through a listing of verbs (e.g. the ones which are frequent, starred items in most learner dictionaries) and thinking about which tenses and (/or - combinations, "constructions", of tense and) aspect(s) are grammatically possible (the examples in dictionaries will help flesh out the contexts). You'll probably get tired before you're even a tenth of the way through the lexicon, but at least you'll be building up a list of concrete examples and forming hypotheses of your own, all of which will nicely complement whatever picture you'll be gleaning from grammarian(s) of the "general principles" at work in the English language.

I second the Lewis recommendation, by the way. Leech's Meaning and the English Verb (Third Edition) is also well worth a look.

[Macavity]

Hi,
I don’t really have a set pattern, it depends on the group and level, but some of the things I like to do with my learners are:

Simple forms

 questionnaires about personal habits, hobbies and occupations
 general knowledge quizzes
 timetables – writing one for their week
 today’s the day – interesting and/or crazy facts from history (yesterday, 5th October, we had Gordon Bennet, Stanley and Livingstone; a lot of fun!)


Continuous forms

 charades is always good fun
 what were you doing when.....?
 a funny thing happened on my way here.......
(these are both good for showing how the simple and continuous past work together)


Perfect tenses (simple)

 questionnaires – e.g., have you ever eaten a really hot curry? have you ever climbed Mount Kilimanjaro? If yes , has the leopard lost any more of its spots?
 reverse what happened next – for past perfect


Perfect tenses (continuous)

* storyboards, e.g., someone looks out their window at the heavy rain. There’s a clock
on the wall (important), perhaps they’re in the kitchen (you can do a lot with a kitchen and they’re easy to draw and recognise). Draw a sequence, using the clock to show the passing of time, which shows the person waiting for the rain to stop. When you get to the part where the rain has stopped, you draw the person getting ready to go out. But then the phone rings! The person answers and says something like, “oh, hi mum! Listen, I can I call you back later; it’s been raining here all morning and I want to pop out to the shops before it starts again”.

 if you’re in a business English situation, you can get your students to write a history of their companies making use of a combination of perfect forms (or perfect simple/continuous/simple past combinations), e.g., Wonderpack was founded by Edward E Bean in 1921 and had been making tin cans until the Wall Street crash in 1929. After this the company went through difficult times, and had been threatened with bankruptcy several times. However, with the coming of the war, Wonderpack saw an upturn in their fortunes as they had been awarded a contract to supply the military with equipment the previous year. Since the end of the war, Wonderpack have continued to supply the military with their needs but have also been busy developing new markets. (This is for more advanced students, but you can write a piece of nonsense like this to use with lower level learners, for tense recognition work,etc.)
 my wife will be home soon and shall want to know hy I haven’t cleaned the bathroom – because I’ve been writing replies to posts at the cafe all morning!



I hope this gives you an idea of what you can do., but do read that book!

[fluffyhamster]

Hi again Macavity, can you expand a bit on your 'reverse what happened next – for past perfect'? I think I know what you mean, but still... me, I tend to tell a (true) story as I would naturally (coincidentally using past perfect), then show how a straight chonological run-through, if I elected to tell it that way instead, would be so very boring in comparison:

I met this really hot chick, got her number, arranged a date at that swanky restaurant, and we're sitting there when this guy comes up and tells me to get out! (Listener: WTF?!) Yeah, it turned out that she'd broken up with this guy just a few days before, and was maybe trying to get him angry by parading herself around with me (she'd suggested the restaurant)...

versus

A girl broke up with her boyfriend, then she met me, and...where's the surprise in this story, dammit!

The main thing is, I'd tell that story in pretty much the same way its events unfolded to me at the time.

You can present short situations and ask for the reason why: The cat froze - Why? - It had seen a mouse.

Some pairs of examples that I've always thought show one aspect of the difference between perfect and perfect continuous:

Have you fought?
Have you been fighting?

Have you drunk (whiskey (again))?
Have you been drinking (whiskey) (again))?

I guess the "experiential" aspect to the simple perfect clashes rather well with the perfect continuous.

I wrote something recently on testing in Japanese schools that has some discussion of past perfect:
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... 6310#26310

Simple present, you can get a good idea of what can work by looking in any ESL/EFL textbook series' lower-level volumes (but lexically, there is of course a lot more to learn even for those at intermediate and above - e.g. there's no end to 'describing') - same goes for Present progressive (but I'd be wary of 'charade' type activities, I'd go more for "stuff that ISN'T visible" e.g. What (book) are you reading, what are you typing, or what are you doing tomorrow?

The past, it's wide open, and limited only by your imagination and the students' interests...Mac's hinted at the "backgrounding" function of past continuous...

Sorry, gotta go home now! Signing out...will try to post more at some point.

[george31]

I make one important distinction when teaching Present Simple and Present progressive. Students have to realize that Present Simple is used to express a general, habitual, repeated action in contrast with the Progressive Present where the action is taking place NOW, at the moment of speaking or has a temporary aspect.
Activities can be :describe your daily program, talk about your pastimes vs. actions taking place at the moment of speaking.

For the Perfect Tense,I use a time line to illustrate the difference between Simple and Progressive.

[Dinara]

I make one important distinction when teaching Present Simple and Present progressive. Students have to realize that Present Simple is used to express a general, habitual, repeated action in contrast with the Progressive Present where the action is taking place NOW, at the moment of speaking or has a temporary aspect.
Activities can be :describe your daily program, talk about your pastimes vs. actions taking place at the moment of speaking.

For the Perfect Tense,I use a time line to illustrate the difference between Simple and Progressive.

Well, as for the Present Perfect , I usually emphasize the meaning of a RESULT of an action which is connected with the present.
" result is visible in the present".
I have broken the cup! the pieces are on the floor ( NOW)

[Rp]

Just to add to the discussion, here is a website which might offer some examples for you:

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/