Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies (37 page)

The present perfect is without doubt the most difficult tense for students to grasp because it doesn’t translate well into other languages and is used for many different things.

This tense is used in many ways, as I explain in the next sections, but it isn’t wise to teach the various uses at once.

Sharing experiences

Use the present perfect simple to talk about experiences and accomplishments in the past without saying when they happened. If you want to speak about times and dates specifically with experiences, switch to the past simple:

Have
you
been
to Ireland?

Yes I
have been
to Dublin. Actually I
visited
Margaret there last week.

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Part IV: The Grammar You Need to Know – and How to Teach It
Quite often we use ‘ever’ with present perfect questions of this kind and

‘never’ in an answer.

Have you
ever
studied French? No, I’ve
never
studied it.

Continuing from the past until the present

Sometimes an action started in the past but is still true now. In these situations we can express the duration of time using the word
for
followed by a period of time or the word
since
plus a date or a point in time: I
have lived
here for three and a half years now, since July 2005.

This tense can also describe something that is gradual:

Joshua
has grown
as tall as his dad.

Typical words associated with this gradual use of the tense include: today, tonight, this week/month/year, so far, in the last minutes/days/week and so on.

Anticipating expectations

When we ask about things we’re expecting, we use the present perfect simple with ‘yet’. The answer may include ‘already’, ‘recently’ or perhaps ‘still’, although you use ‘yet’ in negative sentences(those which include
not
).

Is he here yet?

Yes, he
has
already
arrived,
or
No, he still
hasn’t arrived.

Noting recent changes

Very often we can see the result of a recent action because of a visible change. We often use ‘just’ and ‘recently’ in these sentences but it’s important to point out when to put these words in a sentence:

Have
you
had
a fall recently? Your arm is all bruised.

I’m blushing again. Jason
has
just
walked
in.

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Acting in the Present Perfect Continuous

People use the present perfect simple tense for actions that run from the past to the present and for recent changes. The
present perfect continuous tense
is used for the same two purposes when you want to stress the duration of time a bit more than usual.

Very similar to the present perfect simple, the present perfect continuous includes ‘have’ or ‘has’ and a past participle. However, with this tense the past participle is always ‘been’ and a gerund follows:

He/she/ it
has been
singing.

You/we/they
have been
waiting.

The negative construction adds
not
(or
n’t
) after
has
or
have
and in the question form,
has
or
have
comes before the subject pronoun (I, you, we and so on):

Has
he
been dancing
again? No he
hasn’t been dancing
today.

Moving from the past until the present

Use this tense with the word
for
plus a period of time or the word
since
and a date or a point in time.

I
have been waiting
for the bus for ages!

What
have
you
been doing
since this morning?

Showing recent changes

When you can see the result of a recent action that was repeated or took a while to complete, use the present perfect continuous:

I think that it
has been raining
in the last half hour. The pavement’s wet.

Have
you
been dieting
recently? You look great.

Use pictures as contexts for showing the results of recent actions for both the present perfect simple and present perfect continuous and have students guess the cause. For example, a picture of a man who’s out of breath can generate sentences such as:

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Part IV: The Grammar You Need to Know – and How to Teach It
He
has been running
.

He
has
just
missed
the bus.

He
has been playing
with his dog.

Getting to the Past Perfect Simple

You use the
past perfect simple tense
for an action that happened in the past before something else that happened in the past.

Imagine that yesterday I saw you looking rather downhearted. A short conversation follows:

What was up with you yesterday? You looked really miserable.

When you saw me I
had
just
lost
my lucky pen.

Notice the two sets of actions mentioned about yesterday (this works with any time in the past). The first is ‘saw’ and the second is ‘lost’. However, you need to show which action happened first. So, you put the action that happened first in the past perfect (you
had
lost
your lucky pen) and the thing that happened later in the past simple (I
saw
you).

Students tend to find the past simple easier and sufficient to convey the idea that an action happened in the past. Sentences using ‘had had’ may even look strange to native speakers (I had had a bad night, for example) so students avoid using it. However, if you don’t push students to use more sophisticated language they remain at a low level, limit themselves and get marked down in exams.

Seeing the structure

All perfect tenses include
have, has,
or
had
and a past participle (the third column of most verb tables).

So, in the present perfect simple you use
have
and
has
to say: I/you/we/they
have done
something.

He/she/it
has seen
me.

However, in the past perfect you use
had.
So you say: I/you/we/they
had done
something.

He/she/it
had seen
me.

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You can also use the contraction of had, which is
’d.
The negative form uses
not
(or
n’t
) and in a question
had
comes before the subject (I, we, they and so on):

Had
you
met
him before you went to that party? He reckons he
’d seen
me before but I
hadn’t
actually
met
him.

In a sentence you’re more likely to stress or emphasise the past participle than ‘had’. Help students to practise emphasising the right word by repeating after you. The contracted form is also difficult for students to recognise when they hear it. So, ask them to repeat words like I’d, you’d, he’d and so on.

To teach the past perfect, think of a scenario or story set in the past. Make the sequence of events obvious but don’t relate the story in consecutive order. (A story told entirely in consecutive order is best related in the past simple.) John was really hungry last night. He had already searched all the cup-boards in the kitchen without success and had had no food for hours.

Why? Well, the day before he had run out of money and there was not a penny left. Poor John!

Reveal your story bit by bit. Draw John on the board, use a photograph or just tell the story with lots of exaggerated acting.

Your students can use phrases that summarise the story to construct a whole sentence or two:

Last night /John hungry/no food that day/run out of money.

Last night John was really hungry because he had run out of money and he had not eaten any food that day.

It’s a good idea to work backwards by asking the students questions like Why do you think he was so hungry? Because he had . . .

Why hadn’t John bought some food? Because he had . . .

Plotting a timeline

A timeline
is a great way to illustrate tenses by showing their relationship to the past, present or future. A
timeline
is a straight line showing time as a con-tinuum. You can plot different actions along the line so that it’s clear when the action took place and label it to show the most appropriate tense. It is particularly useful when there’s more than one action.

The timeline in Figure 16-1 illustrates the sentence about John: 238
Part IV: The Grammar You Need to Know – and How to Teach It
Figure 16-1:

Timeline

show-

ing three

actions in

run out of money

no food

hungry

the past to

X

X

X

demonstrate

the past Past

Last night

Last night

Today

simple and

past perfect

tenses.

You can highlight words that are typically used with this tense –
just, already,
before, ago, by then
and
never
– but remember to teach students where in the sentence each one goes. For example, you say
I had just/already/never seen
that.
So, you use
just, already
and
never
between
had
and the past participle.

However, you say
I had seen that before/weeks ago/by then.
So you use
before,
ago
and
by then
after the object word(s). I talk about object words in Chapter 15. You can also use
already
after the object.

Focusing on the Past Perfect Continuous

Like the past perfect simple, you use the
past perfect continuous tense
when two actions are in the past and one happened before the other. However, this time you want to emphasise the duration of the action that happened first.

I
had been shopping
for hours when I decided to stop for lunch. In this example, the two actions are ‘had been shopping’ and ‘decided’. The action that happened first and seemed to take a long time is in the past perfect continuous and the action that followed is in the past simple.

The past perfect continuous is similar to the past perfect simple but slightly easier to construct because it always uses
had
plus
been
and a gerund: I
had been listening
.

In the negative you add
not
(or
n’t
) after
had
. However, in a question you put the subject word (I, you, we and so on) after
had.

Where
had
you
been living
before that?

I
had not been
living
in that area.

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Here’s a context you can use to teach this tense. Show or draw a picture of a boy returning home in wet football gear. Tell your students it happened yesterday. Ask them to suggest why he was wet. Encourage the answer ‘He came home wet because he had been playing football in the rain’. Then establish how long it takes to play a match to highlight the duration of time needed.

Draw a timeline to illustrate, such as the one in Figure 16-2.

Figure 16-2:

Timeline

showing

actions in
playing football in the rain

came home wet

the past

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

X

simple and Past

Present

past perfect

continuous

tenses.

Students need plenty of practice to get this tense right. The past perfect continuous tense contains three verbs in a row, which is tricky for them, and communication doesn’t tend to be hindered unduly if you get it wrong. However, at upper-intermediate level students should be aiming to go beyond basic communication so don’t let them settle for past continuous.

Expressing the Future

Learners find expressing ideas about the future in English very odd and this isn’t wholly unreasonable. When people express other tenses they generally add something to the end of a verb. Take ‘to wait’ as an example: Present simple

He wait
s.

Present continuous

He is wait
ing.

Past simple

He wait
ed.

In many languages tenses work in this way and also have a special ending that indicates the future, so students may be expecting a new ending.

However, in English the structure is rather different. We use another word or words
before
the main verb. For example:

I
will
wait.

I
am going
to wait.

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Part IV: The Grammar You Need to Know – and How to Teach It
Doing the future simple

Although there’s more to the story, when students are at a low level it’s enough to start by teaching them to use the future simple to describe an action in the future. Teach separately the other ways of expressing the future, such as in the present continuous, or using ‘going to’.

The future simple always includes
will
and then an infinitive without
to
, which is the original form of a verb before any other endings or irregular forms have been added. The infinitive is usually the first column in a verb table.