“Am I right?” During my ten years as an English instructor , this is probably the most common question I receive from my students, especially when it comes to questions of grammar. Unfortunately, however, much to the chagrin of my students, the answer is rarely a clear cut, “Yes, you are,” or “No, you’re not.” In many cases my reply is, “Well…it depends on what you are trying to say.”
Learning a new language is complicated. I know this because I began studying Spanish some twenty years ago and have only recently reached the point where I can carry on a casual conversation. Language also requires proficiency in four distinct skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. In all but a very few cases, most students seem to have the greatest challenges with the speaking skill, mostly because there are so many “moving parts” to even the simplest of conversations. First, the speaker has to find the vocabulary necessary to convey the meaning, then they have to concentrate on pronouncing the words correctly, and if that weren’t enough to worry about, there is also the question of grammar. Verb tense, mood, voice…by the time all of that is sorted out, often the conversation has moved on to another topic and the would-be speaker has to start the process all over again.
My experience has shown that most students who advance beyond the beginner level can usually speak confidently when using the simple tenses: simple present, simple past, and simple future. Many can also manage the present continuous fairly well. Issues arise, however, when they attempt to master the “perfect” tenses. Perfect has also always struck me as a bit of a misnomer. Although there is a logical academic explanation (perfect comes from the Latin word perfectus, meaning completed) the rules for sentence construction can seem awkward at best to English language learners. In fact, there are even many native speakers who face these tenses with not only trepidation, but often with outright fear. I had an American student who hired me some years ago as a private tutor to help him with his English 101 essays. As a recently discharged United States Marine who had served as a military police officer in Afghanistan, he was the picture of strength: military haircut, perfect posture, and muscles on top of muscles. Yet, in one of our early lessons, he confessed, somewhat sheepishly, that, “Past participles scare me!”
So, what is the best and least stressful method of teaching some of the more complex verb tenses? A technique that I’ve been using with a current student who is struggling to move from B2 to C1 in his spoken English skills, involves storytelling. One of our most recent lessons involved learning the differences between present perfect and past perfect. I usually start by outlining some basic rules and examples for each of the tenses.
- Present perfect has three main uses:
- An action which started in the past but the ending date is unclear.
I have recently driven to Chicago. (Since there is no specific time marker such as yesterday or last weekend, present perfect is used instead of simple past).
- Repeated past actions. I have driven to Chicago many times.
- Actions which started in the past, continue to the present, and may continue into the future. I have driven to Chicago many times since I moved to Illinois 15 years ago.
- Past perfect is used when there is more than one past event and we want to talk about when one event occurred in relationship to the other.
I had driven to Chicago before I realized that taking the train was easier.
Event #1 – Driving to Chicago
Event #2 – Realizing that taking the train was easier
To help my student understand the difference, I asked him to tell me the story of how he met his wife, using present perfect and past perfect verb tenses. His story went something like this:
I had lived in my apartment building for several years when I saw her one day on the elevator. After I had seen her several more times, I decided to ask her out. We had dated each other for about 4 years when we decided to get married. We have been married for 5 years and we had our son three years ago.
Once he had constructed this simple story, then we talked about whether other verb tenses would be possible. Through that discussion, we determined that it would be possible to convey the same information using other tenses. He could use simple past throughout, for example:
I lived in an apartment building for several years. I saw a beautiful girl one day on the elevator. A few weeks later I decided to ask her out. We dated for four years. We decided to get married 5 years ago. We had a son three years ago.
Grammatically, this second story is correct, and conveys the same basic information. However, the extremely simple structure makes the story sound a little less interesting. We then experimented with changing the tenses of some of the other sentences. For example:
I have lived in my apartment building for several years and have seen her on the elevator.
While this sentence is grammatically correct, it sounds as if he is still living in the apartment building (he isn’t) and that seeing his future wife on the elevator is a somewhat more recent event (it isn’t). So there are situations in which a shift in verb tense can alter the meaning. This method seems to be working well for him and now we often play a game in which he will give me a sentence he has written and I respond by telling him what I think he is trying to say. If I can correctly determine his intended meaning, he knows that he has used the correct verb tense; if not, then we discuss what he really meant and how to adjust the sentence to convey the intended meaning.
Everyone seems to have their own unique experiences with and attitudes towards grammar. Some are grammar nerds like me who enjoy the challenge of dissecting complex sentences in the same way that biology students are fascinated by dissecting frogs in the lab. Others are like my former marine, who have sweaty palms just thinking about using anything beyond the basics. By giving students a straightforward way to measure their progress, such as, “Did my listener understand me correctly?” most students are able to approach the student of grammar with far less anxiety.
quietlyradical 