tense revision - help!

[magdalena]

Help!
I 've just started with a student at intermediate level and the book starts with present perfect. She is having trouble using tenses and asked me to make a tense revision class. I am a fledling teacher and have no idea how to go about that- revising all tenses within 2 hour lesson? I've been thinking of designing a text with several tenses and asking her to idetify them, match tenses' names with the definitions (she is at intermediate level so I would include only the basic aspects of the tenses) and then some exercises and speaking practice. What do you think about that? Help! I am lost.....

[Andrew Whitehead]

Hi Magdalena.

Often, when students around Intermediate have trouble with tenses, the issue is with using rather than forming. Ask the S to identify a tense and they can do it, ask them to write their own sentence and they are baffled.

I approach this in two ways. Write the same sentences in different tenses and ask them to identify how the meaning changes

"When I came home my wife cooked dinner"
"When I came home my wife was cooking dinner"
"When I came home my wife had cooked dinner"


For the past perfect I use a short story, only 3-4 sentences. One version is past simple and in chronological order, the other is past perfect. Mark the events on the whiteboard with circles or stars or whatever, and use this to illustrate how the PP story starts from a different time to the PS version.

My generic story for this exercise is

'X cooked dinner. The guests came and had a great time. The guests left at 2am'

and

'X looked at the dinner table. It was 2am and the guests had left. X had cooked a lovely meal and the guests had had a great time.'

The first story starts at event 1, the second at event 3


If materials is an issue, One Stop English | Home is a useful site.


Intermediate students are quite capable. They should be able to hold a reasonable discussion (make arrangements to meet, discuss problems, etc.) and be able to mix tenses, such as continuous and simple to report an event. They should also be familiar with passive tenses, though they often have trouble with that right through upper-intermediate.

[magdalena]

Thank You for your advice! I've found some nice pictures will ask my student to describe them. Thanks!

[lilababe]

Originally Posted by magdalena

Help!
I 've just started with a student at intermediate level and the book starts with present perfect. She is having trouble using tenses and asked me to make a tense revision class. I am a fledling teacher and have no idea how to go about that- revising all tenses within 2 hour lesson? I've been thinking of designing a text with several tenses and asking her to idetify them, match tenses' names with the definitions (she is at intermediate level so I would include only the basic aspects of the tenses) and then some exercises and speaking practice. What do you think about that? Help! I am lost.....

Hi there,

I am a teacher in Germany. I get a lot of help from a site called "onestopenglish.com" why don't you give it a try.
Rita