[Grammar] tenses

[Tonpak]

the kinds of the strategy of Learning 16 tenses as fast as possible is complicated to understand by many students in Indonesia...please tell me what the great tips to study it...

 

[Rover_KE]

Are you really an English teacher, Tonpak? If not, please edit your profile.

We expect English teachers to have a good grasp of capitalisation, punctuation and sentence construction — all sadly lacking from your post.

 

[Skrej]

First of all, a good strategy would be to realize there are only 12 verb tenses in English, (24 if you want to consider the passive constructions as new tenses).

Your 2nd strategy is that there really isn't any need to learn all 12 tenses, certainly not at the beginning levels. The perfect continuous tenses aren't widely used in English. Certainly no need to cover them with lower level students, save them for only the most advanced students.

Stick to the 3 simple forms, the present and past continuous, and the present and past perfect, in approximately that order, until students are very, very advanced.

One thing I do, is after introducing and explaining a new tense, is have students do some conjugation exercises, first with written, then orally, with just the verb. Then expand that to conjugating (again written then orally) complete sentences.

This is particularly useful once they've learned several tenses, to help compare and keep things straight, but the conjugation exercises alone need to be heavily supplanted with real-life conversation exercises that focus on when to use a particular tense. Students can conjugate all day long with perfection, then still not be able to hold a basic conversation if you don't supply practical application exercises.

Some actually prefer to lead with the conversation, then introduce grammatical points after the fact.

 

[Raymott]

Many writers consider that there are only two true tenses in English, those unhelpfully called the present (simple) ans the past (simple). The progressive/continuous and perfect aspects fill out the number of possible forms.

Maybe that's strictly true, because English doesn't have inflectional endings for the various tenses. But that's not a very useful way to conceptualise English tenses for learners.

 

[MikeNewYork]

I agree with Raymott. It is easy to grasp a two-tense system, but that doesn't seem to be very helpful to me.

 

[Rover_KE]

I'm still waiting for an answer from the OP to my question in post #2.

 

[MikeNewYork]

I am suggesting it would be more helpful if it were more complete. No matter what one chooses to call the other verb forms, they have to be called something.

 

[MikeNewYork]

As I said, one has to call them something. If you prefer "aspects", good for you. I prefer "tenses".

 

[MikeNewYork]

The forms constructed with "will are considered future by many. This is nothing but terminology.

 

[Skrej]

The 'does English have a future tense' is an old, tired debate. It's purely a game of semantics, whether you want to consider it a 'true' tense or not. I frankly don't see the need to get into it. We use it as a tense, we need to talk about the future, and therefore need some term to refer to future time references for educational purposes, so call it a flurbywhatiz if you insist. What's critical to the learner is how it's constructed and used, not what it's called or what is "really" is/isn't.

To each their own, as long as it does no disservice to the learner. I can't, however, see any advantage of dragging the learner into a linguistical debate best reserved for academics trying to earn tenure or pad their CV with another published article.

A long debate on the issue from years past on this very forum can be found here.

Writers, perhaps have been too busy espousing what I'm sure they consider paradigm changing insights over the last forty years, but I can guarantee you'll find plenty of teachers who still refer to twelve tenses. I have no idea where the OP's sixteen tense reference comes from.

 

[MikeNewYork]

I have learned that people who are taught that "will" is not the sign of future tense also use "will" incorrectly. I don't think you have solved the modal problem with your teaching method.

 

[MikeNewYork]

You seemed to be advocating the two-tense method. Perhaps I misunderstood.

 

[bhaisahab]

I agree with Piscean on this subject. I don't intend to get into an argument about it, however. To each his own.

 

[Rover_KE]

If the OP is still following this thread (which I doubt), perhaps they could answer my question and tell us how helpful the responses have been.

I haven't noticed any Thanks or Likes from them.

I suspect that's another punter we've p*ssed off between us.

 

[Weaver67]

From the perspective of a learner for whom English is not his first language, I can say that two-tense system alongside the notions of aspect, modality, and mood seems to be very logical, consistent, and by no means any difficult to grasp. At least, that is true for me. Also, I very much like the approach in which the concepts of time reference and verb form are separated.

However, I admit it might be seen as a difficult thing to explain to beginners, and so it is no wonder most teachers prefer not to risk and opt for the well-established, traditional and "easy to start with" 12-tenses system.

Yet, it might be worth the risk. In my opinion, this lays the foundation for the understanding of more advanced usage at a more advanced level, thus eliminating any potential incoherence and controversy. One of the typical examples of such a difficulty that comes to mind is the usage of the present perfect in time clauses, such as in "I will go out as soon as I have done my homework", which may cause problems for those who have been taught that the present perfect is always to do with the past. Some learners simply do not understand how "will" and "things in the past", as many of them perceive the present perfect here, could be connected in one sentence (not to mention cases where sentences such as this one are backshifted). This in turn can lead to even more confusing explanations, in which such a case is usually represented as "an exception to the rule". As a result, this may naturally pose the question as to why not just teach them the perfective aspect from the very beginning instead of struggling, every now and again, to get "another exception to the rule" across.

All of the above is just my opinion. I am not going to argue. I admit that you are teachers and, therefore, must know better, with all your experience and qualifications.

 

[MikeNewYork]

We can agree to disagree. You still have to call the other forms something.

 

[Hmury]

I do not think that anyone has suggested otherwise.

I absolutely agree with MikeNewYork.
In my opinion, describing English grammar as having only past and present is like trying to describe a car as having three wheels.
I think that English can do perfectly well without "Tenses" as it is a meaningless and therefore useless term.
Generation after generation, grammarians and linguists have been trying to use the term for describing how English Verb System works writing more and more wise books on the subject, without any visible results.
Millions of ESL/EFL learners find Tenses to be hopelessly tangled, confusing and totally incomprehensible. So do a great number of ESL/EFL teachers.
In the meantime, neither the language nor its grammar keeps any secret. Just being a little more attentive is enough to see that English Verb System has a natural clearly visible, coherent and complete structure. It is simple, logical, easily understandable and describable without even mentioning the word "tenses".

 

[Tdol]

From the perspective of a learner for whom English is not his first language, I can say that two-tense system alongside the notions of aspect, modality, and mood seems to be very logical, consistent, and by no means any difficult to grasp. At least, that is true for me. Also, I very much like the approach in which the concepts of time reference and verb form are separated.

I think it offers a clear view, but it often becomes a problem as students are taught different views in other classes and it can end up a mess. Although it is a fairly standard view in linguistics, it is still very much on the fringes of language teaching, and very few publishers have adopted it, so I think that we will be stuck with the old system for many years in most places.