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    Tenses in Grammar, Confused? (惱人的英文文法時態!)

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    prasadmado224
    1) The document discusses the challenges that students face in learning English tenses and grammar. It notes that while grammar allows people to freely express themselves, tenses in particular are difficult for students whose first language is not English. 2) The author shares techniques that she has found effective in teaching tenses to her students, such as starting conversations in different tenses to emphasize past and future. She also stresses the importance of explaining tenses clearly and reminding students to use the proper tenses. 3) The document analyzes several English tenses in more detail, including progressive, perfect, and how to distinguish their uses. It emphasizes teaching tenses in a systematic way while addressing cultural differences between English and students

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    Tenses in Grammar, Confused? (惱人的英文文法時態!)

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    prasadmado224
    69 views4 pages
    1) The document discusses the challenges that students face in learning English tenses and grammar. It notes that while grammar allows people to freely express themselves, tenses in particular are difficult for students whose first language is not English. 2) The author shares techniques that she has found effective in teaching tenses to her students, such as starting conversations in different tenses to emphasize past and future. She also stresses the importance of explaining tenses clearly and reminding students to use the proper tenses. 3) The document analyzes several English tenses in more detail, including progressive, perfect, and how to distinguish their uses. It emphasizes teaching tenses in a systematic way while addressing cultural differences between English and students

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    1) The document discusses the challenges that students face in learning English tenses and grammar. It notes that while grammar allows people to freely express themselves, tenses in particular are difficult for students whose first language is not English. 2) The author shares techniques that she has found effective in teaching tenses to her students, such as starting conversations in different tenses to emphasize past and future. She also stresses the importance of explaining tenses clearly and reminding students to use the proper tenses. 3) The document analyzes several English tenses in more detail, including progressive, perfect, and how to distinguish their uses. It emphasizes teaching tenses in a systematic way while addressing cultural differences between English and students

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    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    69 views4 pages

    Tenses in Grammar, Confused? (惱人的英文文法時態!)

    Uploaded by

    prasadmado224
    1) The document discusses the challenges that students face in learning English tenses and grammar. It notes that while grammar allows people to freely express themselves, tenses in particular are difficult for students whose first language is not English. 2) The author shares techniques that she has found effective in teaching tenses to her students, such as starting conversations in different tenses to emphasize past and future. She also stresses the importance of explaining tenses clearly and reminding students to use the proper tenses. 3) The document analyzes several English tenses in more detail, including progressive, perfect, and how to distinguish their uses. It emphasizes teaching tenses in a systematic way while addressing cultural differences between English and students

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    of 4

    Tenses in Grammar, Confused? (惱人的英文文法時態!

    By Shumin Chan(詹淑敏)
    English instructor at National Kaohsiung Normal University
    English instructor at Taipei Language Institute
    English instructor at Oxford Language Institute

    “What is passive progressive?” asked my husband, who is Canadian and an


    English teacher. He asked me that question with some frustration. “Hmm…,” that
    sounds very familiar to me since many of my students have asked me the same
    question over and over. So, is it difficult to learn grammar? The answer is NO. Even
    English native speakers have trouble understanding it. Students always complain
    about how hard and boring grammar is, but do they know “Without grammar very
    little can be conveyed; without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed?” Knowing
    vocabulary gives you a good start; however, with grammar it allows you to freely
    express what you want to say.

    After years of learning and struggling, I have come to understand the beauty of
    grammar. I believe that to teach well, English teachers themselves must embrace it
    first. The know-how of how to learn grammar well is to like it first. Then, it will come
    to you naturally.

    In my line of work, starting my lecture with small talk is a must. I find that my
    students always gradually put down their guard of lacking confidence in speaking
    English through chatting, which makes my teaching extremely effective and efficient.
    Our conversation always starts like this:
    T: How are you doing today?
    S: Oh, I am doing fine. (Of course, they never ask me about how my day is
    going)
    T: That’s very good. So, how about your weekend?
    S: My weekend IS so-so (or the same, these two items take their turns to be said)
    T: So-so! What exactly did you do last weekend?
    S: I STAY home and WATCH TV. On Sunday, I still HAVE to go to cram school.
    T: Oh, that’s too bad.
    From our conversation, you can tell that not only does my student live a boring life
    but also he or she uses SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE to express all of his or her ideas.
    Apparently, in his or her little mind, grammar does not carry any weight. To him or
    her, saying something to me is more important than saying it correctly. That frustrates
    me sometimes since I know that explaining tenses is not hard but putting this idea into
    my student’s head is.

    The grammar section of learning English should be the easiest part since it is
    explained in a systemic way. However, this systematic organization does come with
    one culture barrier: tense. To compare English to Chinese, there are 12 tenses in
    English, three times and four tenses, to carter all different expressions. Among them,
    PERFECT PROGRESSIVE TENSES rarely appears in most of the articles in
    textbooks. Hence, the emphasis will be mainly on the other nice tenses.

    In Chinese, we don’t have any specific tense to distinguish the time difference.
    For example, “我昨天去上學.” If you take out the yesterday part from the sentence,
    there is no indicator of showing the tense of this sentence. However, in English “I
    went to school yesterday.” There are two things in this sentence pointing out the tense:
    went and yesterday. Thus, for all English teachers, we all need to be aware of the
    importance of assisting students to establish the significance of English tenses.
    Without building up such a strong sense in English learning, teachers will easily find
    that their students always express their idea in SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE, which is
    very likely to lead to more misunderstanding in English communication between
    Chinese students and English native speaks.

    Here are some tricks that I find very useful in my teaching. I always inform my
    students in advance that I will ask them “What did you do last weekend?” and “What
    will you do next weekend?” in my next class. I also make sure they know the idea of
    past and future tenses first. SIMPLE PAST TENSE is only used when one talks about
    something that already happens in the past; on the other hand, SIMPLE FUTURE
    TENSE is employed when one talks about something that will happen in the future.
    Thus, the conversation of the next class would always start like this:

    T: So, how are you doing today? (Of course, this is not the only way to say hi.)
    S: I am doing fine. How about you? (If they have a good day or you are lucky,
    they normally will say hi back to you as well.)
    T: I am having a wonderful day since you asked me back. And, how about last
    weekend? Did you do anything other than studying?
    S: My family and I go out for dinner last Saturday. (They normally give you a
    response like this and this would be your time to remind them only using PAST
    TENSE for this part of the conversation.)
    At this point, make sure they only use PAST TENSE and ask them more questions
    about what happened last week. In general, they will get used to the pattern and
    eventually they will get it. Use the same model to coach them for practicing FUTURE
    TENSE. At the end of the day, the result is usually very satisfactory.

    Followed by the SIMPLE TENSE is PROGRESSIVE TENSE. Students usually


    get the idea the first time you present it to them. Unfortunately, they get the idea but
    not the pattern. They always get the V-ing part and leave out the verb Be part. That
    could be very frustrated to both teachers and students. Hence, when a teacher
    introduces PROGRESSIVE TENSE to his or her students, he or she needs to make
    sure that Be and V-ing go together and cannot be separated. Once they are apart, it is
    no longer PROGRESSIVE TENSE. Moreover, when teaching PROGRESSIVE
    TENSE, most teachers tend to only focus only on “the on going action.” Another
    usage is generally neglected. PROGRESSIVE TENSE can also be used to describe a
    temporary situation:
    Mary always takes a part-time job every summer. However, she is not
    taking a summer job this year. She is going to stay with her aunt in Canada
    this year.
    “She is not taking a summer job this year” is not talking about any on going project,
    but it stresses her different plan from her regular plan. It’s not permanent but only this
    one time even. Another good example would be:
    A: Bob, What are you taking this semester?
    B: I am taking ECON 102, what about you?
    In this conversation, Bob is not physically taking this course now. But he is refereeing
    to his unique schedule which differs from his last schedule. To completely introduce
    the PROGRESS TENSE to students, such usage shouldn’t be left out.

    Now let’s move on to the most confusing part of the tenses - PERFECT TENSE.
    Of course, it also comes with PRESENT, PAST, and FUTURE tenses. Yet, if students
    can understand the core concept of PERFECT TENSE, they should be able to use it
    freely no matter what time zone it is. The center idea of PERFECT TENSE is to
    address an action that happens. There are three main uses of PERFECT TENSE. To
    begin with, it is used to express the idea of duration of time. If one action begins in
    the past and it continues until today, PERFECT TENSE should be used. “How long
    have you learned to play the piano?” Learning to plan the piano is not an on and off
    action and it requires the effort for a long period of time. So, to express such an action,
    PERFECT TENSE should be adopted. In addition, when taking about the past
    experience with times, definitely use PERFECT TENSE. “I have been to Japan 5
    times.” Please note that this is no for before 5 times! This is one of the common
    mistakes made by students and even by their teachers. The other usage is to explain
    the change of status. That means an action just happening not long ago and the effect
    still carrying on to the time of speaking. For instance, one just loses his or her key and
    still tries to fine it; thus, he or she can say, “I have just lost my key” or “I lost my
    key.” Yes, SIMPLE PAST TIME can also be used in this situation since the action
    does happen at some time in the past. Students sometimes get confused about this
    concept as well.

    To sum up, tenses are confusing to students in Taiwan, for the idea of tenses does
    not exist in Chinese language. It is very common to see a student express his or her
    thoughts in SIMPLE PERSENT TENSE no matter when the incident occurs. To avoid
    that, teachers need to establish the idea of tenses right from the beginning of English
    learning. Continuing to remind the time tenses in the later lecturing is also crucial.

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