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Teachers Activity links ____________________ Grammar advanced intermediate beginning ____________________ Reading abridged stories paraphrasing ____________________ Writing essay skills verb choice end focus ____________________ Listening Speaking Teaching Vowels s- endings note-taking skills ____________________ more to come... ____________________ created and maintained by Douglas E. Adams		How do the present and past tenses overlap? Notice that when we examined the use of the present perfect tenses, we saw that they are used to talk about things that happened or were happening before the simple present and present continuous actions. As we know, the period of time this describes can also be represented by the simple past and past continuous tenses. Hence, a new element of choice is introduced. For example, in our sample paragraph we can write Tom has studied for the test or Tom studied for the test without making any real change to the meaning. Likewise, with the continuous tenses we can also write that he has been studying math since he was five or he started studying math at the age of five, and is still studying it now though the latter would be less efficient; hence the reason for choosing the present perfect continuous. Making choices, or judgement calls, is a part of using grammar in any language. This is a concept that most students readily grasp and appreciate. Special Note: Issues with the simple present vs. present continuous Possible Practice Exercise A good practice homework assignment for the present/past overlap is to ask students to start a story in the past (using all four past tenses at least twice), and continue the story in the present (using all four present tenses at least twice). Also have them diagram their paragraph to check that they have used each tense correctly. Then, as a review at the beginning of the next class, ask some of the students to share their stories. At this point let's turn our attention to   The Future Tenses

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