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Schedule for Teaching Tenses
Day Three - Four: Questions, Negatives & the Past/Present Overlap
- Go over the formulas for making questions with the present tense verbs [simple, continuous, perfect, perfect continuous] writing them down in a list along the left side of the board leaving enough space between them to include examples.
- Do the same thing for the present tense negative formulas
- Ask students to make question sentences of their own using the formulas and to answer each question in the negative.
Day Three-Four, Part Two:
- Before class, write the following story on the center of the board or make one of your own that begins in the past and continues into the present.
Last night at 8pm, Tom was walking along the dirty city streets and thinking about Jessica. He was alone and his heart was broken. Jessica had left him for another man. She had been cheating on Tom with this guy for three weeks.
Today, Tom feels better, and is calling his friends to invite them to hang out. He has walked for many hours, and has thought about Jessica, but he also has been thinking about meeting someone new.
- Briefly review the formulas for the past & present tense verbs [simple, continuous, perfect, perfect continuous] writing them down in a list along the left side of the board. [If time permits]
- Ask students to identify the different verb tenses within the story.
- Then draw a timeline and work through where each action goes on the line with the students. Show the past point of reference and the actions that happened before it. Then show the present point of reference and show the the actions that happened before it.
- At this point, replace the present perfect verbs with simple past verbs,[then past continuous]
He walked/was walking for many hours, and thought/was thinking about Jessica,
and ask students if the meaning has changed. Highlight the region between the simple present and simple past, and point out that we can use the simple past/past continuous or the present perfect to talk about the exact same period of time.
*The context of the story tells us that the walking and thinking continued for a while.
- Practice: Ask students to start a story in the past and continue it into the present using each tense at least twice.
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