|
|
|
Schedule for Teaching Tenses
Day Two: Questions [Questions Lesson Plans] [Questions Formula Table]
- Go over the formulas for making questions with the past 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.
- Practice: Ask students to interview a partner about their life. Have them make question sentences of their own using the 12 formulas [see the downloadable lesson plans above] and then to use the answers to the questions to write a short bio paragraph about their partner. This format also works for the present and future tenses.
Day Three: [The present tenses]
- Go over the formulas for the present tense verbs [simple, continuous, perfect, perfect continuous]writing them down in a list along the left side of the board.
- Next begin a present tense story on the center of the board with the simple present. I usually prefer to write a short biography or continue the story from the previous class.
Tom lives in Burgerville with his parents.
- Ask students to tell you what else Tom is doing at the same time he lives in Burgerville. Choose a good suggestion and add it to the story.
Tom lives in Burgerville with his parents. He is working with the Burgerville police department.
- Ask students to tell you about something Tom has done before he got the job at the police department.
Tom lives in Burgerville with his parents. He is working with the Burgerville police department. The department has trained him to catch the Hamburgerlar.
- Finally, ask students to tell you about something else Tom has been doing.
Tom lives in Burgerville with his parents. He is working with the Burgerville police department. The department has trained him to catch the Hamburgerlar. He has been trying to catch this burger thief for many months.
- Just like in the past, at this point, draw a timeline and ask students to tell you where each tense should go along the line taking care to note that the present perfect and present perfect continuous happen before the simple present and present continuous. I usually also draw a line between the simple/continuous and perfect/perfect continuous formulas and label the first group: "Use these to talk about actions that happen or are happening in the present.", and the second group: "Use these to talk about actions that happen or are happening before the simple present or present continuous."
- *Special Note:The point of reference and before tenses concept in the present is the same as in the past, so if students seem to be getting the concept, you can show them that they can substitute the simple past for the present perfect in their stories without changing the meaning. In other words, they have a choice of tenses to use here as well. This is reinforced in the lesson for the next day as well.
The department has trained/trained him to catch the Hamburgerlar.
You can also show them that the present perfect continuous is special in that it describes some action that started in the past, but is still happening in the present.
Questions [Questions Lesson Plans] [Questions Formula Table]
- Go over the formulas for making questions with the past 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.
- Practice: Ask students to interview a partner about their life. Have them make question sentences of their own using the 12 formulas [see the downloadable lesson plans above] and then to use the answers to the questions to write a short bio paragraph about their partner. This format also works for the present and future tenses.
- A good practice homework assignment for the present tenses is to ask students to write a short biography describing a classmate. Have them use each of the four present tenses at least twice in their paragraph, an 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 students to share their biographies without the names. It's often fun for the rest of the class to try and guess the identity of the person being described.
|
