Sunday, 9 January 2011

Teaching the present perfect tense

Am teaching the present perfect tense tomorrow-yeah I know you're sighing too :) The most difficult tenses to teach in my opinion, are the present perfect and the past perfect. This is how I normally teach it:

  • I always teach it together with the simple past tense because the two contrast really well.
  • I use time lines to show the past and the present divisions on the board.
  • I maximise the use of the board (don't let the worksheets do the talking for you)
          E.g. I read the newspaper yesterday.
  • start with a sample sentence in the simple past and explain (explaining from a rule written on a worksheet is not effective, teacher explains why it's the simple past with the aid of the timeline)
  • then I write a sample sentence in the present perfect tense:
          E.g.  I have read the newspaper yesterday. (explain why this is wrong by writing the following on board:


  • the present perfect talks about how long and how many times- we don't need a specific time
  • the simple present talks about when
  • use questions too:  How many books have you read?/ How much money have you got? to reinforce the concept. Let ss answer in the present perfect.


  •  this is followed by practice sentences (yes, worksheets at the end for practice)

There are many videos on how to teach the tense in Youtube and TeacherTube. I hope my lesson will go well tomorrow. It all depends on whether my fever subsides. If you have any suggestions at all, please leave a comment. Tx. have a perfect Sunday :)


2 comments:

ejatidiaz said...

I still remember the time line when you teach us 3 set 2.
the most i cannot forget is how you teach 'I'. 'I' is the KING with a crown. That was in form 1, 2004

Rahmah said...

rozaidi,
alhamdulillah my fever is much better. i can got to school tomorrow. wow u still remember that eh :)