Anybody having problems with the Present Perfect?

The present perfect is tricky. What do I mean by ‘tricky’? I mean it is sometimes difficult to understand and, in fact, it is used for a lot of different reasons. Many students learn these reasons but sometimes this means students can answer the question ‘What are the different uses of the present perfect tense?’ but they still can’t actually use the tense comfortably or accurately.

This is because students need to understand 3 things:

1. Don’t worry, the present perfect tense is not the most common tense in English... but sorry, we still use it a lot! So this is a very important part of communication in English that you... can’t... ignore! 
2. Making mistakes is good. If you are not sure how to use the present perfect then don’t, don’t, don’t avoid using it! We learn from our mistakes because mistakes = experience. 
3. If you are not comfortable with the present perfect tense, then you need more experience with it. 

For this last part, I have a short activity for you.

1.  You are going to listen to a poem (in fact, lyrics to a song) that uses the present perfect tense a lot. Listen once and while you are listening make some notes about what verbs you hear. 

listen to ‘Present Perfect Poem’ on Audioboo

2.  Now listen one more time and see if you can add more to your notes. REMEMBER, these are notes... you shouldn’t be writing down every word. 

3.  Now with the help of your notes and this slide show, see if you can rebuild the whole poem – the final slide has the answers.  Each slide is visual help for one line of the poem.

You might know this song. It is by U2 and it’s called “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. If you want a final challenge and a little bit more practice then do the interactive gap fill with a YouTube video of a live performance.

“Still Haven’t Found What I’m Look For” at Lyrics Training (remember to select a game mode: beginner, intermediate, advanced or expert)

or, just enjoy the original video below... :-)

Grammar

Or is it?

Okay, so let's start with one of the oldest topics about language learning - grammar!

I have been following a few ELT (English Language Teaching) blogs recently. I have to admit it, I'm quite a geek - I love it!

Anyway, on one of the blogs, a very experienced teacher was talking about grammar, grammar rules and if they are necessary or not. (Click here to see his post.)

Now recently I have been thinking about how grammar is taught and if my students really benefited from "learning grammar".

Now for some people, they like to have the rules because they feel more comfortable and it gives them something to study and memorize. But for other people, learning the rules about the use of the present perfect (how many different uses are there - about a million, no?) doesn't help them to actually USE the present perfect in their English conversations.

I would suggest this -

Learning English Grammar is like learning how to use a keyboard. If you learn how a keyboard works, do you know how to use the computer and its operating system?

I'm don't think I completely agree with this idea. But I want to generate some discussion so I'm going to give an opinion for you to agree or disagree with. AND, my opinions aren't important here - yours are!

Thanks,

Gordon

P.S. The www.englishpage.com link that I've added about the rules of present perfect are NOT complete and, as with all things in English, there are exceptions to these rules. I added it to show a 'perfect' example (hehehe, English teacher humour) of lots of different rules.