214 Part IV: The Grammar You Need to Know – and How to Teach It
✓ Past participle: When you use a passive sentence (‘the book was writ-
ten’ instead of ‘someone wrote the book’) you use another form of the
verb called the past participle. You also need this form when you make
perfect tenses. For example: I have seen it (present perfect), Bob will
have done it (future perfect), Kenny had drunk the beer (past perfect).
✓ Third person singular of the present simple: When you write a sen-
tence using he, she or it in the present simple tense, you need to put ‘s’
(or ‘es’) at the end of the main verb – He plays guitar.
A verb table is a necessary but hated part of kit for EFL students. It consists
of a long list of irregular verbs (verbs that don’t conform to usual patterns in
English) and you usually find verb tables at the back of course books and in
dictionaries for students to memorise or refer to. Verb tables are usually writ-
ten in three columns:
infinitive past simple past participle
(to) sing sang sung
Helping out with auxiliary verbs
Some verbs don’t have much meaning all by themselves but when you put
them with another verb, a main verb, the sentence has a new shade of mean-
ing. Or even if the verb can be used alone, when you put it in a sentence next
to the main verb you can construct a tense.
In the sentence, ‘I am drinking coffee’, drinking is the main verb and am has no
real meaning; it’s just there to make the present continuous tense so you know
that the action is happening now.
The auxiliary verbs we use in the English language are:
✓ to be
✓ to do
✓ to have
✓ may*
✓ might*
✓ must*
✓ ought*
✓ shall*
✓ should*
✓ will*
✓ would*
