Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Feeling Tense? Sorting Out Verb Tenses

Verb Tenses

In This Chapter

▶ Naming the tenses

▶ Getting comfortable in the past and present

▶ Being perfectly content with continuous and perfect tenses

▶ Focusing on the future

F

or most new teachers knowing the grammar is one of the most fear

inspiring parts of the job. In this chapter you find out how to break down

each tense, one by one, and you get ideas for teaching them in context.

With all tenses, you have to know what it looks like. It is never enough to

say past tense, present tense or future tense. Actually the tenses are always

labelled past/present/future and then simple/continuous/perfect/perfect

continuous. In this chapter, we also find out what these terms mean and how

we use verbs to put each tense together. Then we discover why and when we

use each tense.

I Speak, I Spoke, I’ve Spoken: Identifying the Tenses

Whereas the terms past, present and future are quite logical in meaning,

tenses can be simple, continuous and perfect in the past, present and future

as well. So you don’t refer to a sentence as just present tense but you say that

it’s present simple, present continuous, or present perfect.

These tense forms aren’t so obvious to decipher, but these pointers can

help you: