Teaching English as a Foreign Language

(Chris Devlin) #1

Chapter 16: Feeling Tense? Sorting Out Verb Tenses 237


You can also use the contraction of had, which is ’d. The negative form uses
not (or n’t) and in a question had comes before the subject (I, we, they and
so on):

Had you met him before you went to that party? He reckons he’d seen
me before but I hadn’t actually met him.

In a sentence you’re more likely to stress or emphasise the past participle
than ‘had’. Help students to practise emphasising the right word by repeating
after you. The contracted form is also difficult for students to recognise when
they hear it. So, ask them to repeat words like I’d, you’d, he’d and so on.

To teach the past perfect, think of a scenario or story set in the past. Make the
sequence of events obvious but don’t relate the story in consecutive order. (A
story told entirely in consecutive order is best related in the past simple.)


John was really hungry last night. He had already searched all the cup-
boards in the kitchen without success and had had no food for hours.
Why? Well, the day before he had run out of money and there was not a
penny left. Poor John!

Reveal your story bit by bit. Draw John on the board, use a photograph or
just tell the story with lots of exaggerated acting.


Your students can use phrases that summarise the story to construct a whole
sentence or two:


Last night /John hungry/no food that day/run out of money.
Last night John was really hungry because he had run out of money and
he had not eaten any food that day.

It’s a good idea to work backwards by asking the students questions like


Why do you think he was so hungry? Because he had...

Why hadn’t John bought some food? Because he had...

Plotting a timeline

A timeline is a great way to illustrate tenses by showing their relationship to
the past, present or future. A timeline is a straight line showing time as a con-
tinuum. You can plot different actions along the line so that it’s clear when
the action took place and label it to show the most appropriate tense. It is
particularly useful when there’s more than one action.

The timeline in Figure 16-1 illustrates the sentence about John:
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