Chapter 16: Feeling Tense? Sorting Out Verb Tenses 239
Here’s a context you can use to teach this tense. Show or draw a picture of a
boy returning home in wet football gear. Tell your students it happened yester-
day. Ask them to suggest why he was wet. Encourage the answer ‘He came
home wet because he had been playing football in the rain’. Then establish
how long it takes to play a match to highlight the duration of time needed.
Draw a timeline to illustrate, such as the one in Figure 16-2.
Figure 16-2:
Timeline
showing
actions in
the past
simple and
past perfect
continuous
tenses.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Past Present
playing football in the rain came home wet
XX
Students need plenty of practice to get this tense right. The past perfect con-
tinuous tense contains three verbs in a row, which is tricky for them, and com-
munication doesn’t tend to be hindered unduly if you get it wrong. However, at
upper-intermediate level students should be aiming to go beyond basic com-
munication so don’t let them settle for past continuous.
Expressing the Future
Learners find expressing ideas about the future in English very odd and this
isn’t wholly unreasonable. When people express other tenses they generally
add something to the end of a verb. Take ‘to wait’ as an example:
Present simple He waits.
Present continuous He is waiting.
Past simple He waited.
In many languages tenses work in this way and also have a special ending
that indicates the future, so students may be expecting a new ending.
However, in English the structure is rather different. We use another word or
words before the main verb. For example:
I will wait.
I am going to wait.
