Commentary on Teaching Present Perfect

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From the course by University of California, Irvine

Strategies for Teaching Perfect Tenses and Modals

33 ratings

University of California, Irvine

Strategies for Teaching Perfect Tenses and Modals

33 ratings

Course 1 of 4 in the Specialization Teach English: Intermediate Grammar

This is the first course in the Teach English: Intermediate Grammar specialization. In this course, you will learn about teaching important intermediate verb tenses, including present perfect, present perfect progressive, past perfect, and past perfect progressive. You will also learn about teaching common modal verbs used in English. Finally, you will have opportunities to practice the skills you learn by creating sample assignments and recording short videos of your teaching demonstrations. This course is designed for teachers or those wanting to become teachers who have a solid understanding of English grammar and want to improve their skills of teaching that grammar to others. Please note that the free version of this class gives you access to all of the instructional videos and handouts. The peer feedback and quizzes are only available in the paid version.

From the lesson

Teaching Present Perfect Simple Tense

This week, you will learn about teaching the present perfect verb tense. You will learn to teach this tense to form questions, answers, and statements. You'll also review the uses of present perfect tense. Finally, you'll learn some new activities to use when teaching this grammar. To benefit from learning with others, you will submit a video of yourself demonstrating how to explain an activity to students.

Week 1 Introduction1:06

Commentary on Teaching Present Perfect3:44

Meet the Instructors

Tamy Chapman
Instructor, International Programs
University of California Irvine Division of Continuing Education
Emily Wong
Instructor, International Programs
University of California Irvine Extension
Brad Gilpin

Hi.

>> This is a commentary on the present perfect simple video lessons.

We would like to explain how we designed the series of videos,

and also the sequence.

So Hellen, you participated in choosing the topics for this grammar point.

How did you determine which aspects of the present perfect to focus on first?

>> Considering the form, have, has plus the past participle,

we recognize the students need to be introduced to the structure,

including when to use have and has and understand what the past participle is.

>> Yeah, we were concerned about how well students could understand

past participles, so we even made an overview video for that.

>> Right, well, let's look at the present perfect overview video, and

see what the instructor does there.

As you can see, she uses different colors to highlight the helping verb,

have and has, from the main verb in the past participle form.

She even uses a different color to highlight not.

Lastly, she shows how form contractions in the affirmative and the negative.

>> Mm-hm, yeah, using different colors to highlight

the part of the structure really help students to see a clear pattern.

But what's really important about the present perfect is reviewing

the different uses.

I think, because the present perfect doesn't exist in a lot of languages,

students have a hard time understanding when to use it correctly.

>> Yes, would you care to elaborate?

>> Sure, well, if we think about the various uses of present perfect,

we know that it shows experience.

It shows something that started in the past and continues until now.

It also shows something that is already done.

I mean, this is extremely difficult to comprehend,

so we made separate videos for each of the uses.

There's a video on specify time, where students learn the difference between for

and since, and there's mention of how using present perfect with

specified time is different from using the simple past.

>> Yeah, students always find it complicated to compare between using

the present perfect versus the simple past.

>> Exactly, then the following video explains about unspecified time,

which includes experiential statements.

>> Naturally, we also wanted students to learn how to form yes/no

questions with short answers, as well as WH questions.

The word order of questions changes, so again,

it's important to use colors to highlight the correct

parts of the structure, as you can see in this slide.

>> Of course, and lastly, we included a video on adverbs.

There are many adverbs that go with the present perfect,

such as ever, never, get, and already.

Students need to see how the adverbs are placed in a sentence or a question,

especially since an adverb like ever can only be used in questions.

Once again, looking at our example,

the instructor used color to distinguish the adverb from the rest of the sentence.

>> That's right, and that is the teaching tip for this video.

>> Yes, using colors to highlight the grammar point that

you want students to notice.

>> I hope that you found this video helpful in learning how to better teach

the present perfect simple.

>> See you next time.

>> Bye.

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