TASK 4

Below are some learner errors with time, tense and aspect. How would
you explain to the learners the correct meaning or rule in each case?

1. I am not enjoy this film. Lets leave.

Time line and CCQs

The event continuous

A. The movie started (13.05)

(13.50) you want to leave because you are bored B. the

movie finishes (15. 15)

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1. What time did the movie start? (This question will set the learner in
the context of the movie theater, at the beginning of the action, point A)
2. You are the movies right now. Thats why you say lets leave.
Correct?( This will set learner in the present time)
3. Is the event (the movie) in progress or is it finished? (The movie
finishes until 15.15, point B)
4. Lets leave indicates that you are at the cinema, and that event is
incomplete, you are in the middle of the action. So, Im not enjoying the
movie is appropriate; to express that the action is in progress, it is
happening at the moment, when you stop watching the movie, you wont
feel bored anymore.

2. What do you eating now?

Past Present
Future

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You started eating you continue eating

CCQs

Is the action in present time?

Do you want to express an action frequently repeated or action in progress?
Is the event finished?
When is it going to finish?
It is better to say What are you eating? because you are seeing the person
eating (doing the action) and the event is not finished yet.
3. Yesterday, I and my friend go to the pool.

Time line and CCQs

Past Present Future

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(Yesterday) (today)

CCQs

1. Are you at the pool today? (That will set learners to the idea of
incorrectness)
2. So, the event is the past or in the present? (that will lead learners
to the idea of change of time)
3. Is the event finished? (Yesterday)
4. Is the verb go used in present or past tense? (Im empowering
learner to remember the correct conjugation)

If you say yesterday, I go you are using two different tenses (past:
yesterday and present: go) so, you need to change the verb to past time (went)
so that your idea sounds adequate. Then Yesterday, I went to the pool is
appropriately said.

4. I studied for the exam but I didnt passed.

Explanation

When the sentence is affirmative in past tense, we always conjugated the verb
in past tense accordingly. In this case pass-passed is correct. Also, when we
change the sentence in negative form we use the auxiliary did and the
negative not, contraction: didnt.

CCQs

When we use the auxiliary in past tense; is the verb in simple form or
past tense? (This will make learners realize his/her mistake. I studied for the
exam but I didnt pass.

5. I didnt realise it was so late and the underground didnt work

yet.

Past tense Present

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The underground closed the underground opened

If you say the underground didnt work, you are saying that, that day the
underground remain closed the whole day, maybe it was a day off or
something else caused it. I believe in this case you need a continuous action in
the past. The underground wasnt working yet because it was a temporary
action in the past and it was in progressive form.

6. My mother told me that my boyfridn was having an accident and he

was being in the general hospital.
Time line and CCQs

The accident Past

Present

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Hospital

1. There are two events in the past. Which one happened first?
The accident or was in the hospital? (That will encourage learners to
organize the events chronologically).
2. Was the event in progress in the past? How long did it last,
then? (This CCQ, will tell the learners that ing form, suggest actions in
progress and that in this case, he/she needs the idea of completeness;
simple aspect).
3. So, when you mother told you: Was the event the accident
completed? Was it finished? (This will help me to introduce past
perfect structure)
4. Did your mom call you after the accident? (Im setting the events
chronologically. First the accident and then the phone call and hospital)

Then you need to say: My mother told me that my boyfriend had had an
accident and he was in the hospital because in this way you are telling
me the chronological order of the events in the past time. If you use
continuous form (was having and was being) you are suggesting that the
events were in in progress, that they were happening and that they were
incomplete. But is this case, the events accident, told and was in the
chospital are completed in the past.
Sources

http://www.grammaring.com/time-tense-and-aspect

Time: present, past and future (perception of the reality)

Tenses: when an event happened in the flow of time

Kury 13-15 C112