Sách Changing Times, Changing Tenses A Review of the English Tense System

A REVIEW OF THE ENGLISH TENSE SYSTEM

Introduction

This book is a review of the relationships between times and tenses in English. It is intended

for beginning and intermediate level language students in non-English speaking countries,

as a reinforcement and addition to their regular structure classes. The chapter dealing with

each tense may be used as soon as the students have covered that tense in their formal

grammar study. Alternatively, the teacher may want to present certain groups of tenses

together if the student seems to be having trouble with a particular concept; for instance,

he could teach all the perfect tenses or all the continuous tenses together.

The English tense system is quite complicated, but the most common problem is not how to

form tenses. The mechanical manipulation of verbs is easily learned through a few rules and

formulas. The biggest problem is deciding which tense to use in a given situation. In order

to choose correctly and easily, the student must understand the meaning of the tense itself,

its time picture or time line. He must know what kinds of activities and states can be

described by certain verbs. Certain groups of verbs are limited in their usage, and this can present problems, too. Finally, the student needs to be able to choose accurate time

markers to clarify the time picture.

In response to these problems, this book has as its goals:

1. to present clear time lines for each tense

2. to introduce categories of verbs which act in certain ways: punctual verbs, durative

verbs, and non-continuous verbs

3. to teach the proper use of time markers to show points in time, frequency, and duration

for each tense.