Review of English Verb Tenses

- problems in reaching the

"Future Perfect
or.


Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep
Created by Jack Pillemer Boyar High School for the
Boyar protest lesson in front of the Ministry of
Education October 29
th
, 2007
http://www.schooly.co.il/boyer_english
http://www.schooly.co.il/boyer

The Present Simple
verb or verb+S


The present is indeed simple: It is not complex at all.

We teachers, at this point in time feel angry, frustrated
and fed up.
We are professional educators who work really hard
under difficult working conditions and get paid next
to nothing.


The present is pretty simple,right?
We are tired of the uphill struggle to achieve the
three R's not
Reading wRiting and aRithmetic.. but
Recognition (of the need for decent
working conditions)
Remuneration ( a nice long word for
pay/salary -for those who don't know the
word.)
Respect

The present simple tense describes actions which do not
change they remain constant.

This tense is used to describe a routine/ unchanging/
permanent situation and is often accompanied by frequency
expressions such as always, often, seldom, occasionally etc.
For example

People seldom/rarely/never/hardly ever
understand the true workload and responsibility
of teachers, and tend see the profession as "a
part-time morning job with long vacations for
religious women."
Now you try.
. does not fit in Find the frequency expression which
English teachers
often/ always/ generally/ usually/ constantly/ frequently/ never
find themselves marking book reports and
projects when the rest of the Israeli
population is relaxing in front of the TV or
fast asleep.
Correct! The answer is NEVER!
Present Progressive/ Continuous
is/am/ are + verbing
For many years, this tense was called the Present
Continuous and so some teachers today still call
it that.
I personally prefer not to use that name.

I dont want the present to continue.
I think that "progressive" is a much more
appropriate name at this stage.
We want the present to be progressive.
What does the word progressive
mean?
"advocating reform, supporting change; modern,
advanced;"
That is what we are demanding:
a progressive, modern, forward looking approach to
education which is at present nose-diving towards
disaster.
It is happening now, at the moment, as we stand here. We
are dropping down the scale of all the international tests
- slot by slot. From the inside as a teacher, the reasons
for this are clear. Ask any teacher and they will pinpoint
the problems without much difficulty.
Present Perfect
have/has + verb 3 / have/has + been + verbing
Well, that is hardly the case. The present is
not perfect. In fact it is it is pretty bleak.
The present has been influenced by actions
in the past. We are where we are,
because of things that have happened.
And this is the essence of the present
perfect tense; past actions having an
influence on the present.
Lets look at some examples
We teach classes with up to 40 kids in a class now..
Why?
because those that make policy have ignored our
basic intuition plus research which says smaller
classes contribute to better education.

We have fewer hours of English at our school now
Why?
because teaching hours have constantly been cut
over the last few years.
Re-formatting and the flashing red light method
What is interesting about this tense, is that it does not exist
in Hebrew and consequently it is very difficult for Hebrew
speakers to know when to use it. The Hebrew brain has
not been "formatted", so to speak, to read this data and
so ignores it.
Most of you will probably say: " I am learning guitar for 5
years" without ever realizing that your grammar is
incorrect (and perhaps your guitar playing is pretty
awful too .)
You can learn to recognize the environment in which the
present perfect tense works by noticing when certain
words/expressions are used. They often (but not always)
indicate the need to use this tense. Here are some of
them:
Already, yet, lately, so far, before (now) etc. and also the words since
and for (when for refers to the period of time till now)
Letss try something:
You stand up and shout Beep! Beep! Beep!
(plus hand movements) and imagine a red
light flashing in your brain when you hear
any of the words (already, yet, lately, so far, before , for, since etc)
in the sentences I'm going to read.

Present Perfect beeping flashing
red light exercise
Exercise 1
Almost none of teachers from the Histadrut Teachers Union have
signed their Ofek Hadash work agreement yet.

The word Yet should set off a red light a warning; something needs
to be noticed. By the way, why haven't they shouted with joy at their
new work conditions?

Exercise 2
Teachers have been on strike now for 17 days and nobody seems to
care.
The words For 17 days should set off a red light a warning;
something needs to be noticed. By the way, why has the
government ignored this desparate call for a change?
Future Perfect
will + have + verb 3

Finally, I'll teach the tense we don't usually
have time to teach. It hardly ever appears
in the Bagrut, so why bother! It is called
the Future Perfect.
This refers to something that will have been
achieved by a certain time in the future. It
is a type of promise or a prediction with a
time limit into the future.
For example

By the end of the strike, we will have
achieved our goals. (At least some of them.)
By the end of the strike we will have raised
the awareness of the society that this is
not our struggle (- our, being the teachers)
but our struggle (our, being the whole
society.)
Actually, it is time to turn things around.

Instead of focusing on achieving an understanding of the
future perfect tense (relatively unimportant in the larger scale of things),
we should focus on how to achieve a
perfect future,
and that requires a change of perspective-
a change in the way we see things,
a change in priorities.

To reach the perfect, we need a simple, progressive
approach where teachers are .
paid well
given decent teaching
conditions to achieve results
respected for their skills, talents,
experience and knowledge.


the entire Israeli society should be
going around with red flashing
lights in their brains
and they should be constantly
hearing the sounds
"Beep! Beep! Beep!

Created by Jack Pillemer Boyar High School
for the Boyar protest lesson
in front of the Ministry of Education
October 29
th
, 2007
http://schooly.co.ilboyer_english
http://schooly.co.il/boyer
.net 013 jackpil@