Having been teaching for many years now and seeing the anxiety of the students and the uncertainty in the use of tenses I decided to give the children a concisetable of all the tenses of the English language as I understand them in my mind. I hand them the photocopy at D class and tell them to keep it forever! (Of course, this is not always possible and next time I always need to re-photocopy some for the forgetful or for those who don’t have them ‘because my mum threw it away!’ 😆 )
So I tell them “I’m giving you a ‘crib sheet’ and I let you use it until you no longer need it!”
I divided the tenses into three broad categories: the times of the Past / Present / Future. Present Perfect tenses (Simple and Continuous) fall between the past and the present, as in many cases the action they describe began at some point in the past and either continues until now or we can see the results now. Future tenses form a pyramid with the top of the pyramid (Simple Future) being a decision of the moment, something more uncertain that it will happen. The more we move towards the base the more certain the action to happen is.
In each tense I have put the most basic elements of their formation, keywords and schematic representations. The fact that it is on one page helps students to gain a broader understanding of tenses and a visual representation.
I have always used this handout with elder students (when I was in private education) and as I said with younger ones (when they are introduced to grammar in a formal way). The students who eventually keep it tell me that it helps them a lot.
I hope you find it useful…
