Basic English (For Letras Students) 19/9

Present Perfect

Pictured here are examples of the first situation in which we use the present perfect: when an action started in the past and continues today. I presented that to form the present perfect you need the verb "to have" in the present tense (helping verb) and a verb in the past participle form. I drew a timeline to illustrate that the action started in the past and continues today. I showed students that when we ask a question in the present perfect, the helping verb goes before the subject. Students told me how long they have been in Araguaina and I showed them that they will often see the words "for" and "since" used in present perfect sentences.

Pictured here is the second situation in which we use the present perfect: when an action happened in the past but we don't know when. 

We did a quick review of when to use have and when to use has.

Last we did an activity in which students had to put the following sentences in the correct order using the present perfect. In order to make the activity more accessible for everyone, I gave them a lot of scaffolding and walked them through it.

The sentence pieces they were given:

1. (you/ eat/ this morning/ your/ breakfast/?)

2. (her operation/ fight/ with her weight/ since/ she)

3. (for 15 years/ in a bank/ Mr. Lee/ work)

4. (listen to/ about my adventures/ they/ stories)

5. (diligently/ begin/ to work/ at UFT/ the students/ this week)

6. (study/ for 6 years/ romance languages/ she)

7. (fly/ I/ to my home/ many times/ from the U.S.)

For each sentence I asked them a series of questions:
1. What is the verb in the sentence? What is the past participle of that verb?

2. What is the subject of the sentence? Do we use has or have with that subject?

3. Is the phrase a statement or a question? Because of that, which goes first, the helping verb (has/have) or the subject?

And then they had enough information to tell me how to write the sentence correctly. By the end they were answering the questions much more quickly and seemed to really get it!