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Past Perfect

The document discusses teaching the past perfect tense to learners of English. It summarizes that while the common rule of using the past perfect for events that happened before another past event is a useful starting point, it is an oversimplification. The past perfect is not always required in such contexts, and other contextual factors influence whether the past perfect or simple past is used. The document recommends that teachers expose learners to examples of the past perfect in real texts, provide controlled practice distinguishing it from the simple past, and have learners analyze verb choices in passages to understand how context affects tense selection.

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Emma Peel
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78 views4 pages

Past Perfect

The document discusses teaching the past perfect tense to learners of English. It summarizes that while the common rule of using the past perfect for events that happened before another past event is a useful starting point, it is an oversimplification. The past perfect is not always required in such contexts, and other contextual factors influence whether the past perfect or simple past is used. The document recommends that teachers expose learners to examples of the past perfect in real texts, provide controlled practice distinguishing it from the simple past, and have learners analyze verb choices in passages to understand how context affects tense selection.

Uploaded by

Emma Peel
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Teaching the PAST PERFECT

Dave Willis

In an article on grammar and discourse, Hughes and McCarthy (1998) look at a generally
accepted generalization ‘that the past perfect tense is used for an event that happened in past
time before another past time...’ Probably all of us have said something like this to learners. It
is a useful starting point, but it is most certainly an oversimplification. Hughes and McCarthy
point out that the rule will enable learners to produce the well formed sentences I spoke to
Lisa Knox yesterday for the first time. I had met her 10 years ago but had not spoken to her.
But they then go on to point out that this rule does not show ‘that the two sentences would be
equally well formed if the second were in the past simple.’ It does not, in other words, show
learners that they often have to choose between the two forms according to subtle differences
in the intended meaning.

Take a look at this proposal:

Tell a story in chronological order. Then ask your students to retell the story but begin backwards. For
example, chronological order:
Dave got up late.
He didn´t have time for breakfast.
He ran for the bus and he missed it.
He arrived late for work again.
The boss sacked him.
Poor Dave; it just wasn´t his day.
Now the student begins with the end!
“Dave got the sack yesterday.”
“How come?”
“Well, he had got up late. He’d missed the bus and had arrived late for work again...”

But in this sequence the past simple would be perfectly acceptable:


“Dave got the sack yesterday.”
“How come?”
“Well, he got up late. He missed the bus and arrived late for work again...”
In fact, it is very unusual to have a string of consecutive past perfects. I think if you continue
the proposed narrative you will agree that it sounds rather unnatural.

There is a further complication. A careful application of the rule would lead learners to
produce some forms like I opened the door when the postman had knocked, which are
distinctly odd, if not ungrammatical. It is virtually impossible to frame a rule which will
enable learners to make an appropriate choice between the past simple and the past perfect in
all contexts. Hughes and McCarthy go on to draw the conclusion that:

The rule, therefore ... does not offer sufficiently precise guidelines to generate
the choice when appropriate. In situations such as this our proposal is to look
at the choices that real speakers and writers have made in real contexts and
consider the contextual features that apparently motivated one choice or the
other. (Hughes and McCarthy 1998:268)

Contextual features and speaker’s choice tend to be rather more subtle than hard and fast
rules.

It seems then that instead of saying ‘the past perfect tense is used for an event that happened
in past time before another past time...’ we need to say that ‘the past perfect tense may be
used for an event that happened in past time before another past time...’ In other words, if an
event happened in a past time before another past time we have a choice between the past
perfect and the past simple. What makes grammar so difficult is that it’s not just about
following rules, it’s about making choices.

So what does this imply in terms of teaching? I think first learners need to come across the
tense in use. They need to see it used in text, perhaps in a narrative context, and teachers need
to draw their attention to it. The next stage is to offer some kind of controlled practice. For
example:
Complete these sentences with one verb in the past simple and one in the past perfect:

1- I (go) __________ home as soon as I (finish) __________ work.


2- Everybody (go) __________ out for the day so there (be) __________ nobody at home.
3- Bill (live) __________ in Leeds ever since he (be) __________ a boy.
Etc.

(Taken from Collins COBUILD Basic Grammar)

The next and most difficult stage is to follow Hughes and McCarthy and ‘look at the choices
that real speakers and writers have made in real contexts’. This means looking at text. You
could, for example, take two paragraphs from a story learners have already read. This
particular story is about a boy who got locked in a butcher’s cold store overnight:

Staff arriving for work at the Wood Street shop found him yesterday morning
with his teeth chattering and his face purple with cold. Still freezing, Peter
immediately telephoned his parents, who had reported him missing to the
police.

Peter, who lives in Banbury Road, Stratford, said: “I help out at the shop after
school and I had gone into the cold store just before closing time. I was
behind a big food shelf when the door locked behind me.”

Remove all the verbs:

Staff __________ for work at the Wood Street shop __________ him yesterday
morning with his teeth __________ and his face purple with cold. Still __________,
Peter immediately __________ his parents, who __________ him __________ to the
police.

Peter, who __________ in Banbury Road, Stratford, __________. “I __________ out


at the shop after school and I __________ into the cold store just before closing time.
I __________ behind a big food shelf when the door __________ behind me.”
And ask learners to replace them.

There are many other ways of getting learners to work with context in this way. The
important thing about this kind of work is that it highlights the choices that language users
make rather than simply giving rules which don’t always work and which can sometimes get
in the way of language use.

Ref:

Hughes, R. and McCarthy, M. 1998. From Sentence to Discourse:


Discourse Grammar and English Language Teaching. TESOL
Quarterly 32/2.

Willis, D. and Wright, J. 1995 Collins COBUILD Basic Grammar.

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