April 5th, 2018

Mentoring Journal

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Entry #8: Impromptu Grammar Talk Present Perfect

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Gabriel: 

Hey, small question: is the first meaning for present perfect only about professions? (A situation that began at a prior point in time and continues into the present)

 

Helene:

I responded through voice mail giving some examples. We then decided to video chat.

 

First I asked how his lesson had gone. He said it went really well and he felt he had improved significantly comparing to the first evaluated lesson. Though the person filming had dropped the camera so the video wasn’t very good, but overall it had gone really well.

We then talked about the difference between present perfect simple and continuous. I asked him to tell me about what he understood and what he would like to clarify. He told me the rule he would give “I + have + been + noun phrase”. I showed him on a piece of paper a more generalized rule “subject + have/has + p.p.”

He wanted to know a clear cut difference between the simple and continuous cases. And he also wanted examples of present perfect simple that weren’t about professions. It seemed to him they were all about professions.

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I suggested we think about some general/common differences between simple and continuous forms common among the tenses. I started reviewing simple present, past, future etc. to the continuous tenses. I was trying to lead him towards noticing the difference between them that I perceived: simple is focused on stating facts and situations, continuous is focused more on actionable verbs and ongoing situations. Eventually he stopped me and came back to his burning question: examples unrelated to professions and clear cut differences between simple and continuous present perfect. So then I just told him about my perception of situation/fact = simple, actionable = continuous. He found that interesting and said he had not thought about it that way.

We then tried to think of examples that were not profession related for the present perfect simple. I came up with “I have lived in Canada for 8 years”,  “I have travelled to 5 countries”. That was good, he liked that. Now he wanted examples with irregular verbs. I thought maybe “I have eaten already”. He was happy and satisfied with that. He had been frustrated that he could only think of profession examples.

I suggested he teach his students key words used in present perfect. I asked him what he thought they were. He wasn’t sure. I said we had just seen one. He still wasn’t sure so I mentioned already. He said oh right, and also just. I said yes, that also. And more common ones, I said, would be for and since. I mentioned he should be sure to teach them the difference in use between the two. He was unsure of what that was, so I mentioned for = amount of time, since = specified time point/date.

 

We confirmed were would talk the next day to discuss his lesson. The chat ended there.