Hi all,

I hope you �re having a wonderful week. I have a problem. I �m teching a group of about 18 students from ages 8 to about 10. I �m teaching the present PERFECT vs. the simple past. Students know how to use each seperately they know the structure and everything, but it seems that I can �t seem to make them understand when they should use one tense or the other.  Do any of you have any ideas on how I can aproach this topic?

 

Thanks,

Alena 

PS. Sorry about the mistake. I meant present perfect not continuous. 

are you talking about the present continuous ou present perfect?

 

with my students i always tell them to think about the "comment" behind the sentence.

if the comment is "i did it", somet time ago" then you use the simple past

if the comment is "i did it and the result is..." then you use the present perfect

 

for example

- I worked as a barmaid.

- i �ve worked as a barmaid... ( SO... I know how demanding a job it is, how the customers can be a pain in the ass when they �re drunk ... / don �t tell me how to do my job please!)  there �s always something hidden behind the present perfect, an implied comment "what I did in the past has consequences on the present"

 

I did my homework VS I �ve done my homework. => linguists say those 2 sentences don �t have the same meaning depending on the context although some native speakers are not aware of the difference...

With 8-10 year olds, I wouldn �t go into the really finicky semantic differences. In my opinion, they �re just too young.

 

Why not focus on clear structures?

I DID + fixed point in the past (I did it yesterday, I was there in 1986 ...) but I HAVE DONE + never, always, since or for (I have never been to Jamaica, I have always liked Madonna ...).