Download Past and present Perfect in English

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Context-Focused Teaching:
How Can We Teach Present Perfect tense Effectively for Korean English
Learners?
Seungheui (Ellie) Lee
Korean students start learning English in third grade. They continue through senior
high school and most cases, even after they get a job. We say learning English is a life long
journey. By the time they graduate from the University, they will have studied English for
over ten years. However, their proficiency in English is far less effective than the amount of
time they spent in learning English. Kang (2003) states that “in spite of the enormous amount
of English grammar input during English classes, when Korean English learners learn
English, they face huge difficulties with English tenses, especially the present perfect
tense”(23).
According to the National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second
Language Learning, “One of the most interesting innovations to emerge in second language
education during the last three decades is the language immersion program”( National Center
for Research ). Recently the Korean Education department (KED) has announced imposing
“immersing English Education” in elementary schools, where teachers have to teach English
in English and focus on a well-rounded English education covering all four domain area:
Reading, writing, speaking, and listening (KED). Not just drilling grammar lessons. However
with my experience, there are not sufficient resources for teachers to do the “Immerging
English Education.” Teachers, therefore by in large, still follow a traditional approach –
grammar lessons.
I taught Korean EFL learners for about five years and noticed that even at an
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advanced level of study, who are almost fluent in speaking, writing, reading, and listening in
English, a great number of Korean-English learners still experience difficulties using and
distinguishing between the English past tense and the present perfect tense. One of the main
causes for this problem is complexity and L1 interference. While I was teaching, I asked my
students why I was so hard for them to understand the English present perfect tense. One of
my student’s answers was very shocking. He believed that we don’t have the present perfect
tense in Korean. Others believed that the differences between the English Present Perfect and
the Past are very similar to the difference of Korean Present Perfect and Past. However, they
are similar and different in many ways.
Despite many applied linguistics books arguing that this difficulty emerges mainly
because of negative L1 interference, in this paper, I will argue that teaching English grammar
in isolation renders Korean English learners unable to use the tense correctly in context. I will
also briefly examine this particular aspect of English and then contrast it to its Korean
counterpart through my questionnaire sentences, showing in particular how the some
functions can be expressed in Korean. In the final section, I will provide a possible solution (a
lesson plan) to help Korean English learners to use the English Present Perfect tense in
context efficiently and effectively.
Past and present Perfect in English
It is obvious for native speakers of English to distinguish between the Past tense and
the Present Perfect in English. However, non-native speakers, like Koreans, are having a hard
time distinguishing these two tenses English. So I will define them and examine how they are
different in English. When we use the Present Perfect, we don’t know the definite time when
the incident happened, whereas the past tense gives definite time when something happened
in the past. Usually when we talk about general things, we use the Present Perfect but specific
things for the past tense. The Present perfect includes the present time, but the Past excludes
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the present time. Finally we use adverbs like ‘yet’, ‘since’, ‘for’, ‘so far’, ‘up to now’ for the
Present Perfect and we use adverbs like ‘last week’, ‘a month ago’, ‘earlier this week’, ‘last
Monday’, ‘the other day’, ‘at four o’clock’ with the past tense.
Ⅰ. Past Tense
There have been extensive studies concerning the prototypical use of the English Past
tense.
Leech (1971) observes that “the past tense is usually used in reference to some
definite time in the past that took place before the present moment and excludes the
present.”(p.276). Huddleston (1984) observes that “the past tense does not include the present,
thus it can be referred to as the ‘exclusive past’. The past tense is also often used with time
adverbials indicating a definite past time. e.g., ‘yesterday’, ‘last week’, ‘two years ago’,
etc.(p.158) and also the past tense signals remoteness from the speaker’s current position. For
example;
1a. I finished homework.
1b. I have just finished homework.
In sentence 1b, the speaker’s interest is in the point of finishing homework related to the
present moment; however, in sentence 1a, it signals remoteness from the speaker’s current
situation.
Ⅱ. Present Perfect
Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Syartvik (1972) say “the present perfect indicates a
period of time stretching backwards into some earlier time. It is past with current
relevance.”(p.91). Comrie (1976) clarifies this further by identifying four main types of
‘perfect’. The four types are: continuance, experience, habit, and result. (Adopted from
Comrie, 1976)
A. “The Present Perfect can be used with a state which began in the past and continues up
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to the present time and can continue into the future. An adverb of duration is usually
required for this use.
1. The building has been empty for ages.
2. He has had that car all his life.
B. The Present Perfect can be used with a habit in a period of time from the past to the
present. In this use the exact time is considered unnecessary or irrelevant to the speaker.
3. I have lived in Pusan for four years.
4. I have studied in Hanyang Univ. since January.
C. The Present Perfect can also be used for the indefinite past experience at some time
between the present and past. In this use the exact time is considered unnecessary or
irrelevant to the speaker.
5. I have been to Thailand three times this year.
6. I have never tried Greek food.
D. The Present Perfect is used for a past event with a present relevance. To this
Huddleston(1984) also adds that the use of the Present Perfect is required with certain
time adverbials such as ‘since last week’, ‘for a month’, and ‘yet’, etc.
7. The teacher has just arrived.
8. The bus has left. (adopted from Comrie, 1976)
The above four types of ‘present perfect’ have one thing in common: its present
relevance, which is different from the past. The first example sentence, “the building has been
empty for ages” means that the building is still empty. And “he has had that car all his life”
means he still has that car. And the second sentence “I’ve lived in Pusan for four years”
means that four years ago I went to Pusan and I still live in Pusan. “I have studied in Hanyang
Univ. since January” means I started studying in Hanyang Univ. in January and I still study in
Hanyang Univ. The third example sentence “I have been to Thailand three times this year”
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has its present relevance by showing until current experience. “I’ve never tried Greek food”
means I have had no experience of having Greek food until now. The sentence “The teacher
has just arrived” shows that students were waiting for the teacher and the teacher has just
arrived now. “The bus has left” indicates that I came to the bus stop and the bus had just left
before I arrived. So the eight example sentences above have one thing in common: that is
their present relevance.
Contrasts with the Korean Present Perfect
Korean has two aspects: the progressive and the perfective like English. “The
perfective basically denotes a resulting state, while the progressive aspect denotes an ongoing
action. The progressive aspect is productive; however, the perfective aspect is limited in its
number of functional intransitive verbs”(Chang, 2000).
According to Kang (2003) “English present perfect form denotes a situation leading up
to the present as a consequence of a past event or state. The Korean perfective implies a
continuation of a state resulting from the completion of a past action in similar way to
English. However, the perfect in English and Korean are not analogous because the perfect in
English contains a wider range of functions than any Korean aspectual equivalent”(p.33).
The present perfect is not used productively in Korean at all. Chang(2000) states that
“historically most of the verbs in construction with ‘-e issta’(에 있있다, present perfect
suffix) were substituted by the past tense ‘-ess’ (었, past suffix). Only some intransitive verbs
retain both forms: the past tense’-ess’ and the perfective ‘e-issta’. Hence very few verbs retain
the Korean present perfect form these days; instead, the past tense form ‘-ess’ is widely
substituted for the present perfect tense in most cases. The Korean present perfective aspect is
mostly applicable to a limited number of stative and intransitive verbs, e,g. 앉다anta (to sit),
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서다seta (to stand), 눕다nupta (to lie down), 알려지다alieojita (to be known), 주어지다
jueojita (to be given), 발표되다palpyotoita (to be announced)” (p.122).
Now, I am going to compare the English Present Perfect four types to their Korean
present perfect counterparts.
Table 1. Comparsion between Comrie’s four kinds of Present Perfect with Korean.
(Adapted from Kang, 2003)
Comrie’s English Present Perfect case
Korean Present Perfect availability
a. Continuance
Yes
b. Describing Habits
Yes
c. Past Experience
No
d. Result
Yes and No
A. The continuance.
1a. Ellie has studied English for ten years.
1b. 엘리는 십년동안 영어공부를 해왔다.
Ellienen sipnyeon dongan youngyuh gongbureul hae watta.
As in 1a/1b, the Korean present perfect form is available in a form parallel to type A (the
continuance) case. In Korean, stative verbs usually belong to this type A category, and there is
generally no problem in the usages of this category of present perfect forms. However, not all
of the stative verbs are possible for the present perfect. In the following sentence the main
verb is a stative verb, but the present perfect is not possible.
1c. The famous poet Kim has been dead for five years.
1d. ? 유명시인 김씨가 오년동안 죽어왔다.
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 ? Yumyungsiyin Kimssiga onyeondongan juekeo watta.
In this case even though the main verb is stative, we can’t make perfective sentences in
Korean because of the adjective “dead”. We don’t have this kind of sentence structure, so we
don’t produce Present Perfect with adjectives.
B. The habit.
2a. I have lived in the U.K for four years.
2b. 나는 4년간 영국에서 살아왔다
 naneun sanyeongan youngkukeseo sala watta.
2c. He has been a teacher for 20 years.
2d. 그는 20년간 선생님으로 일해왔다.
 Geuneun eesipnyeongan sunsangnimeuro eelhae watta.
2e. Mike has lived in Thailand for 2 years.
2f. 마이크는 2년간 태국에서 살아왔다/살았다.
Mikeneun 2nyungan taekukesu salahwasstta/salassda.
As in 2a/2b/2c/2d/2e/2f, the present perfect can be used in conjunction with a habit that
happened in the past and continues to the present. In this case both the Past and the Present
Perfect can be acceptable in Korean.
C. The experience
3a. Have you ever been to Insadong?
3b. ?너 인사동에 가본적 있니?
 ? nyu insadong e gabonjeok issni?
3c. I’ve met Michael Jackson.
3d. ? 나는 마이클 잭슨을 만난적 있다.
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 ? naneun Michael Jacksoneul mannanjeok issta.
Kang (2003) mentions that, “The English Present Perfect can also be used to represent a
past experience of indefinite time, signaling sometime between the present and the past in
English. However, there is no Korean perfect equivalent in this case. The past tense suffix ‘ess (있었)’ or special ending ‘eun jeok (-ㄴ적)’ are used in this case”(p. 34). As you can see
the examples above instead of the perfective ‘e-issta (에있다)’ the past tense suffix ‘-ess (있
었)’ with
special ending ‘jeok’ is used.
D. The result
4a. Mia has broken the window.
4b. 미아가 창문을 깼다./깼었다.
 Miaga changmooneul kkasstta./kkassesstta.
4c. The computer has been fixed. (Adopted from Kang,2003)
4d. 컴퓨터가 고쳐져 있다. / 컴퓨터가 고쳐졌다.
computerga gochyeojeo isstta./computerga gochyeojeosstta.
4e. I have finished lunch.
4f. ? 내가 점심을 끝마치어있다. / 끝마쳤다.
Naega jumsimeul kkeunmachiuisstta. / kkeunmachusstta.
According to Kang (2003), “in Korean, sometimes this case of Present Perfect is
available and sometimes it is not is depending on the verb. For example, in 4a and 4c, the
present perfect is available (they are intransitive verbs); however, in 4e the Present Perfect is
not available. Even the Present Perfect that is available in 4a and 4c are still more practical
and acceptable in the Past tense than in Korean equivalents” (p.35).
I think most Koreans are confused when to use the Past tense or the Present Perfect.
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They should make their own judgment about the timeline. If the event happened in the
indefinite past and continues up to the present then it’s better to use the Present Perfect in
English, unlike in Korean.
Comparison between Korean Present Perfect and Past
As we can see that there are a variety of contrasts between Korean and English.
Although there is a present perfect system in Korean it is not exactly equivalent to all the uses
of the Present Perfect in English.
There has been a question whether Korean is composed of various aspects or it is a
system of only tenses. According to Suh(1990), the Korean past tense means that the action
has been completed as in the case of the present perfect, but both the past and the present
perfect share the same suffix ‘-ess’ (었). As I mentioned above, historically most of the verbs
in construction with ‘-e issta (있었다, present perfect suffix) were turned into the past tense
‘ess’ (었). It is very natural for both the Korean Past tense and the perfective aspect to have
the meaning of a completed aspect. Suh (1990) also asserted that in other languages like
German, the same thing could be found. The biggest difference between the Korean past and
present perfect is that the Korean past tense cannot be used if the event might continue in the
future. In other words, the action is complete in sometime and sometimes incomplete in the
present perfect case. If the event is completed and it has present relevance, the past tense is
more widely used in Korean, unlike English. The present perfect is applied to a very limited
verbs such as (1) some intransitive verbs: ‘가다gada (go), 오다oda (come), 도착하다
dochakhada (arrive), 서다seoda (stand), 앉다antta (sit), 눕다nuptta (lie down), 익다iktta
(ripe) etc. (2) some stative verbs: ‘비다bida (be empty), 있다isstta (be) etc. (3) passive
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verbs: ‘버려지다burryujida (thrown away), 발표되다balpyodaeda (presented), 주어지다
juyujida (given) etc. In the case of habits, Korean uses present perfect and past while in the
case of experience, Korean doesn’t use the present perfect or past either.
Now, I am going to show that it is not mainly L1 interference that prevents Korean
ESL learners from distinguishing between the use of the English Present Perfect and the Past
tenses, rather it is because we teach the Present Perfect and the Past tenses in isolation, not
within a discourse.
Methodology
Participation:
The participations were composed of three groups. The first group was consisted of seven
male and three female Korean ESL students aged between 22 and 27 studying in Intensive
English Program at Auburn University. The second group was composed of five male and
five female Korean ESL high school students aged between 16 and 18 studying at Auburn
High school. The last group had five Native English speakers aged between 22 and 27
majoring in Language Arts Education in a Master’s program at Auburn University. The first
group participants have studied English for more than ten years, and most of them studied
English with grammar lessons through drilling. The second group participants also have
studied English more than ten years. They all have lived in the United States more than two
years and have studied English intensively when they were in Korea. Their English classes
were more focused on well-rounded education rather than focusing on grammar itself.
Procedure & Instruments:
Two types of grammar exercise questions were chosen for students to distinguish between the
Past and the Present Perfect tenses in English. One part of the exercise consisted of a single
or a few simple sentences with choices of the Past and the Present Perfect verb tense in the
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blanks. The other part consisted of two paragraphs containing eight empty boxes, which were
to be filled with either the Past or the Present Perfect tense (See appendix A.) The first group
did the exercise questions on the same day in the library. It took about ten to fifteen minutes
for them to finish. The next day, I gathered them again in the library and had a five-minute
individual conference with them to find out why they used the Past tense instead of the
Present Perfect tense and vice versa. On that day, I also asked five native speakers of English
from my class to do the same exercise as my first group did. Finally, I emailed the
questionnaire to the participants in group two to complete the questionnaire since I was not
able to congregate them at the same time. After collecting their questionnaire, I asked them
follow-up questions based on their responses through email. I acknowledge that the data
presented are selective and partial. In an attempt to present the inquiry, I have chosen to
include the students’ quotations, and my thoughts that represent students’ behavior.
Data Analysis:
The exercise sheet for the past and Present Perfect tense in English was to reveal Korean ESL
learners’ understanding of using the English Present Perfect and Past tense correctly. The
result of this exercise sheet and follow-up individual conferences was aimed at determining
how well Korean ESL students cold differentiate usages between the Past and Present Perfect
tense.
Results
Overall, six participants from the first group had the similar right and wrong answers. The
other four participants in the first group’s answers varied. Eight participants from the second
group had the almost all questions right. The other two participants from the second group’s
answers varied. On the other hand, my baseline native speakers of English got the same
answers except for a few questions.
The problem sheet I provided to the participants had all four types of Comrie’s
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English Present Perfect case. I will analyze the first part of the problem sheet which consisted
of eight questions with one or two blanks with choices of either the Past or the Present
Perfect tense. 80% of the participants from the first group answered correctly the question 5
ⓛ which was a single choice answer sentence. On the other hand, all participants from the
second group answered it correctly. However, only 30 % and 50% from both groups
answered question 1ⓐ correctly, which consisted of two blanks choices. Those two
questions seem alike, but the right answer for 5ⓛ is the Present Perfect and the right answer
for 1ⓐ is the Past tense. (These examples come from the questions on my question sheet.)
1. Jane ⓐ(lived/has lived) in Tokyo for five years, but she ⓑ(left/has left) in 2003.
5. Hana ⓛ(studied/has studied) in America for 8 months.
Two of the native speakers of English argued that both choices can be right for the question
five during the individual conference since the item doesn’t clearly state whether Hana still
studies in America or not. They said they need more information to figure out the right choice
for question five. On the other hand, 80% of my participants from group one and two
answered question one and five with the present perfect tense. It was not surprising for me to
understand why the majority of them answered that way. Many Korean English teachers
know that Korean students have problems distinguishing between the past and the present
perfect tense in English, so they try to make it simple for students to understand the English
present perfect well by telling them if they see adverbs such as ‘yet’, ‘since’, ‘for’, ‘so far’,
‘up to now’ the tense of the sentence must be the present perfect, which is not always true.
We can’t blame the teachers for doing this since they have to teach students sufficient amount
of grammar awareness to pass Korean SAT.
I verified my assumptions by having the five-minute individual conferences with the
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Korean ESL students from the both groups. I asked them why they chose “has live” instead of
“lived” in question one. Most of the participants in both groups said, “I saw the word ‘for’
and immediately I chose the present perfect tense without any doubt.” The rule has already
been imbedded in them. However, one of the students from group two mentioned during the
conference that she thought she learned that she could use the present perfect tense with the
past tense. That is why, she didn’t choose the present perfect tense for question one even
though she thought of choosing it at first because of the word ‘for’. She also mentioned that
the right answer would be ‘had live’ if she wanted to use the perfective form.
Figure 1 show how the same English Present Perfect tense usage can be answered
differently. Questions seven and eight had the same English Present Perfect case ‘result’.
Only one ESL student out of ten from group one answered questions seven correctly while
eight ESL students from group two got it right. Nine out of ten students from group one got
the right answer for question eight, whereas all ten students from group two got it right. It
was interesting to see the result since these two sentences have the exact same structure. I
asked one of my Korean ESL learner from the first group why she chose “have cut” instead
of “cut” in question seven. She said, “It was very confusing for me to choose between “have
cut” and “cut” but when I saw the word “ouch” the action must be the result of the present, so
I chose “have cut.”
Figure 1
100%
80%
60%
Group 1
40%
Group 2
20%
0%
Q7
Q8
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I also asked nine other students from group one and two students from group two who
answered it incorrectly. The majority of them said, “You CUT your finger. Once your finger
is cut, the action is in the past. You can’t use the Present Perfect tense here.” Their answer
was based on a direct translation from Korean to English. In this case, there is a negative L1
interference causing students to choose the wrong answer.
Then, what about question eight? Again, instead of knowing what is really happening
in the sentence, most of the students found the adverb “since” in the sentence and they chose
the Present Perfect without thinking further.
7. Ouch! I ⓞ(cut/have cut) my finger!
8. I ⓟ(lost/have lost) eight pounds since last months. I ⓠ(exercised/have exercised) last
night for 3 hours.
What was interesting was that four out of nine students who got the answer right hesitated to
choose the present perfect tense since there was the adjective ‘last’. Many of them asked me,
“Isn’t the word LAST used with only the past tense?” Some of other students asked, “Is it ok
to use both ‘last’ and ‘since’ together in the sentence? Then how do we know if it is in past
tense or the present perfect tense?” Again, it is understandable that most Korean ESL learners
assume that certain adverbs always tell whether it is the present perfect or the past tense. But,
they should also be aware the rules don’t always apply in all situations.
All my participants in group two got question eight right, but nobody was able to
explain why they thought it was the present perfect tense instead of the past. What was
interesting was that those students in group two was more exposed to English language than
the first group, so their ability to apply and manipulate the grammar rules seemed more
advanced than the first group.
The second part of the problem sheet consisted of two short paragraphs with eight
empty boxes with eight base verbs in the blanks. The participations were supposed to fill in
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the boxes with the right tense using the verbs given. The big difference between this exercise
and the first one is that this one included paragraphs. Most of the Korean ESL learners from
group one could fill in the boxes correctly, but eight out of ten used “have” instead of “has”
to form the Present Perfect tensee as shown in below:
ⓢ However, recently, malaria (become)
ⓤ, and the number (rise)
more common in Canada.
every year since 1994. This is an alarming trend.
During the five-minute conference, I had to make sure whether they knew how to form the
Present Perfect tense. I asked them why they used “have” instead of “has.” Everyone
admitted that it was their mistake. One student said, “I know the rules. I had to memorize the
verb change from the past to the present and from the present to the past participle. Teachers
gave us the list of irregular verbs to make us memorize. But, sometimes I get confused when
they subject is not in a pronoun form. Especially, I am confused when I can’t really figure it
out if it is in plural form or in singular form.”
All my group two participants got the present perfect from right in sentence ⓢ, but seven out
of ten students put “became” rather than “become.”
They knew that they use the present
perfect tense in this case, but they didn’t know how to convert the verb to the right past
participle form. One of student actually counter argued with me saying that “became” is the
right one. Another interesting aspect in this part of problem sheet was that 70% from the first
group and the 80% from my second group did not know how to form the past participle of the
verbs. Figure 2 shows some of the past participles the participants used for verb ‘rise’.
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Figure 2
Different forms of the past participle for the verb “rise” by Korean ESL Learners
rosed
group 2
rose
group 1
rised
rosen
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Number of students
It was really interesting to see that most of the Korean ESL learners knew that the English
Present Perfect tense needs a past participle and tried to change the verb form of “rise” with
their awareness of the English Present Perfect form.
Most of my participants were not sure which tense to use when they were given in a
context which requires more than one tense to use. Nine out of ten students from my group
one and four out of ten students from my group two were not able to get the sentence ⓦ right.
Without any doubt, all of my participants from both groups got ⓥ right since the adverb
“last” indicted clearly that it happened in the past. However, 90% and 40% from each group
answered “have discovered” rather than “discovered.” Most of the ESL students who got it
wrong thought they have to use the Present Perfect tense since the following blank which
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indicates “the experience” matches with the previous tense. What is more intriguing with this
finding is that half of the participants, who got it wrong in ⓦ, used the past tense in ⓧ as
well.
However, when a Toronto woman ⓥ(become)
ⓦ(discover)
that she ⓧ(never travel)
sick last year, her doctor
abroad in her
life.
Discussion & Conclusion
When Korean English learners learn English, they often try to directly translate Korean
sentences into English and vice-versa. That’s why they tend to make past tense sentences
rather than a correct present perfect sentence in translation since most of the English present
perfect sentences are expressed by past tense in Korean, unless there is clear clue like time
adverbs. The big difference between Korean past and present perfect is that the Korean past
tense cannot be used if the event still continues in the present or in the future. In other words,
the action must have been completed and may not continue. It is necessary to teach students
the differences between the English past and the present perfect because it is very different
from the Korean past and present perfect. Korean students of English are not able to
immediately identify problems with the past and the present perfect aspect. Since they can’t
tell the differences between the English and Korean in tense and aspect patterns, it causes
learners to avoid using them.
But can we solely blame this on the lack of equivalent form in the first language and
the target language? Apparently, they data suggest that teaching in grammar isolation both
benefits and limits Korean ESL Learners. Since they learn English through grammar drilling
using grammar books, so they tend to do well on tests, but not able to apply them in a real
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situation contexts. However, the students from the second group who have been exposed to
English through English were able to use and distinguish between the past and the present
perfect than the first group whose main objective of English class was based on the grammar
lessons. My data clearly shows the negative aspects of teaching grammar in isolation without
teaching them how to apply and use them.
Students were able to answer questions
according to the grammar rules they had learned in school, but they focus less about the flow
of the sentences, so they could not answer the questions which had both the Past and Present
Perfect tense in the same sentence. While having an individual conference with native
speakers of English, they said that some of the answers could be both the Past and Present
Perfect depending on the situation. Also, some of the questions need more information to
make sure the meaning of the sentence is coherent with other sentences. For then these
questions were not a difficult grammar test, unlike how most Korean ESL learners felt.
So the question is “Why do we teach English grammar? Is it to help ESL learners to be
a better communicator to express and convey their ideas or to do well on tests?” Most ESL
learners and English teachers would probably say they learn and teach English grammar for
both reasons. However, teaching in grammar isolation is still a big problem in many of the
nations who teach English as a second language or a foreign language. The problem with
teaching in grammar in isolation is that students can not apply the rules they have learned in
class outside their grammar exercise books. What is more serious is that most Korean ESL
learners do well on the TOEFL or any other form of grammar test, but they have difficulty
using target-like forms in their everyday speech or usages. That is, they are used to study in
traditional ways; they are accustomed to apply rules in isolation, but not in context.
I believe if English teachers were aware of how to teach those tenses in context using a
variety of speaking and writing exercises rather than from grammar exercise books in
isolation treating grammar lessons are separated from any other domains in English language.
Context-Focused Grammar Teaching
19
In this way, Korean ESL learners would be able to use those tense more effectively and
practically. Now, I am going to provide a mini lesson plan to teach Korean ESL learners on
the usage of the Present Perfect tense in English.
This lesson is for ESL students who have difficulties understanding English Present
Perfect tense. This lesson has three stages: a warm-up activity, study, a follow-up activity.
This is for a sixty minute class. In the first ten minutes (as a warm-up activity), students in
groups of four have to answer questions given by the teacher. All questions use the Present
Perfect tense (See Appendix 2.) Students will have a chance to talk about these questions
using the present perfect tense. After ten minutes, students will study different types of
English Present Perfect tense for about thirty minutes with a grammar book and a short
passage from a book/ an article. I think teaching grammar rule is very important for Second
Language Learners (SLLs). If you don’t know the rules, it is hard for non-native speakers of
that language to produce all aspects of English: speaking, writing, listening, and reading.
Teachers shouldn’t teach grammar as the only way to learn language or all grammar rules
apply in all cases. Students need to know the flexibility of the rules and be able to manipulate
them.
I will use “Grammar in Use” to explain different types of usages in the Present Perfect.
I will also be sure to tell them rules do not always apply in every situation and there are
always exceptions. I will make sure they look at the context and the flow of the sentences
rather than picking out certain time adverbs to figure out whether the sentence needs the
present perfect tense. They will have a few minutes to answer questions on their workbook.
Then, I will pair them up to check their answers, and, if their answers do not match, they
should talk about them within the context to find the right answer. After that, the whole class
will discuss the questions on the book.
For this specific class period, I will focus on the Present Perfect tense “experience”
Context-Focused Grammar Teaching
20
case. So, for the last twenty minutes, students will have a chance to use and produce language
with the grammar rules they learned in class in speaking and writing. I will choose ten
different countries and write each one on a piece of paper. I will make students draw a lot to
choose one (See Appendix 3). According to students’ choice, I will give them a description of
each country. I will contain information of the nation such as the capital city, the traditional
food, famous places to visit, best places for shopping, and etc. Once each student reads their
country’s description, I will give them up again to ask each other questions using the present
perfect tense. For example, “Have you been to the Great Wall?” or “What have you eaten in
France?” For the follow-up assignment, students have to do more research on their country
and write a paragraph explaining what they have seen, what they have eaten, where they have
been and etc. They will present it the next day.
Context-Focused Grammar Teaching
Work cited
Chang, S (2000). Korean. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co.
Comrie, B (1976) Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Huddleson. R. (1984) Introduction to the grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge
University press.
Kang, Insun (2003) Past and present perfect in English. Korean Foreighn Language Univ.
Press
Kim, Y (1994). The study of Korean tense. Seoul Sekang Hakswul Jalyosa
Leech. G (1971). Meaning and the English Verb. London, Longman
National Center For Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning (1995)
Integrating Language and Content: Lessons from Immersion CAL DIGEST, Web.
<http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/ncrcds05.html>
Suh, C (1990) The study of Korean grammar. Seoul Korea Publishing Co.
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Syartvik, J. (1972) A grammar of contemporary
English. Essex: Longman
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