Practice the Present Perfect
Have you heard? I’ve been invited to play Irish music with my band in Casablanca for St Patrick’s day! I’m very excited as I’ve never been to Morocco before. Well that’s my news – how about you? What’s happened in your life recently?
In today’s downloadable lessons I’ve set out to explain the form and different uses of the present perfect with plenty of examples and speaking practice.
The perfect aspect tends to be left until last after the simple and continuous forms as it’s perhaps not quite so easy to define as it effectively bridges two tenses. Also, it doesn’t necessarily exist in other languages. For example, here in France where I teach, it can cause confusion because in French the form of have + past participle is used for the passé composé which is the equivalent of the past simple in English and the present perfect doesn’t exist as a form. Most confusing!
So in order to clarify and hopefully fill learners with confidence to use this form I’ve prepared some super activities! First of all there’s a reading and speaking exercise introducing the present perfect as a means of sharing some good news – let’s keep things positive! Then to go into more detail there’s a summary of the present perfect form and its most common uses. Once learners have familiarised themselves with these, they can move on to a comparison with the simple and continuous aspects and their respective time expressions. Finally, to put all this together there’s a role play for a job interview where the present simple & continuous, present perfect and past simple can be practiced all together.
For a revision of the present simple and continuous you can refer back to my previous blog ‘Odd Jobs’
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