Most students are 'allergic' when they hear the word:
TENSES. It is because the teaching of Tenses is too complicated. Why do
students confuse about using the tenses in their English? It is because they
don't understand what they are talking about.
What is TENSE?
TENSE = TIME
So, it talks about the TIME of the action.
As in Indonesia, the basic rule of making a sentence is:
Subject + Predicate
And tenses rules the Predicate. So we will talk about the
Predicate only, not the Subject nor the Object/Complement.
I'm sure that your teacher will said that there are 16
TENSES in English.
During my English teaching experience (junior and senior
high), I found the 4 basic rules to learn about the TENSES.
Remember: we only talk about the Predicate position, and it
is applicable for Active Form only..
1.
Verb 1/2
V1 = Present Simple
V2 = Past Simple
For example :
V1 : He goes to school every day
V2 : He went to school yesterday
2.
be 1/2 + Ving
be1 + Ving = Present Continuous
be2 + Ving = Past Continuous
For example :
be1 + Ving : I am watching a drama now
be2 + Ving : She was studying in her room at 8 pm yeterday
3.
have 1/2 + V3
have1 + V3 = Present Perfect
have2 + V3 = Past Perfect
For example :
have1 + V3 : You have cleaned that car for 3 hours
have2 + V3 : They had gone before you came
4.
modal 1/2 + Vbase
modal1 + Vbase = Future Simple
modal2 + Vbase = Past Future
for example :
modal1 + Vbase : She will visit us next week
modal 2 + Vbase : We could go to the cinema
It's absolutely right, for students the frightening thing in
English learning is TENSES. Initially, they always think that to master tenses
they have to memorize the formula like they do this as mathematical formula.
They will be afraid in the beginning and bored in the middle of teaching. This
makes an opinion that mastering English is difficult because of the boring
tenses. The students must know that Tenses is not 'To Be Memorized' but 'To Be
Understood'.
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