Resource centre - English grammar - Past perfect
Form
Meaning
Pronunciation
Teaching ideas
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Past Perfect Continuous
Past Simple
Tense and aspect
Articles
Be used to
Causative Have
Comparatives
Few and Little
First Conditional
Future Continuous
Future Perfect
Get Used To
Have and Have Got
Indirect Questions
Lend and Borrow
Passive
Past Continuous
Past Perfect Continuous
Past Perfect Simple
Past Simple
Present Continuous
Present Perfect Continuous
Present Perfect Simple
Present Simple
Questions
Reflexive Pronouns
Reported Questions
Reported Speech
Reporting Verbs
Say and Tell
Second Conditional
Small and Little
So and Such
Tag Questions
Third Conditional
Too and Enough
Used to
Will and Going to
Wish
Zero Conditional
Affirmative: had + verb 3 (past participle)
Negative: hadn't + verb 3 (past participle)
(See the phonemic chart for IPA symbols used below)
How do you teach past perfect? Add your idea »
I usually draw a timeline (a
long one) on the board or on a big piece of paper. Then I invite students to
write about the events that day, i.e.:
Student A:
7am: I had breakfast
8am: I went to school
12pm: I went back home
13pm: I finished my homework
15pm: I arrived for my English class
Student B:
8am: I had breakfast
9am: I went to work
15pm: I left work
15:15pm: I arrived (late) for my class
Then I model the first sentence:
When student B had breakfast, student A had already had breakfast (or had
already gone to school).
Then students have to come up with other sentences using the information on the
board. They can do it in pairs, comparing their days (or even their lives! i.e.:
When I got married, you had already had 2 children! or in a big group.
Well for me the best way to
teach the past perfect is to focus on two past actions and formulate them in a
sentence using the suitable adverbial of time. Then, you can ask your students
how many actions the sentence has? Ask them which action happened first and
which happened second. Then ask them to figure out a rule.
I divide the class in two
groups and give each group some sentences. The sentences for group 1 are the
past simple and for group 2 are past perfect. For example: group 1 have "I was
nervous before the flight..." or "she was hungry..." or "he was tired all day"
and so on and group 2 have sentences like "I hadn't flown before" or "she hadn't
eaten for hours" or "he hadn't slept well last night". Finally, I ask one from
group 1 to read their sentence and a person in group 2 must say a related
sentence and the game goes on.
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