TENSE CHART AS A TEACHING DEVICE

Nada Nestorović
Grammar School, Bačka Palanka

Introduction

Throughout 39 years of my teaching I noticed very often that my students appeared to have a sort
of scattered knowledge of grammar. In my opinion it is because of the concepts of textbooks. The
subject matter is presented to students in the form of small sections called units and this is how
every coursebook, i.e. syllabus functions. Syllabus can be a great help but it can be a burden , too,
for both students and teachers. This is wholly the teacher’s job how to interpret a syllabus and try to
map out how to cover the content in the time available. So students move from the first unit to the
last one, until exams come. During the period of the schoolyear the next thing I noticed was
students who kept making notes on small pieces of paper. These are popularly called puskice in
Serbian language. Obviously students needed them to summerize the complete material. I had to
stop and reflect on what was happening.

Why the topic of tenses?

Having been an English teacher for so many years I recognized the need of students to
help themselves in the process of learning especially at such level as summerizing is. Their
complaint about the number of tenses they should acquire somehow did reach my mind. So the
number of the tenses and the confusion they made in students minds were the decisive elements
which led me to brood over the problem. Seven tenses are being taught at elementary schools
(Simple Present tense, Present Continuous tense, Present Perfect, Simple Past tense, Past
Continuous tense, Past Perfect and Future tense ). I have chosen to write about tenses because
this part of syllabus appeared to be the most difficult to my students. They kept complaining about
how affirmative forms, interrogatives and negatives, and interrogative-negatives got confused in
their minds.

From elementary to secondary schools and on

If you multiply 7 tenses with persons you get 56 items to be memorized. These 56 again multiplied
with 4 forms makes 224 items which we expect the students to keep in their memory, possibly
permanently. The functions of tenses have not even been mentioned, if you multiply 2 functions, at
least, per tense that is 14 times 224 which is 3136 regarding only the basic things referring to
tenses at elementary school syllabus of English language. The tenses are taught throughout 4
years if they start in grade 5, or even longer if they start earlier. Very rare are the students who can
memorize these scattered (in time) pieces of information and put them in practice at the moment
when their English teacher asks them to, or even worse, when they are tested.
The same happens on the level of secondary schools , and further on to FCE, and AC, etc.
Although the students are older and more mature, their brain working on more complicated issues,
they still need help in summerizing things.
This time I decided to help the students summerize the tenses in the form of table/chart of tenses.

Active approach as a part of learning process

Firstly, I stated the assignment- the task that tense chart functions most effectively if it is done on
one sheet of paper so that the contents of all cells can be seen clearly in one glance.

THE MOST IMPORTANT step of this process is creating the chart on the blackboard together with
students. It is essential to get all students actively involved in making the chart. The students were
asked about their ideas, about numbers and arrangement of columns and rows. Our appreciation
of students’ suggestions encourages them to produce more ideas, more convenient solutions. It is
goood to draw the graph on the blackboard at the moment when mutual agreement about some of

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the issues is reached. So, the students can see the chart growing in front of them. I did it so many
times and was always learning together with my students. These were my best lessons, when
children were given the framework, and the rest is done by the students themselves.

I EMPHASIZE it is crucial to engage all students. Picture 1 presents the table I used to get from
student as a result of our mutual work.

Affirmative form
Interrogative Negative Type of
Tense Helping Time
Main verb ??? form ??? form action
verb adverbial
Present
simple
tense
Past simple
tense
Present
Continuous
tense

Past
continuous
tense
Present
perfect
tense
Past perfect
tense
Future
tense
Present
perfect
continuous
Past perfect
Continuous
Picture 1

Secondly students copy the table into their note-books. At this point I usually announce how
important it is for them to think about the contents of the cells, because the chart is going to be their
reminder in doing grammar exercises. Even now when they are looking at the table, which is still
empty, they visually can make some conclusions on tenses and other points of grammar.
-about helping verbs, at the first glance they see that simple tenses cells are empty, no helping
verbs in affirmative forms.
-they immediatelly learn word order in the sentence (affirmative form column consisting of
Subject+auxuliary+main verb+adverb of time columns),
- the newest idea is that the order of rows in the tense column follow the time line ?!

TENSE CHART
Affirmative form
Interrogative Negative
Tense Helpin Action
Main verb Time adverbial ??? form ??? form
g verb
Future
tense
Present

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 Simple
tense
Present
Continuou
s tense

Present
Perfect
tense
Present
Perfect
Continuou
s tense
Past
Simple
tense
Past
Continuou
s tense
Past
Perfect
tense

Past
perfect
Continuou
s

Picture2

Thirdly students and me fill in the chart. This turns out to be very exciting, too. Everybody wants to
participate, but the teacher is the secretary , it saves time and ensures the corectness .The
teacher inserts basic facts on a certain tense in the chart on the blacboard.

Fourthly having finished writing contents into the table on the blacboard, they are able to see the
final outcome. Then we discuss about the name. It is the teacher who leads the students, I
suggested a name The tense chart so it has been The tense chart for generations of my students
and not only my students.

In the next step students are asked to copy the tense chart into their note-books.
Then they are asked to make two versions of the chart for their homework. A large size to put it on
the wall in front of their desks at home, and a small one for their left upper pocket for their every day
use. Sometimes some of my students put plastic on their small cards. It turned out to be very
practical. Nowadays schools have these machines for putting plastic on paper. It is amazing what
good things read: teaching devices a teacher can make. Flash cards for example.

This size of tense charts resembles the pieces of papers from the beginning of this article, called
puskice , I would call them legal cheating devices (Serbian puškice) because these are made
during the class, with all students participating. Furthermore, these tense charts, i.e. puskice are
not made to cheat teachers, they are made with teachers to be useful reminders for students.

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 THE TENSE CHART
Affirmative form Interrog
ative ??
Negative
Tense Helping ? A type of action
Main verb Time adverbial form
verb form ??
?
Sometimes,alw
ays, usually, S + do/does
Present S+infinitive
often; once, Do/Does + S +NOT
simple S (-s,-es) in3rd Repeated action
twice + inf.? infinitive of
tense p. s.
every: day/ the main verb
night
Yesterday,
S dates in the
S+regular S + did +
Past past
(-ed)...or Did + S NOT+
simple A week./ago Precise past action
S+irregular + inf.? infinitive of
tense Last: week/
(2nd col.) the main verb
month/year

Present am now S+ am +NOT

+Present action happenning
continuous S are at the moment +Ps.
B participle inversion at the moment of
tense is at present are
E speaking
a situation is
While, when 1.longer past
action
Past B was all:day S+was+NOT 2.two parallel past
/ +Present
continuous S E yesterday inversion +Ps.P. actions
were participle
tense b yesterday were 3.longer past
afternoon action interrupted
by a short one
+Past just; ever; S+have+NOT
-
participle never; since; +Pt.P.
have regular(-ed)
Present /ha for; already; has action from the
rd irregular - rd
perfect S s (3 3 (not) yet; lately; inversion past up to the
tense p.s.) column recently; this...; present moment
so far; how
long...?
Past participle S+had+NOT
Past h - regular(-ed) action which had
+Pt.P.
perfect S a Before; after inversion happened before
irregular -
tense d rd some other action
3 column
Tomorrow,
shall S + shall
Future S / next:week action which will
Infinitive inversion +NOT + inf
tense will happen
will
month
have
Present have Present S+ /has Past, present,
S /has Since,for Inversion
perfect participle been+NOT+Ps. future
been
continuous Action before
Past
perfect s had been Pres S +had+NOT some other past
Since,for Inversion
Continuou ent Participle been+Ps action
s

Legend:

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p. – person Ps. – present participle S. – subject Harold Beverley

English Library s. – singular Pt. – past participle col. –

column Nada Nestorović, profesor engleskog jezika
Picture 3

The usage
Students and myself made rules about how and when to use the tense charts. Whenever they feel
the lack of confidence while doing grammar exercise they are allowed to use their cards. The more
often they use it the more they memorize.

By the time, the tense charts got improved by copying the list of irregular verbs on the back of
the sheet of pape . I found it very useful for my students to use the list of irregular verbs which
provides pronunciation in the brackets, and translation into Serbian. On higher levels students may
use monolingual lists of irregular verbs

Conclusion

Another very important thing happens by the course of time, students gradually stop using the
tense charts. Why? Because after a while the need for them disappears. The tense chart

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accomplished its purpose. It played its role, as a precious help for a period of time when students
needed support. Very good effect is achieved if the use of tense charts, as a reminder of the subject
matter, is combined with drills with flash cards. Flash verb cards are easy to make by drawing
simple stick figures. So whenever there is need for clarification and further practice tense charts
and drills with flash cards are good combinations, because the students not only see data on
certain tense, but have immediately to use this information actively.
For example English teacher detected the problem on the use of the third person singular, Simple
Present tense, interrogative forms. He/She asks the students to place their tense charts in front of
them, to choose which column provides information they need. One or two minutes discussion is
quite enough to remind them of helping verbs and the infinitive of the main vereb and then the
teacher does a short drill with flash cards.(I always carry them with me, I am helpless without them).
Depending on drawings on verb cards teacher can ask:

What does he/she do| every morning?................He/She gets up.*He/She goes to school. etc.
After 5 minutes of drilling you can distribute verb cards to the students who are divided into pairs, or
groups and let students do further drill. After a few minutes you remove the questions from the
blacboard. The groups can swap the verb cards etc.etc.
Such drills should be brief, not longer than ten minutes.
or we can practice YES/No answers
e.g. Does he/she get up.......? showing wrong verb card in order to get negative short answer or the
opposite.
This can also be done in pairs or groups which contributes the dynamism of the lesson.

So the students painlessly move to next level (use of all tenses in Reported speech- Sequence of
tenses, Conditional sentences, Passive voice), and teacher acts as a catalyst helping students to
overcome the difficulties (of memorizing data on tenses) and afterwords enjoy the magic of
communicating in English language.
Even now when I do not teach English any more (I am working as a librarian, grammar school,
Backa Palanka) students still keep coming and saying:“ We heard you have in your computer... : )
and I am always happy to print a few copies of tense charts for them.
Once again I emphasize we can copy the tense chart in as many copies as needed and distribute
them to students, but from the didactic point of view it is much better if tense charts are outcomes
of mutual efforts of both teachers and students.
Jim Scrivener said:“As language teachers we are privileged to work with vital and fascinating
subject matter. Language is the way we express our very being. It is the way we come to terms with
the world. It is the way we make our understanding of life concrete. It is the way we make contact
with other human beings“(page 200,Learning Teaching,Macmillan 1998) . Therefore our job as is to
enable our students to learn as much as possible using all the tecniques, strategies and teaching
devices. I found tense chart and flash cards very helpful.

*****
Nada Nestorović graduated 1969 at Pedagoška akademija, Osijek, Croatia, worked at Boy’s
College, Great Malvern, UK, got a Cambridge Certificate of English 1970 and has been teaching
English ever since. In 1984 Ms Nestorović gained BA at Pedagoški Fakultet in Osijek. She was
inspired by her professors at the Academy and their own eagerness for work. The highlight of her
teaching was the international cooperation with schools in Canada, exchange of penpals' letters
and visits.

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