Bobby - CO_grammar 2

I went to Felicia Ciappetta's Level 2 Grammar course again, since the majority of time last week was devoted to the students taking a diagnostic test. Today's lesson was on the present perfect tense. The students were given a worksheet, seen below:

Students had to change each of the statements to the present perfect tense, and phrase it as a question that they would ask their classmates (i.e. "Have you ever arrived late to a movie?") Felicia then asked the students specific questions about which students had ever had these experiences. I noticed that Felicia tried to lower the students' 'affective filter' by giving personal accounts of these experiences. For example, she talked about sleeping in class one time and how the professor yelled at her in front of the whole class. The students enjoyed this and could relate to such an experience. 

Following this activity, Felicia started to get into the teaching portion of the lesson. She asked the class when the present perfect tense is used and explained that it is used for experiences in the past. She gave something like the following illustration to help them understand: 2010--------------X(now)----->

• forming the present perfect: have + past participle
• "I have spoken Spanish since 2010."

The students understood, but some were confusing this tense with others (past perfect - "had had" and present perfect continuous - "have been going"). After the lesson, students took out their books to complete an activity. During this time, Felicia addressed students individually if they had questions during the lesson. There was just enough time left in class for students to complete the activity, talk about it amongst themselves, and speak with Felicia about any problems they ran into. Great observation!