Today’s lesson is on keeping consistency in tenses. We are going to explore some strategies to shift tenses in an organized manner. Here is the POWERPOINT for today's lesson.
1. Warm-up: Raising your awareness
Tense confusion is one of the common mistakes that people make (not only ESL learners, but also native speakers of English). Allowing tenses to get mixed up will cause trouble for your readers and prevent them from fully understanding your essay. Hence, today’s topic is on rules and strategies to keep tenses consistent and organized. Let's look over PPT slide 2 for more details.
2. Tenses consistency: ground rule
Here is a ground rule for tense use: maintain one tense throughout the entire paragraph. See the example on SLIDE 3 for more information. This can be difficult for many reasons. For example, should you still maintain one tense when there’s different time frames being used? In this case, no. It’s actually important that you DO shift tenses in this situation. Just be sure to follow the strategies in SLIDES 3-4
3. Activity 1: consistent or not
Go over PPT SLIDE 5. In pairs, read the 2 PASSAGES with tense changes within the paragraph. One passage makes appropriate tense shifts, and the other does not. Work with a partner to identify which paragraph appropriately switches tenses and which does not. Be prepared to explain WHY one is appropriate and the other is not.
4. Ways to control tenses shift
There is a 3-step strategy to avoid confusion in tense usage. Remember that “Primary tense” is a dominant tense for the paragraph while “shift tense” is the tense that describes events, actions or ideas that take place other than the main discourse. Go over PPT SLIDES 6-7 for details.
5. Activity 2: Primary or shift?
Check your knowledge on identifying primary and shift tenses through this activity. Pair up and identify primary tense and shift tense(s) for the text, TAKING THE BUNGEE PLUNGE.
6. Activity 3: Make it consistent
Now that we know how to identify primary tenses, it’s time to practice tense consistency! Read THIS ESSAY. After identifying the primary tense and misused areas, take some time to correct those mistakes. Work in groups of 3-4 people to re-write those sentences.
7. Wrap up
Remember that this strategy may be useful for revising your future assignments. Try checking your tense consistency using this 3-step strategy.
