I was recently asked how to “do” a lesson on the past perfect and had pause for thought. To begin with why would anyone want to do a lesson based solely on the past perfect? The answer was that it was for a university assignment and a lesson plan just on the past perfect was needed. I gave the student some advice but suspect that she won’t get very good marks for it as it isn’t what was required – a lesson plan only on the past perfect.
How to Plan a Lesson to Introduce the Past Perfect Tense
Firstly, we can assume that students have already been introduced to the present perfect and past simple tenses and understand how to use them. Do a quick recap as an introduction eliciting the differences between the simple past and the present perfect from your students. Depending on their answers, you may need to revise these tenses before going on to the main part of the lesson.
Introduce the Past Perfect
Explain how the past perfect is used and how it differs from the present perfect and the past simple. The past perfect refers to a particular point of time in the past whereas the present perfect refers to an action started in the past which it is possible to continue in the future. There is no such choice with the past perfect.
You can demonstrate this with the following sentences:
Alfred Hitchcock made many films. (Past simple – he’s dead and can’t make any more.)
Leonardo di Caprio has made many films. (Present perfect – he is alive and will probably make more films.)
Marlon Brando had made many films by the time he was forty. (Past perfect with specific point of time as reference.)
There are other uses of all tenses but keep it simple for this lesson.
When We Use the Past Perfect
Ask students to give you the rule for each sentence and to explain the different meanings in the sentences in the paragraph above; then go on to ask when we use the present perfect. You need to elicit the use of “for” and “since” and “already” and “yet”. Point out the time differences with sentences on the board for comparison between the past and present perfect.
“For” – Jim has lived in that house for 6 years. Jim had lived there for 6 years before he fixed the roof.
“Since” – Penny has lived there since 1999. Penny had lived there since 1999 and didn’t really want to move when she got promoted.
“Already” – I’ve already done the preparation for tomorrow’s presentation. I had already done the preparation for tomorrows presentation when the boss rang to remind me about it.
“Yet” – I haven’t done it yet. I hadn’t yet done it when I rang you. I had it still to do. (Formal use)
Once again ask students to explain the differences in these sentences.
Some Areas That Confuse Students
If you know the student’s first language then you can point out the differences in the way the present and past perfect tenses are used. You are at an advantage in this, as a teacher who can’t use contrastive methods of analysis might spend a lot of time correcting students’ errors and not at first realize that these are being made because of the way the tenses are used in the mother tongue. If you don’t know how the students use the tenses in their own language, then ask them to explain it to you. They enjoy being teachers for a change, especially if they are adults and business executives.
One thing that confuses students is the fact that we can use “had had.” Many students think this is a mistake when teachers write it on the board or when they see it in books, so you might want to explain that it is the correct form of the verb “to have” in the past perfect.
Giving Tasks to Students Based on the Grammar Point
You can devise your own tasks for reinforcing and practising the use of tenses. You can use two forms of the verb in a sentence and ask students to underline the correct form, or verbs in brackets for them to put in the correct tense (although you need to be careful with these sometimes as the answer may depend on the student’s interpretation of the sentence. Sometimes there might be several "correct" answers.)
If you make your own tasks, don’t always make the tense taught the correct answer. Mix up the tenses but have the past perfect (in this case) in the majority of the sentences.
Such tasks are not really good ways of seeing if the students have understood what has been taught. The best way to learn is to use, and so you could ask students to write a short story such as this one, beginning with the following sentence: “By 10 o’clock last Monday morning I had had enough!”…There should follow a list of things that had gone wrong all in the past perfect.
Students learn best when they are productive and using vocabulary in context in their own speaking and writing. Often we as teachers can’t think of how to get students to do this, so don’t forget the value of mediation tasks for spoken English and journal or diary writing for students own use.
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