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I saw an interesting post on here that shows tenses in a chart. I use an even more schematic chart to explain active tenses to foreign students.

Given that you are all linguists I'd like to know what this community thinks of this chart. I am aware that some of you may not see tenses in this way and may even take exception to my scheme. In my defence, my students rarely make mistakes when selecting a tense. Given that the tenses often do not match those in their languages this is no mean feat.

I also give them this chart when they first come to me so that as they learn new tenses they know where they fit in the overall scheme of things. Tenses are traditionally taught sequentially, leaving the student to learn each tense in isolation and based on application. By giving the chart at the very start I am able to give the student a way of expressing time in many different ways very rapidly. Typically my students are using all but the bottom row by the end of year one.

The other advantage to this chart from a teacher's point of view is that it also makes the explanation of auxiliary verb usage very straightforward: none in the top row, To Be in the second, To Have in the third and both Be and Have in the fourth. It can be seen at a glance that Be is required in the continuous tenses and Have is required in the Perfect tenses.

So here is a simplified version of the chart showing the 1st person of the verb To Work:

Tense Chart

I look forward to your comments.

Tom

Blackthorne
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    I assume you are referring to this question. This question would really be more appropriate as an answer to that question, though of course you cannot answer that question without more reputation here, since it has been protected. It would be an entirely appropriate and high-quality answer to it, though, so I am going to flag this for the moderators and request that it be temporarily unprotected (or that this be transferred somehow—I do not know if that is possible). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 03 '14 at 12:39
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    How is this unclear? The OP wants to know if the chart is a good one. It may be opinion based, but it's certainly not unclear. Furthermore, it's a useful chart. I think the site can benefit from it. – anongoodnurse Feb 03 '14 at 19:51
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    What @Janus said. Realistically, I can't see how this "question" amounts to anything more than "Do you like my chart?" Effectively an opinion-based "poll" -type posting, which more or less by definition should be an *answer. Since it's been sitting around getting nowhere for nearly a month now, I may take it upon myself to copy the text into a Community Wiki answer on the previous question to which it may well be considered a very good* answer (or maybe not, as the case may be - but at least it deserves the chance to be voted on). – FumbleFingers Mar 01 '14 at 15:59
  • I concur with @F. What you propose is an answer to a question you haven't actually asked. Now that you do have the required reputation, you could add this as an answer to the other question; or maybe ask the question to which your chart is the answer (if that's a different question) and supply your own answer immediately. – Andrew Leach Mar 02 '14 at 10:49
  • The original poster did exactly that: like me, he had a chart that explained tenses so he basically asked the question "How do tenses work?" and posted it. Having a different system that I thought would broaden the discussion I tried to add it, only to fall foul of the system here. As a newbie it seems silly that so much attention is paid to form at the expense of discussion but, as I have posted elsewhere, it's your forum. @FF if you want to add it to a wiki I would be happy that my contribution was not wasted but this forum is not for me: I just don’t have the time to play these games. – Blackthorne Mar 02 '14 at 15:51
  • @FumbleFingers what exactly is the difference between Blackthorne's post/diagram/chart and Robusto's? Is it merely the title? Robusto's question is only contained in the title, his proposed diagram is asking for input, and for suggestions as to how to meliorate the diagram. I believe that RegDwight's stubborn silence, which is quite unlike him, is eloquent in admitting a mistake, or misjudgement has been committed. – Mari-Lou A Mar 02 '14 at 21:10
  • Cont'd. Nevertheless, the OP's sulky and very offensive post in meta, I think has backfired. If only he had answered a few questions and then asked for his post to be reopened, things might have gone differently. Still... it's never too late to make amends on both sides. No? – Mari-Lou A Mar 02 '14 at 21:11
  • @Mari-Lou: I think it's a shame Blackthorne doesn't want to stay on ELU, despite the fact that I'm not exactly ecstatic about being labelled a pedantic twat (particularly since I interpret that term gynaecologically, and I've had to put up with being unjustly labelled a dork by two different users today). But this chart looks fine to me - it's simpler/"more accessible" than Robusto's, but less informative in total. It doesn't cover the two distinct "scopes" of I am working, but that's because it doesn't really set out "temporal scope" anyway. But to repeat - *it's fine*. – FumbleFingers Mar 02 '14 at 21:29
  • ...cont. If Blackthorne changes his mind that would be good (he looks a potential asset, in that he's clearly knowledgeable in our subject matter here), but I'm not holding my breath. As for the Reg sideswipe, I don't see it as incriminating that he doesn't defend himself (I'm sure he's more than capable! :) Personally I would argue the closure should have been duplicate, but I don't know exactly how he saw it. Perhaps he wanted to give OP a chance to differentiate the question (well, to be honest, there wasn't really a valid On Topic "question" there anyway, was there?). – FumbleFingers Mar 02 '14 at 21:34
  • @FumbleFingers I believe the insult is directed at RegDwight, isn't it? He is the one who closed the question. Regardless, the chart is cute, and I had the impression it was a sample (simplified version) of other things the OP wanted to share. Perhaps an apology on both sides would not go amiss, and we can start on a clean slate. – Mari-Lou A Mar 02 '14 at 21:35
  • @Mari-Lou: You'll forgive me if I say that (for today, at least) I've had it up to here with apologies on both sides. At the end of the day, mods on SE are like royalty in the UK - it's pointless demanding apologies. If we lose the occasional potentially valuable user, that's a small price to pay for retaining undoubtedly valuable mods. – FumbleFingers Mar 02 '14 at 21:41
  • I would like to ask Blackthorne how the students know when to use the present continuous tense and when the present simple? When the present perfect continuous is preferred and when it is utterly wrong? How does this chart illustrate those differences? (as FF rightly pointed out). Robusto's chart attempts to show how the tenses relate to one another. – Mari-Lou A Mar 02 '14 at 21:56

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