Make us homepage
Add to Favorites
FAIL (the browser should render some flash content, not this).

Main page » Coursebooks » Using Essential English Tenses BOOK+Key


Using Essential English Tenses BOOK+Key

 
53

The exercises in this book are designed to give intermediate grade students (say Cambridge First Certificate level) practice in the essential tenses in their essential uses. This does not mean that students will not come across other tenses in their reading: they probably will, and will understand their meaning (possibly after the teacher has done some explaining) without much difficulty. But they will not learn how to use them at this stage, which demands skill in the more usual tenses and uses. Let us bear in mind that just as a student acquires both a passive and an active vocabulary, so too he acquires both a passive and an active grammar. In both, a great deal of what is passive in the intermediate stage should become active later on, whereas early practice of everything that the intermediate student may read or hear will lead to confusion and uncertainty.

Before the exercises there is a section of examples of the use of tenses at the intermediate level. The examples and the hints given with them form a whole-but the examples are probably much more valuable than the hints. The term 'hints' is used on purpose, as the writer does not wish anyone to think that he is laying down the law, a procedure that is linguistically most inadvisable. The hints are given to help the student, but they are certainly not meant to be the whole truth-though it is intended that they should be nothing but the truth.

There is a list of the most common irregular verbs of the English of this last half of the twentieth century at the end of the book. Most of these verbs are very useful; in fact, they are part of the essential vocabulary and it is for that reason (and not because of their amusing or annoying irregularities) that they need to be known. A list of the special verbs is also given (see page 18), mainly because these verbs are given various names by different writers, and it is necessary to identify them.

At the head of each exercise, figures such as 8.1, 10.3 allow the student to refer to the necessary paragraphs exemplifying usage. A figure in brackets at the end of an exercise tells the teacher how many verbs the student has had to insert, or otherwise deal with, in doing the exercise.

 

Contents

 

Foreword
Table of verb-forms
Examples of tense and verb-form usage
General instructions
The special verbs
Present simple, present continuous Exercises 1-7
Past simple, past continuous Exercises 8-16
Past simple, present perfect simple Exercises 17-22
Past simple, present perfect simple or continuous Exercises 23-26
Past simple, past perfect simple or continuous Exercises 27-31
Future with shall or will, present tenses, imperative, future perfect, future continuous Exercises 32-41
Conditional sentences with future or present tenses Exercises 42-46
Conditional present (simple), past simple Exercises 47-50
Conditional perfect, past perfect Exercises 51-53
Conditional sentences: any suitable tense Exercise 54
Revision of tenses: any tense already studied Exercises55-58
Question-tags Exercise
Infinitives and -ing form Exercise 60
Reported speech    Exercises 61-62
Special verbs Exercise 63
Common irregular verbs

 

BOOK: ISBN-13: 978-0-237-49851-1, Key: ISBN-13: 978-0-237-49931-0




Purchase Using Essential English Tenses BOOK+Key from Amazon.com
Dear user! You need to be registered and logged in to fully enjoy Englishtips.org. We recommend registering or logging in.


Tags: their, tenses, essential, students, explaining, Using, Tenses