Brandon McLeod

TSL 612 Options in the Teaching of Grammar

Dr. Christopher Miles
11 February 2015
Critique: Celce-Murcia and Yoshidas
Alternatives to current pedagogy for teaching the present perfect progressive
The argument presented by Celce-Murcia and Yoshida (2003) is that in order to properly
teach the present perfect progressive tense (PPP), there must be an examination of a large
amount of authentic tokens of the target form occurring in natural contexts (p. 2) followed by
an analysis of those tokens. In their article, they performed a discourse analysis on 250 instances
of the PPP in context. Additionally, they reviewed five prominent grammar texts, critiquing the
methods they employ for teaching the PPP. The article concludes with example alternatives to the
pedagogy in the grammar text. This critique will present their findings regarding the contextual
use of PPP, the shortcomings they revealed about the grammar textbooks, and a critique of their
recommendations on how one should approach the teaching of PPP.
When Celce-Murcia and Yoshida performed their dissection of how PPP is used in
context, they revealed several interesting findings. First, PPP is highly context-dependent,
(p. 3) which they state leads the subjects to often be first and second person pronouns. Second,
PPP is frequently used with adverbs of timethough, as they point out, this is not always the
case and the time may have been expressed in a previous sentence within the discourse or may
be a default time such as recently (p. 3). Third, and this is something, which I had never
realized and that was particularly interesting, is that the PPP is typically part of a three-move
structure (p. 3). Within this finding, they noticed that the first move is one that provides

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background information and usually takes the present or present perfect tense. The second move,
which they describe as the most crucial, is the only instance of the PPP in the three-move
structure and it is used to focus attention on a continuing activity (p. 3). The final move is an
evaluation or follow-up in the present tense (p. 3). The fourth finding is that PPP, in general, is
used only once and is bookended with simpler tenses (p. 3). The fifth item of note is that the
context, semantics, and time adverbs are all part of the meaning conveyed by PPP (p. 3). These
conclusions are important in that they set the stage for the analysis of the grammar texts, and
they provide valuable insight into how PPP is actually used in authentic speech and text.
While the authors state that all of the textshad some strong points (p. 6), it is clear
through their review that all of the texts had gross inadequacies. The texts, all of which were
chosen due to their popularityas evidenced by multiple editionswere found lacking in the
necessary information for understanding the use of the PPP. In the words of the authors, these
texts did not make it clear that the meaning of the PPP depends in part on the meaning of the
verb phrase and/or time adverbials that this tense-aspect form combines with (p. 3).
Additionally, all of these texts made strong generalizations, some were simply misleading and
others which were completely false (p. 4). The texts, as the authors say, do have some good
points. Azar (1999), as they point out, was the only one to state that PPP can occur with an
understood context of recently (p. 5). Murphy and Smalzer (2000) provided a useful tip, that it
is easy to view the PPP as an activity and the present perfect the result of an activity (p. 5), which
agreed with the tokens in Celce-Murcia and Yoshidas database. They also praised some of the
exercises in Riggenbach and Samudas (2000) text. The only positive comment about Maurer
(2000), however, is that it utilized authentic texts when presenting the PPP. The proceeding
observation stated that while the use of authentic material is good, the follow through was

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lacking. Throughout the textbook review Celce-Murcia and Yoshida provide excellent ideas on
how to improve some of the activities presented in the grammar textbooks.
The final portion of the article included several exercises that may be used to present and
teach the PPP. These activities were astounding. The authors showed an in depth understanding
of all of the elements one has to balance in a classroom. The activities were well researched,
containing authentic materials for the students to hear and read. In addition, the students are
active participants in the activities. The students are encouraged to ask questions, examine the
structure of the utterances, reflect on the arrangement of the three-part sequence, consider how
the situations and utterances would be approached in their native languages, collaborate, produce
their own contextually driven material, perform with their classmates, and analyze the
productions of their peers. These activities showed what can be accomplished when educators
are dedicated to teaching students how to use the language appropriately through methods that
research has shown to be effective.
This article by Celce-Murcia and Yoshida was well conceived and their conclusions are
both practical and immediately beneficial to teachers of English to speakers of other languages.
Their findings presented, for me, a better perspective of the PPP. The critique of the textbooks
was both accurate and helpful. Instead of only criticizing, they offered ways in which the
teachers who are required to use these texts can improve them. Finally, the activities they created
are incredibly well designed. They have shown me the standard to which I will now hold every
activity I am presented or that I create.

References

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Azar, B. S. (1999). Understanding and using English grammar (3rd ed). White plains, NY:
Pearson Education Longman.
Celce-Murcia, M. & Yoshida, N. (2003). Alternatives to current pedagogy for teaching the
present perfect progressive. English Teaching Forum, 41(1), pp. 2-9, 21.
Elbaum, S. N. (2001) Grammar in context (3rd ed.). Boston: Heinle and Heinle.
Maurer, J. (2000). Focus on grammar (2nd ed.). White Plains, NYL Pearson Education Longman.
Murphy, R. & W. R. Smalzer. (2000). Grammar in use: Intermediate (2nd ed.). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Riggenbach, H. & Samuda, V. (2000). Grammar dimensions 2. Boston: Heinle and Heinle.