A Grammar Review Lesson: Focussing

on the Big Four

I regularly talk to my business English learners about where were going with our course:
what would you like less of or more of? What have we done that you enjoyed and found
helpful? What havent we done yet which you would find helpful? In these conversations
theres one topic which probably comes up more often than any other and its not email
writing, telephoning or any of the other typical staples of the business English diet, but
grammar and specifically: can we look at all of the tenses again?

Grammar: its not always a piece of cake

Ive been through various phases of dealing with the can we look at all the tenses again?
request. At the beginning I dont think I made a particularly good job of it. The key to
getting it right seems to lie in:

Striking a balance between pure grammar rules and language use.

Making sure that the learners have actually understood the input youve given them
and they could actually use it themselves.

Distilling the grammar rules down to the most important points and the ones which
will actually help them.

Raising learnersawareness of the mistakes they make and/or are most often made
when using the tenses.

Before you even get to thinking about those things though, you need to consider which tenses
youre actually going to teach: All of them? Some of them? One of them? After reading that
80% of spoken communication in English among native speakers makes use of just four
tensespresent simple, present continuous (or progressive), past simple and present perfect
I decided to focus my attention on these four, which Ive come to call the big four. We
could argue about how non-native speaker language use differs from native speaker language
use, but I nevertheless see these four as excellent building blocks for English grammar. In the
workplace you will definitely need the present simple to talk about facts, routines and
permanent situations. You will also need the present continuous to talk abou temporary
situations and tell people what youre doing at the moment. You have to use the past simple
to tell people about what you did yesterday, last week or last year. The present perfect is often
used to let colleagues know what you have already done and what you havent done yet and
while making small talk about where youve been and where youve worked.
Choosing the wrong tense may result in it being unclear whether youve done something or
are still doing it and this can lead to complications in the workplace. If you say: Im
working here for 3 months when you should have said: Ive worked/ Ive been working
here for 3 months, the colleague visiting you will not expect to see you again on his next trip
and may well not prioritise building a relationship with you, as a result.
The tenses review lesson that Ive developed would be most effective with learners at B1 or
B2 level who already have some knowledge of these four tenses and how to use them, but are
in need of a refresher lesson or review. Ive deliberately decided not to focus on the future
explicitly here, but I have mentioned the use of the present simple to talk about timetabled
events in the future and I have often found that this lesson has led learners to ask questions
about the future, such as what about using the present continuous to talk about future plans
and arrangements. I would see a lesson reviewing how to talk about the future as being a
natural follow-on from this lessonI dont want to try to do it all in 60 or 90 minutes.
1) Tell the learners that native speakers use four tenses in 80% of spoken English. Ask them
to guess which four tenses these four could be. This will give you an indication of their level
of awareness of grammar terminology and the ideas or concepts behind the different tenses.
Accept their guesses if they dont know the name of the tenses but they know what the

idea(s) behind them is, for example, if they say: One of them is the tense for things that
happened in the past and are finished. You could also ask them if it surprises them that
these four tenses are used so frequently and why or why not.
2) Tell the learners that youre going to give them some information about all four tenses
and you would like them to read it and use the information there and their own knowledge to
find answers to the three questions below and then present these answers to the rest of the
group:
1.

What situations do you use this tense to describe?

2.

What are the three most important things to remember about this tense?

3.

What mistakes to English learners often make when using this tense?

You may want to reformulate these questions using simpler language with lower level
learners.
You can download my overview of the big four here.
Remind the learners that you will not accept them just reading aloud from the tenses
overview when they present their answersthey have to present the information in their own
words and add their own ideas too.
Depending on the number in the group, you may need to have a small group, a pair or just
one individual working on one tense. If you have to have a combination of pairs and
individuals, I would suggest giving the tenses which are a little easier to explain, e.g. present
simple and past simple, to the individuals or the weaker learners, and those which are a little
more challenging, e.g. present continuous and present perfect, to the pairs or stronger
learners.
3) Monitor the learners as theyre working on their answers, giving them any support that
they need and making suggestions. The area where the learners will probably need the most
support is thinking about typical mistakes made when using the tense. The amount of time
the learners will need to prepare their answers will range from 10 minutes to 30 minutes
depending on the group.
4) When all the groups are finished, ask them to present their answers. Encourage the other
learners to ask questions to those who are presenting and add any points which you consider
important and any typical mistakes you know which they havent mentioned.

5) After this review of the four tenses, I go on to do a speaking activity in which the learners
have to use the four tenses and their question forms. This is a variant on the popular find
someone who activity.
a) I write on the board or flipchart: Find someone who and then ask them to complete this
sentence four ways using a different one of the four tenses each time. I give them examples to
get them started:
Find someone wholives in Heidenheim
Find someone whois working to a deadline at the moment
Find someone whowent to a Christmas market last weekend
Find someone whohas been to Berlin/ has seen the new James Bond film
Remind them that they should write sentences that they think or know will be applicable to
at least one other person in the group, so find someone who has been to the moon, for
example, is not allowed, for example!
b) When they have their four sentences, they can use them to create questions they will then
ask the rest of the group. Review the different question forms you use for the four different
tenses.
present simple: Do you live in Heidenheim?
present continuous: Are you working to a deadline at the moment?
past simple: Did you go to a Christmas market last weekend?
present perfect: Have you been to Berlin? Have you seen the new James Bond
film?
c) The learners can then stand up and mingle with each other and ask their questions. Tell
them their aim is to find a person who can answer yes for each of the four questions and
when they have done this they have completed the task. Its OK if they find one person who
can answer yes to more than one of the questions.
At the end of 60 or 90 minutes, the learners have:

been re-familiarised with the important features of each tense

been reminded of the common mistakes people make when using them

been able to focus on one tense in more detail and explain how it works to the rest of
the group

been re-familiarised with the question forms for each of the four tenses

had the opportunity to produce the language by creating their own examples and
questions in the find someone who game