A teacher has got
strengths and weaknesses depending on their ability and natural inclinations.
For example I am rather lousy at drawing --though I do try hard-- but I can
make the most of every opportunity a text affords me to clarify, illustrate and
further practise language issues.
I feel that some
problematic areas for learners of English are not given proper attention by
course or grammar book writers. If you look at a typical course of English, you
will not fail to notice an excessive emphasis on tenses in the indicative mood so
much so that one gets practice for the Present and Past tenses right into
Proficiency level. To my mind, this is superfluous given that a B2 level
student should be able to use those quite efficiently. On the other hand, there
are other grammar points introduced well into a typical course that require
further development and consolidation if only because they are too
sophisticated to be assimilated by younger or lower-level learners.
In my experience of
teaching mainly Greek people, one of those areas in English grammar which merit
special attention and should be dealt with in more detail is the infinitive
tenses and their inextricable link with modal verbs. My point is that the tense
for most modal verbs provides no clue as to the time the verb phrase refers to
and it is the tense of the infinitive that is the time marker. (Could for ability is a time marker but
not for possibility whereas may or might are no time markers and one needs
to denote the time by choosing the appropriate infinitive tense.)
However, in Greek and
other languages, I imagine, it is not the infinitive but the subjunctive tenses
which denote time. As a result, it is
quite difficult for Greek learners to comprehend the infinitive tense use or
grasp the idea that the infinitive has tenses but does not agree with the
subject in person. This leads to mistakes of this kind:
He should has tried more.
The above sentence shows
that there is some understanding of infinitive tenses but not sufficient
understanding of the infinitive as a non-conjugated form. The mistake is the
result of mental translation in the mother tongue, which equates infinitive to subjunctive.
(Greek is a morphologically rich language with person differences marked by
different endings.)
In order that my
students get enough practice of problem grammar areas, I take advantage of
original texts which provide ample examples of a particular structure either
underlining the examples of this particular structure or creating an exercise.
What follows is an
instance of what I have tried to illustrate so far. In addition to infinitive
tenses, the text lent itself to some practice of noun adjuncts (I have already
discussed this in a previous post of mine in detail providing a methodology of
making sense of noun adjuncts by Greek learners.)
The first exercise is
meant to be completed before reading the news story and check in the process of
reading it while the second evidently is to be done while reading the text.
Police step up search for missing hospital
worker Petra Srncova
The
Guardian 11 December 2021
Put the words in
the right order to reconstruct the noun phrases. Translate the phrases in your
first language.
a. hospital, missing, children’s,
worker, a
b. nurse, senior, a, assistant
c. her, address, home
d. a, conference, press
e. home, her, country
f. our, service, national, health
Read the news
story carefully and put the verbs in brackets in the correct infinitive form:
A missing children’s hospital worker is believed to
…….......................... (disappear) on her way home from work, police said
on Saturday, as Labour MP Harriet Harman launched an appeal for information on
her constituent[1].
Petra Srncova, 32, a senior nurse assistant at Evelina London children’s
hospital in Westminster, was reported missing on 3 December by a concerned
colleague, and officers are intensifying their efforts to try to
………………………….(find) her.
Srncova is believed to ……………………………(leave) the hospital at 19.45pm on 28
November. She is thought to ……………………………. (wear) a green coat and
………………………………..(carry) a red backpack at the time, the Metropolitan police said.
It is believed that Srncova withdrew money from a cashpoint, before
boarding a bus towards Elephant and Castle. She is then thought to
……………………………………(change) to a bus travelling southbound towards her home address
in Camberwell, where she was last sighted at 20.22pm.
A man has been arrested in connection with her disappearance and remains in
custody, the Met added.
“Petra is missing, and we want people to help the police find her,” Harman
said at a press conference she held on Saturday afternoon in her constituency[2] of
Camberwell.
She added: “She’s been missing for quite a few days now, she’s only 32,
she’s from the Czech Republic, her parents of course are desperately worried
about her, and I feel we’ve all got a particular responsibility to
……………………..(ttry)and ………………………(find) her because she was away from her home
country, away from her family, here working for our national health service.”
A Met spokesperson said police have approached her family in the Czech
Republic and “they have not heard from her”.
They added:“Officers are growing increasingly concerned for Petra’s welfare
and are asking anyone who has seen her, or has information as to[3]
her whereabouts, to ……………………………(make) contact immediately.”
Det Supt Clair Kelland, from the Central South Command Unit which covers
the area that Petra lives in, said: “We continue to …………...... (grow)
increasingly worried about Petra and we are doing everything we can to try to
find her.
“Her disappearance is out of character and, of course, her loved ones are
extremely concerned and want to know where she is.
“Please think about if you’ve seen her, or maybe come into contact with
her. If you have any information whatsoever, please get in touch and help us
with our inquiries.”
The Evelina hospital said on Twitter: “We are extremely concerned about our
valued colleague Petra who is missing. We want to encourage anyone who may
……………………….(have) any information that could ………………………(help) to find her to
contact the police.”
