With the resentment that is becoming second nature to me I continued my marking of the 3ESO’s examination papers. With the help of numerous cups of tea and boiling indignation at completing the week with school work on EVERY day I eventually came to a natural halt. I had not completed the examination papers, but I had reached a point of some complexity.
If you speak to grammatical experts (though why you would do that baffles me) they start becoming a little shifty eyed when you start talking about the future tense in English. We tend to press other tenses into operation to cover up this woeful lack of linguistic latitude and have numerous cunning little plans to give an idea of something which is going to happen in the times ahead.
The last question in the 3ESO examination was devoted to the elusive future tense and was asked in an original form which the kids had not experienced before. The question took the form of a table which was drawn up in three sections the middle section gave a description of what the tense covered; the kids had to write in the name of the tense on one side of this description and then write out a sentence to illustrate the tense on the other. Perhaps an example will make things clearer.
The description given for one of the uses of one type of future tense was, "An activity in progress for a period up to a specific time in the future." The students had to identify the verb form and then write a sentence to illustrate the form. Go on, have a go, see if you can do what any normal (!) 13 year old in Catalonia can do! Good luck!
If you speak to grammatical experts (though why you would do that baffles me) they start becoming a little shifty eyed when you start talking about the future tense in English. We tend to press other tenses into operation to cover up this woeful lack of linguistic latitude and have numerous cunning little plans to give an idea of something which is going to happen in the times ahead.
The last question in the 3ESO examination was devoted to the elusive future tense and was asked in an original form which the kids had not experienced before. The question took the form of a table which was drawn up in three sections the middle section gave a description of what the tense covered; the kids had to write in the name of the tense on one side of this description and then write out a sentence to illustrate the tense on the other. Perhaps an example will make things clearer.
The description given for one of the uses of one type of future tense was, "An activity in progress for a period up to a specific time in the future." The students had to identify the verb form and then write a sentence to illustrate the form. Go on, have a go, see if you can do what any normal (!) 13 year old in Catalonia can do! Good luck!
If you are able to provide a convincing answer then please forward me your name and address and I can send you my outstanding students' questions which need to be corrected!
I have given up marking this exercise because it is fairly obvious that some of the kids know far more (and far more convincingly) than I do about how this bloody tense was, is and can be formed. I have marked two questions and have had doubts about both. I think I will leave it for the moment and go onto safer ground in the other paper I have to mark – that of 1ESO.
Tomorrow I will gain a mock exam from the sixth form and the paper from the kids in 2ESO. A week to look forward to!
Just back from our visit to a local café with a reserved table for two to watch on a large screen TV the victory of Barça against their perennial enemies Real Madrid! The game was exciting, especially the last five minutes which for me were literally nail bitingly tense.
Toni, who is not the most unbiased football commentator in the world, has just informed me as he peruses the internet and looks at the Madrid supporting press (i.e. everywhere else except for saintly Catalonia) that they have obviously been watching a different match to the one that we saw!
As we walked back to the bus stop we heard explosions as rockets and bangers were set off to celebrate the victory and we were passed by hooting cars in another traditional response to a Barça success.
¡Força Barça!
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