Don’t Dangle From Your Participles, Essay Example

The common aspects of a language are often the most difficult to learn. Native speakers learn or acquire these common aspects, such as metaphors, idioms, common expressions, slang, and past participles, mostly through contextual experience and with few formal corrections occurring in the earliest years of school, and teachers often struggle with teaching concepts that have always seemed second-nature to them personally. The rules make no sense without a specific application to clear examples, especially when the tenses combine in a single sentence and word order determines which tense emerges as the ‘true’ one.

Participles and Tense

Hewings gives rules and examples for the proper use of the past participles of will, would, and should, but the inclusion of the ‘used to’ past participle as a proper form surprised me and indicated- in my view- that the majority culture becomes accepted more frequently in the formal foundations of mainstream culture, which begins with the bonds of shared language. The use of ‘may’ both as a statement of possibility and as an expression of respect and good manners interrelate, and it is much easier to see this connection when the dual meanings are learned at the same time. This concept becomes surprisingly difficult when it applies to permissiveness, and I referred back to the rules as I completed the examples (pp. 32-35). Even the rules of ‘can’ and ‘can’t’ approach permissiveness, because the listener or reader must accept the truth of the statement to understand and process the statement itself as it was originally intended (pp. 30-31). Similarly, the ‘about to’ indicates that the person needs their own permission to move forward, and this self-involved perspective often makes this form easier and more realistic for everyday use, too (p. 24). The rules of these participles themselves seem self-explanatory, but the actual examples of use are crucial to the full integration of these concepts into long-term understanding.

If the past and present forms of these participles confuse, then the mixed use of forms in a single sentence confounds entirely. Imagine standing in front of a classroom to explain “I’m having a meeting” versus “I couldn’t go because I was having a meeting” (pp. 28-29). Obviously, the ‘was’ makes the second form ‘the future from the past’, as the text calls it, but I could see this learning being more effective with a freeform approach, such as the use of index cards which students must place in the correct order. Even this approach to teaching the concept would first require: a) that the learner indicates whether the future is ‘from now’ or ‘from the past’, b) the learner understands how these participles affect tense, c) explore clear examples, and d) place them in a correct order.

Conclusion

After discussing the ins and outs of these participles, I felt the need to review the page which discusses the use of ‘can’. If an educated adult finds these past participles so intimidating, any teacher should feel greater empathy and understanding as they produce, deliver, monitor, and reinforce lessons which require attention to detail and confidence through some confusing, plausible-sounding choices, including some which may be commonly used in the vernacular but are technically improper. Even the use of the forms of the verb ‘use’ asks whether something ‘used to’ be done differently or if the old ways of acting are ‘all used up’. After all, the teachers ‘used to’ teach different lessons and in different ways.

References

Hewings, M. (2006). Advanced Grammar in Use. 3^rd ed. Cambridge University Press. Print.