Welcome to Learning English Verbs!

  1-Please place the following events in the correct column some of the events may belong in more than one column (e.g., football season):

• My birth                                                               PAST 
• December of 2008
• George W. Bush�s presidency
• First manned space flight to Venus
• George Washington�s presidency                     PRESENT                                       
• First woman president
• Football season
• Discovery of electricity
• The force of gravity                                             FUTURE 
• Class in session                                            
• First man on the moon      

 2-  Choose the events from any of the columns and compose a sentence about it and share your sentences with your friends. 

 3-Something happened in the past, something is happening in the present,something will happen in the future.

4-The sentences tell us not only what happens, but also when.

5-Writers sometimes confuse their readers by changing verb tenses when they should be consistent (keep the same verb tense). For example;

I work on my math homework as I talked on the phone.

 *the verb work is past, present, or future? (Present) 

 *the verb talked is past, present, or future?(Past)

The fact that the verb tenses in this sentence are not consistent (the same), and readers will likely become confused. Did the writer do his/her homework while they were on the phone, before they got on the phone, or after they got off the phone?

6-Discuss how the different verb tenses change the meaning of the sentence.

*Please use these links to get the information you will have to use. You will fid the explanations to each tense, examples, and an exercise on verbs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_verbs#Tenses

http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/grammar/english_tenses.htm