From the room, last lesson
Six sentences collected during the turns. In every one the auxiliary is the visible problem and the missing phrase is the real one.
Six sentences. Repair each — and notice what you had to add, not just change.
1. In five years I will work here for fifteen years.
2. Since 2019 I changed jobs twice.
3. When I arrived she has already gone.
4. This time next year I will live somewhere else.
5. I am here for six years.
6. By the time you will arrive we will have eaten.
The finding
Two questions, one answered
Every English tense answers two questions. The first is when did it happen. The second is when are you — where the speaker is standing when they look at it.
Learners answer the first question all the time, and answer it accurately. The second one they answer by default, and the default is always now, because Portuguese rarely requires the question to be asked at all. That is the entire difficulty, and it explains a set of errors that otherwise look unrelated: since 2019 I changed jobs, when I arrived she has gone, in five years I will work here for fifteen years.
It also explains why correcting the auxiliary rarely helps for long. A student who is told that had gone was needed learns that particular sentence. A student who notices that when I arrived had already moved them to 2016, and that everything after it has to be said from 2016, has learned all of them.
So the repair is not the verb. It is the phrase in front of it — and, more often, the phrase that was never there. Half the errors in the warm-up above were not wrong tenses. They were sentences with no position set at all, in which any tense would have sounded odd.
Set the position out loud. The tense follows almost by itself, and when it does not, you now have something to check it against.
Three questions.
1. Which question do learners answer by default?
2. Why does correcting the auxiliary rarely transfer?
3. What was wrong with half the warm-up sentences?
The repair, and the stress
Set the position, then let the tense follow
| Position | Phrases that set it | Tense that follows |
|---|---|---|
| Now, looking back | since, for, so far, up to now, already, yet, ever, never | present perfect · have done / have been doing |
| A past point, looking back | when I arrived, by then, by the time, before that | past perfect · had done / had been doing |
| A future point, looking back | by then, by June, by the time, before | future perfect · will have done / will have been doing |
| Inside a future moment | this time next year, at eight, while you are there | future continuous · will be doing |
| Now, looking forward at an event | no vantage phrase at all | plain will |
Two rules that are not negotiable.
1 · After when, by the time, before, as soon as and until, English uses the present for future time. By the time you arrive, never by the time you will arrive. That rule arrived in Unit 12 and it has not changed.
2 · A finished time word — yesterday, in 2019, ten years ago, last month — closes the period and refuses the present perfect. I have seen him yesterday.
Word stress · the suffixes that decide it
| Ending | Rule | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| -tion, -sion | Stress the syllable immediately before it | reFLECtion · proJECtion · tranSItion · deCIsion |
| -ity | Stress the syllable immediately before it | possiBILity · priORity · iDENtity · staBILity |
| -ic, -ical | Stress the syllable immediately before it | draMAtic · speCIfic · hisTORical |
| -ment | Does not move the stress of the verb it came from | comMIT → comMITment · aCHIEVEment · deVELopment |
| -ise, -ize | Stress stays early, on the stem | REalise · ORganise · priORitise |
| -ate | Verb: full vowel, /eɪt/. Noun or adjective: reduced, /ət/ | to SEParate /-eɪt/ · a SEParate room /-ət/ · to GRADuate · a GRADuate |
Eight words from this unit. Match each to where the stress falls — say each one aloud as you place it.
Four questions.
1. A student says since 2019 I changed jobs twice. What is the most useful correction?
2. A sentence has no vantage phrase and no obvious position. What should you add first?
3. Where is the stress in possibility?
4. How do to separate and a separate room differ?
Phrase first, tense second
Ten sentences. Read the vantage phrase first, then choose. Five seconds each.
1. So far this year I ___ four books.
2. By the end of the year I ___ twelve.
3. When the train finally left, we ___ for two hours.
4. This time on Sunday I ___ on a beach.
5. I ___ him in 2019 and not since.
6. By the time she ___, we will have finished.
7. She ___ in that flat since her divorce.
8. By next March they ___ married for fifty years.
9. Don’t come at seven — we ___.
10. I ___ it before you get back, I promise.
Eight sentences. Seven need repair; one is correct. For each repair, say which phrase decided it.
1. I have finished it yesterday.
2. By 2030 I will be here for twenty years.
3. When she called, I have already left.
4. She has been living there since 2016. — correct as written
5. This time next month we will move house. — inside that time
6. By the time we will get there it will be dark.
7. Up to now nothing changed.
8. I am waiting for this letter since March.
The phrase relay
Task card · Speaking · Pairs · 10 minutes, fast
A says a vantage phrase. B has four seconds to produce a true sentence about their own life from that position.
Twenty exchanges in six minutes, then four minutes on stress.
- Phrases to use: since 2019 · by then · when I left school · by next June · this time next year · so far this year · up to now · by the time I am forty · before I got here · at eight o’clock tomorrow.
- Four seconds. If B hesitates, A says the position aloud — "you are standing in June, looking back" — and B tries again.
- The sentence must be true. That is what makes the position real rather than an exercise.
- Last four minutes: A says one of the abstract words from this unit; B says it with the stress marked, then puts it in a sentence.
Words for the stress round. reflection · projection · transition · priority · identity · possibility · commitment · achievement · development · realise · organise · prioritise · to graduate · a graduate · to separate · a separate room · specific · dramatic.
The last four are pairs. If the two members of a pair sound identical, one of them is wrong.
What the four seconds showed
Two questions.
1. Which phrases produced the fastest correct sentences?
2. Which stress pattern caught most people?
The phrase decides
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. When a tense sounds wrong, what do you check first?
2. Where does the stress fall in transition?
Next. Two hundred and eighty words in both directions — the last written piece of B1.