Verb Tenses

A verb indicates the time of an action, event or condition by changing its form. What SLPs teach a child to attend to is: (1) when the action occurs, and (2) the form the verb takes to communicate that temporal notion.

There are many ways of categorizing the twelve possible verb tenses of English. This web page is going to limit the information about verb tenses according to the time frame: present tenses, past tenses, and future tenses. Emphasis will be further limited to: simple present, present progressive, simple past, past progressive, simple future, and future progressive. Limited information on the perfect aspect of verb tenses will be given.


The communicative intent of the different verb tenses:

The temporal concepts children need to know they are communicating with the following verb tenses are:

SIMPLE PRESENT - is used to describe an action that is occurring in the present, at the moment of speaking. The simple present is used when the precise beginning or ending of a present action, event, or condition is unknown or is unimportant to the meaning of the sentence. In short, the child's communication intent is about the action, and unconcerned about time of action aspects.

PRESENT PROGRESSIVE - While the simple present and the present progressive are sometimes used interchangeably, the present progressive emphasizes the on-going nature of an act at the time a person is speaking. Present progressive verbs are formed by using a present tense auxiliary verb and marking the main verb with an [ing] ending.

SIMPLE PAST - The simple past is used to describe an action that occurred in the past, sometime before the moment of speaking. The regular past tense verb is marked with the [ed] ending as in (walk - walked). There are seven different ways to mark the irregular past tense verb. The most common is to change the vowel as in (sing - sang)

PAST PROGRESSIVE - The past progressive tense is used to describe actions ongoing in the past. The on-going actions took place and were completed at some point well before the time of speaking. Past progressive verbs are formed by using a past tense auxiliary verb and marking the main verb with an [ing] ending.

SIMPLE FUTURE - The simple future is used to refer to actions that will take place after the act of speaking. The verb is unmarked, but requires a future tense auxiliary verb.

FUTURE PROGRESSIVE - The future progressive tense is used to describe actions ongoing in the future, after the act of speaking. Another way of expressing the meaning communicated by the future progressive verb tense is: an event that will be going on when something else happens. This form requires a future tense auxiliary verb, plus the main verb is marked with an [ing] ending.

Source: http://newton.uor.edu/facultyfolder/rider/verbtenses.htm