🗝️Why is grammar important?

The simple communicative task in the introduction shows that there are infinite ways to finish a thought. There isn’t a single correct way to go about it, a single tense we stick to from start to end.

We asked Alice and Tom to use certain tenses but once they started making free-flowing sentences other tenses quickly began to come up.

Let’s see what we mean:

Last summer I didn’t … really travel because of the restrictions. – Alice finishes the Past Simple sentence that we started for her.

I was working a lot in summer camps for children. – She switched to the Past Continuous ‘I was working’ because it shows she was working for a while. ‘I worked’ wouldn’t tell us how long she worked. She makes us feel that it felt like an extended period of time.

This year I’ve taken the summer off. – Next sentence, next tense. Alice switches to the Present Perfect. She mentions „this year,“ which indicates that her holiday started at some point in the past and she is still off and not working. She shows us that she is currently enjoying the time off.

Let’s now take a look at Tom finishing the same prompt:

Last summer I didn’t go back to England which is something that I do most summers. – Tom begins with the Past Simple (as expected), but within the same sentence, he switches to the Present Simple to highlight his typical summer routine. He helps us sense the contrast (Past Simple) compared to the usual pattern (Present Simple), leading us to feel that last summer was an exception to his usual summer habits.

🔓With grammar knowledge you know how to make people feel a certain way.