Specializarea: Limba engleză [622780]

UNIVERSITATEA DIN ORADEA
Departamentul pentru Pregătirea și Perfecționarea Personalului Didactic
Specializarea: Limba engleză

The Communicative Approach
in Teaching
Sequence of Tenses

Coordonator științific: Lect. univ. dr. Claudia Leah

Autor: Duma ( Sabă u) Mirela Sanda
Colegiul Tehnic „Mihai Viteazul”
Localitatea: Oradea
Județ ul: Bihor

– Oradea 2016 –

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Contents

Introduction ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Argument ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. 4
The importance of English as an international language ………………………….. …………………. 6
Concepts and ter minology ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …… 8
1. Chapter 1: Theoretical Premises ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………. 10
1.1. An outline of tenses ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …. 10
1.1.1. Time and tense ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …. 10
1.1.2. The category of aspect ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………… 14
1.2. Rules of the sequence of tenses ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………… 17
1.2.1. Backshfting ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……… 17
1.2.2. Time setting ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …….. 25
2. Chapter 2: Applications of Sequence of Tenses ………………………….. ……………………… 28
2.1. Reported speech ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……… 28
2.1.1. Rules ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………. 28
2.1.2. Transformations ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. . 30
2.2. Conditionals ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………… 42
2.2.1. An outline ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………… 42
2.2.2. Types of conditionals ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………….. 43
2.2.3. Conditionals in reported speech: ………………………….. ………………………….. ……. 46
3. Chapter 3: On Communicative Competence ………………………….. …………………………. 48
3.1. What is communicative competence? ………………………….. ………………………….. …….. 48
3.2. Dimensions of communicative competence ………………………….. …………………………. 55
3.3. The communicative approach to teaching sequence of tenses ………………………….. .. 59
3.3.1. The communicative syllabus ………………………….. ………………………….. …………… 76
3.3.2. The place of grammar in a communicative syllabus ………………………….. ………. 78
4. Chapter 4: Teaching Sequence of Tenses Communicatively ………………………….. …… 80
4.1. The importance of teaching the sequence of tenses communicatively ………………….. 80
4.2. Strategies of teaching and learning ………………………….. ………………………….. ……….. 82
4.2.1. Prese ntation ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …….. 83
4.2.2. Isolation and explanation ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………. 84
4.2.3. Practice and production ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………… 85

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4.3. Communicative lesson plans ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………. 99
5. Chapter 5: Testing, Errors and Remedies ………………………….. ………………………….. . 112
5.1. Outline on testing ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ….. 112
5.1.1. Basic principles of testing ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………. 112
5.1.2. Reasons for testing ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………… 113
5.2. Communicative testing ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………….. 115
5.3. Types of errors and error analysis ………………………….. ………………………….. ………. 120
5.3.1. Overgeneralization ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………… 120
5.3.2. Analogy generating hybrid structures ………………………….. ………………………… 120
5.3.3. Analogy generating endingless forms ………………………….. ………………………… 121
5.3.4. Overgeneralization associated with redundancy reduction. ………………………. 121
5.3.5. General cases of analogy ………………………….. ………………………….. …………….. 121
5.3.6. Failure to learn conditions under which rules apply ………………………….. ……. 122
5.3.7. False concepts hypothesized by the learner ………………………….. ………………… 122
5.4. Suggestions for remedial teaching ………………………….. ………………………….. ……….. 123
6. Chapter 6: Practical Research: Outcomes and Analysis ………………………….. ………. 132
6.1 First evaluation and analysis ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………. 133
6.2. The second evaluation and comparative analysis ………………………….. ………………. 143
Conclusions ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………… 148
Bibliography: ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………… 151

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Introduction

Argument

Teaching English communicatively in an exam -focused setting such as the Romanian
educational system is a challenge and it is difficult, to say the least. Most Romanian students
learn English for exams, the Ro manian baccalaureate exam or the Cambridge or IELTS
exam s, as a good level of English knowledge may help them secure a job. The vast majority
of them don’t use the English language outside the classroom, a few of them have friends in
other countries with whom they talk in English, some of them travel to another country and
have to use their knowledge of English and, occasionally, there are a few passionate ones that
learn English as a hobby for their own benefit.
Nevertheless, t he starting point of this paper is a practical one, we use communication
when teaching and we use verbs constantly when we produce language and we need to know
the correct forms of the verbs, the correct ways for using them and the proper way to use them
in m ore complex structures. Dealing with the verb means not only to deal with the verbs
themselves, but also dealing with concord, with aspects of the verb, with tenses and with the
rules for using them in more complex structures, like reported speech or the c onditional.
Over the years, during my teaching career, among other slips on the students’ part, I
have noticed that they often have difficulties with the sequence of tenses, not when they
encounter it in various contexts, but when uttering or writing complex sentences. These
difficulties may occur because of the influence of the mother -tongue – in Romanian there is
no restriction for using certain tenses in subordinate clauses – because of the efficacy of the
teaching methods, the clearness of the explanations or because of the degree of the students’
understanding. As a result, this is something that I am concerned with and something that I
constantly try to improve in terms of teaching techniques and methods , thus using the
communicative approach to language teaching, because the lack of understanding of the
sequence of tenses impairs their production of language.
The current paper contains the theoretic basis for teaching the sequence of tenses
communicatively and the feedbac k to teaching the sequence of tenses in communicative
classes materialized in given tests and their interpretation according to various criteria. I have

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aimed to make a pertinent comparison between the traditional teaching methods and the
communicative one s, and between deductive and inductive teaching. I also tried to highlight
the benefits of using communicative teaching methods but also to foresee possible drawbacks.
I have also tried to devise examples of practical activities that can be done in the cla ssroom
using the communicative approach , to find effective ways to deal with errors
The sources that I have consulted for this paper helped me to get a clearer outlook on
the communicative approach to teaching , offered me methods, techniques and tools tha t I can
adapt and use in teaching communicatively in the most effective ways and they provided
examples of activities and starting points for me to create my own activities for the class.

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The importance of English as an international language

When we talk about English and teaching English in the world of globalization, we no
longer talk about a foreign language or teaching just a foreign language, we talk about an
international language. We use English to communicate with others who belong to a different
culture or country, in other words, we use English to be part of the global community. English
is thus more than just a means of communication, it helps people form relationships and
interact in different social contexts and sociolinguistic sit uations.
English is the most spoken language internationally, it is not just a language spoken by
a large number of native speakers and it has developed to the dominant language it is today by
not being linked to a single nation or culture, but it serves g lobal needs and purposes. It is the
language used in business, diplomacy, global politics and science, it is the language of
international air traffic control and maritime communication, it is used in international
conferences and events of all sorts and a lso international sporting events and international
travel. English is mainly spoken in the European Union, it is the official language of many
international organizations, like the United Nations, and also of professional organizations
and the demand for learning it continues to grow every day. English is also a window over the
world, it is a medium of communication of news and information and more than half of the
papers in the world are published in English.
English is important in our country as well, a s we are part of the European Union and
we also have to know English for all the reasons mentioned above: to interact with people in
other countries, to be able to study or work abroad, to participate in international conferences
and events etc. Also, many Romanian students prepare for studying abroad and so they need
to know English at a very high level. Many other students, on the other hand, finish their
studies here in Romania, and because of their knowledge in certain fields of expertise are
offered jo bs abroad.
It is crucial that English is studied in school, this being the formal teaching, which it
completed by the informal teaching. It is a known fact that young children assimilate a foreign
language easily, as they have a good mental condition to acquire somet hing new. Studies
show that areas of the brain that organize language skills have the most rapid growth. In
Romania English is taught in kindergarten and in the first and second grade beginning with

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basic English vocabulary, which is taught through images, simple orders and songs, chants
and poems. Starting with the third grade, grammar is taught and also simple functions of the
language and by the time the students finish high -school, they should know English at vantage
or upper intermediate level, accordi ng to the Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages. Those who want to perfect their English study it at university or enrol in different
courses. Having already mentioned the advantages of knowing English, I will emphasise
again that gaining co mmunicative competence in English helps the students integrate in the
global community; it allows them to know different cultures and establish relationships over
the world and gives them the opportunity to study or work abroad, which broadens their
cultur al and professional horizon.
An essential part of studying the language is learning its grammar, grammatical rules
are important for the mastery of the language, as speakers need to produce correct and
accurate language. Even if rules may change over time , grammar practiced in appropriate
real-life contexts makes communication possible and it helps students gain communicative
competence. Understanding grammar and syntax helps students to make progress in learning
the language and also builds their confiden ce. Knowledge of the grammar rules also reduces
the mistakes made by students. Without knowledge of the English grammar rules, students
cannot create their own correct utterances and also, they do not entirely understand what they
hear or read in English a nd this frustrates the students and discourages them.
Part of producing correct and accurate sentences is using the verbs and tenses
correctly. In this paper I will make a clear differentiation between encoding and decoding
time, which is crucial for the correct use of tenses. In complex sentences, we have to use more
than one verb, and oftentimes more than one tense and to do this correctly we have to decide
which tense to use for which action. If we want to produce correct complex sentences, we
absolute ly have to know the rules of the sequence of tenses, which is the logical grammatical
relationship between the verb in the main clause and the verbs in the subordinate ones. Every
action has to have it corresponding tense and we have to know how to use the m correctly in
complex sentences, so as to transmit accurate information, to speak truthfully and thus
avoiding numerous misunderstandings caused by inaccuracy in speaking or writing.
In order to utter correct sentences and to communicate effectively, we need to master
the rules of grammar, and in order to speak about facts and actions we need to know how the
sequence of tenses rules, so as not to create confusion for the listener or reader and in this way
preventing unpleasant situations.

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Concepts and terminology

In this paper, I have used some theoretical concepts that I would like to analyse in
more detail:
 Tense – the grammatical contrast between the present and past forms of the
verb
e.g. He reads a lot. (present tense )
He read a story last night. (past tense)
 Aspect – a grammatical category of the verb that indicates the temporal point
of view from which a state or an event is perceived as taking place, the aspect
of the verb can be simple, progressive or continuous and perfect
e.g. She is s inging. (continuous aspect)
They watch cartoons every day. (simple aspect)
He has finished already. (perfect aspect)
 Sequence of tenses – a type of concord between the tense of the verb in the
principal clause and the verb in a subordinate clause, the l ogical grammatical
relationship between the verb in the main clause and the verb in a subordinate
clause
e.g. I think he will be late. (present followed by present)
I thought he was going to be late. (past followed by past)
 Complex sentence – a sentence made up of a principal or main clause and one
or more subordinate clauses
e.g. She noticed that you were tired.
 Backshifting – the changing of a present form verb to a past form or a past
form verb to a past perfect form in the main clause after a past ve rb form in the
principal clause so as to respect the chronological, real order of events
e.g. I knew that she was lying.
 Encoding time – the actual time when the event takes place
 Decoding time – the time when the utterance about a certain event is produc ed
 Direct object clause – the subordinate clause that takes the role of a direct
object for the verb in the main clause

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e.g. Remember that we need to leave by 5.
 Direct speech – a way of reporting what someone says reproducing the exact
words written or sp oken
e.g. She said to me “Don’t go very far.”
 Reported/indirect speech – a way of reporting what someone sais using our
own words
e.g. She told me not to go very far.
 Reporting verb – the verb in the main clause that introduces what someone
says, a report , an idea and so on: to ask, to say, to answer, etc.
 Conditional clause – an adverbial clause that expresses a condition
e.g. If he calls, I will not answer the phone.
 Communicative competence – the ability to communicate appropriately in any
given context by having besides the knowledge of the language a knowledge of
the world
 Communicative language teaching – a teaching approach centred on
communication in life -like contexts with the aim of developing the students’
communicative competence

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1. Chapter 1: Theoretical Premises
1.1. An outline of tenses

1.1.1. Time and tense

Among the linguistic categories which are relevant for the subjective way of 8
apprehending reality, none is as rich as the category of tense . It is one of the primary
categories referring to the verb, besides aspect, mood, voice etc.
A common mistake in approaching the category of tense is the belief that the temporal
system of a l anguage is the reflection of the objective or physical time, time as measured by
specialized instruments (clocks). This approach means that language reflects reality at first
hand . Even the well renowned traditio nal grammarian, Jespersen (1992) states that the
category of tense concerns the linguistic manifestation of the concept of time and its
subdivisions.
By category , in any field of science, we mean a concept of maximal generality. In
linguistics , there are several kinds of categories, depending on the linguistic level we
approach:
a) grammatical categories , which mean semantic categories that have morphological
correlates (i.e. relations by means of specialized markers);
b) syntactic categories r oughly coinciding with the basic units of the syntactic level:
sentence and phrase.
The tense is a feature of the verb, it is the form taken by it to show the time at which
the action or state denominated by that verb occurs. Talking about the time, in ord er to be able
to live in society, in order to adjust ourselves successfully to our environment we must be in a

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position to make highly reliable measurements which permit a precise prediction of events. It
has been necessary in all civilizations to establis h a public time , according to Ștefănescu
(1978 ) based on the periodicity of some easily observable phenomena (e.g. the phases of the
moon). As it has been pointed out by all the linguists studying the problem of time, public
time has an essential property. This property derives from the common acceptance of time as
an infinite straight line which is unidimensional . I have already mentioned previously the fact
that the public time uses cosmic events as point markers in terms of which we record the
action of the events. Thus certain activities are performed at sunrise, before noon, after sunset
etc. Although sunrise, sunset and so on are events in the objective reality, when used as point
markers , with respect to which activities can be simultan eous, before and after they are
considered as points and they have no duration .
This is clear from the following example: consider the question “At what time did it
happen?” and the answer is: “Right after breakfast” it is clear that we do not associate
breakfast with a measurable event, but it constitutes a point marker or an axis of orientation
for the events to follow. In tran sformational generative grammar , tense is defined according to
a strictly point of view – occurrence or non -occurrence of a past m orpheme, and can be
interpreted in two ways: past or present .
We express distinction in time (past, present, future) through tense. Some
grammarians believe that tense must always be shown by the actual form of the verb and in
many languages present, past and future are indicated by changes in verb form. In this respect,
English has only two tenses, the present and the past, since these are the only two cases where
the form of the basic verb varies: love, write (present); loved , wrote (past), this being
conventional idea among some grammarians.
A widely spread view , on the other hand , conceives of tense as a threefold distinction:
past, present and future , although so me grammarians do not consider the future as being a
tense per se. However it is usual and c onvenient to refer to all combinations of be and present
participle and have + past participle as tenses and the same for shall / will + b are infinitive .
The category of tense relates the time of an event – the encoding time – to the time
when an utterance is produced – the decoding time. Tense is a deictic category as it is
obviously dependent upon the speaker and the time of the utterance.
We can make a distinction between semantic and grammatical tense in terms of the
semantic f eatures: <past>, <present>, <future> and the syntactic features [ + / – past]. Thus a
verb phrase with present time reference wi ll have the semantic features – present – and will
be specified syntactically according to the presence or of a marker. Some gr ammarians

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suggest [ + present / – past] for present, [ – present / + past] for past, and [ – present / – past] for
future.
Tense is marked in English by means of a bound morpheme for the past forms and by
a number of free morphemes like -ing, or participle. The meaning o f the tense morpheme
depends on and can be modified by the presence of a non -verbal temporal specifier and also
by temporal specification in the main clause.
e.g. Mother is coming .
With no temporal specifier , this sentence would normally be in terpreted a s having
present time reference
Mother is coming tomorrow .
In this example, the interpretation of the formal present is conditioned by the
presence of tomorrow and it acquires future time reference.
A morpheme almost entirely similar to the past tense morpheme is used not for the
past time reference but to show the hypothetical or virtual character of the event.
e.g. If I were a millionaire , I would probably live on an island .
The notion of order , however, is very important for the understanding of tense. Tense
deals with the order of events, that is, not just time when but, as Duțescu (1983 ) says, time
when in relation to another time whe n, either directly or indirectly, in the moment of speech ,
which is now.
Tense implies order, but order does not necessarily imply tense. According to
Chomsky ’s Universal Grammar , as presented by Cook and Newson (2007) , every sentence
has an obligatory feature of tense, so there are only two choice for all finite v erb forms: either
the present ( -s for the third p erson singular) or the past (occurrence of the past tense
morpheme) according to the rule . It has been suggested that the two terms of the opposition be
calle d past and non- past rather than past and present since past typically refers to past
events, whi le non- past is not restricted to present time reference.
If the opposition past / non -past is achieved by systematic suffixation of the first
element of the verb phrase, there is no simil ar systematic process with the future . The
classical future paradigm I shall , you will , he will etc. is only one mean of achieving future
time reference. Other auxiliaries fulfil exactly the same function: can, may, be -ing, be
about to and the simple present form of the verb. On the othe r hand , shall and will function in
another capacity than future markers – volition , habit , probability , general truth , threat ,
promise etc. So there is no future in English in the formal syntactic sense though there are
verb forms which have future time references.

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The category of tense which is marked upon verbs stands for the chronology of the
events as perceived by the person observing them at the moment of speech. The
distinguishing mark of the linguistic category tense is that it is organised in rela tion to the act
of speech which is considered to be the main axis of orientation against which all the
perceived events are ordered. The present moment, the moment of speaking, or the moment at
which the discourse is uttered, constitutes the poin t versus w hich some events are anterior ,
posterior or simultaneous .
It is important to keep the tw o concepts of time and tense strictly apart. The former is
common to all mankind and is independent of language, while the latter varies from language
to language and is the linguistic expression of time relations.
According to Jespersen (2006 ), time is divided into two parts, the past and the future,
the point of division being the present moment which, like a mathematical point, has no
dimension, but is continually fleeting .
The fact that the linguistic expression of time differs across natural languages is
essential for the object and methodology of the present paper. Indeed, my aim is to obtain a
presentation of the rules that make up the so -called sequence of tenses and, when this is
important, a contrastive analysis of the tense system in English and Romanian.
As we know it , the English verb has many tenses. For over a century, grammarians
have been saying that English has only two tenses: past and non -past. Joos (1964) calls the
unmarked tense actual and the marked one remote . English treats future as not remote from
the present time.
The present tense may express action or existence at the moment of speaking,
timelessness, repetition. The present tense may be used instead of the past in order to make a
descriptio n seem present and vivid; this historical present is used both in historical accounts
and in dramatic descriptions, in fiction, and may replace the usual preterit e.
The present tense may be used for the futu re in subordinate clauses when the pincipal
clause to which they are attached expresses or implies the future:
e.g. If he calls , I will tell him.
In the principal clause the simple present cannot be used with ordinary futu re values,
but when it expresses something planned or assumed at present and coming into the future , it
has future meaning , as Schibsbye (1970 ) points out .
e.g. He leaves for Brussels next Sunday.
The present may be used instead of the preterit e in indirect statements, where the usual
sequence of tenses may be counteracted by the real time value of the co ntent of the
subordinate clause.

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e.g. “I leave for Rome tomorrow”, Janice said this morning.
Janice said this morning that she leaves for Rome tomorrow.
If the statement can be taken as a report , the preterit is used.
e.g. “I’m going to Dubai”, Jean said.
Jean said she was going to Dubai.
The preterit e (i.e. past tense) is used for an action which is regarded as completed in
the past . The past tense is used for the present in indirect statements, hypothetical matters,
future corresponding to the use of the present tense:
e.g. “Is she a student here?” Tony asked.
Tony asked whether she was a student here.
I have made some reference to the sequence of tenses and the indirect speech here, but
I will be discussing these matters in more detail in the chapter on the rules of sequence of
tenses and in the chapter on indirect speech .
The future tense has a debatabl e status in English. The fact that many forms are used
to refer to the future or to habitual activity is a source of great confusion. All too often
comparison is made between forms in their basic uses and forms in their habitual or future
uses.
The future and habitual uses are normally marked by adverbials , while the basic use is
normally not marked in this respect . Future time reference cannot be dealt with in terms of a
three -term system of present, past and future if any attention at all is paid to the formal
pattering claims Palmer (1974 ).
The present tense continuous is used to express a future action which is planned in a
present moment .
e.g. We are leaving tomorrow . (this is our plan)
The future events are posterior to a past moment , then, which is mentioned in the
moment of speaking .
e.g. We were seeing the therapist the next day .

1.1.2. The category of aspect

Unlike in Romanian, in English there is a specific category associated to the verb,
namely that of aspect.
In terms of aspect, m ost frequently , tense forms in English with one of the two aspects
or with both:

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a) the progressive (continuous)
b) the perfect (which is not a tense according to modern grammarian s)
Aspect describes the quality of an event while it is observed by the speaker, the way
the spea ker sees the event. The choice of aspect is a comment on a particular view of the
action.
An event may be accomplished or not, in process or completed, irrespective of its
location in relation with now. In other words, aspect is not a deictic category.
Engli sh has two sets of aspectual contrasts: perfective/ non -perfective and progressive/
non-progressive.
The tense and aspect categories can be combined in various ways, and thus Quirk
(1972 ) chooses the following system of four types of constructions in the c omplex verb
phrase.

Type A
present modal
auxiliary
I have to study.
past modal
auxiliary
I had to study.
Type B
present
perfect
He has studied.
past
perfect
He had studied.
Type C
present
progressive
He is studying.
past
progressive
He was studying.

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These set types may also be combined :

The present perfect indicates a period of time stretching ba ckwards into some earlier
times.
e.g. John has published that book .
The choice of perfective aspect is associated with time orientation and consequently
also with time indicators lately , since , so far etc.
There is a difference between the past and the perfect tense in terms of definitiveness.
In the following examples, th e past implies definite reference and the perfect indefinite
reference:
e.g. Did you hear them play? (on a certain occasion)
Have you heard them play? (at any time)
The past perfect has the meaning of past-in-the-past.
e.g. John had published that book before I met him.
The progressive aspect indicates temporariness – an action in progress instead of the
occurrence of an action or the existence of a state.
e.g. The patient is recovering well .
The verbs which most typically take the progressive aspect are verbs denoting
activities walk , read, drink etc. or processes change , grow , improve etc., while the verbs
which do not normally take the progressive aspect include:
a) Verbs of perceiving : hear, see, smell, taste etc.
b) Verbs referring to a state of mind or feeling : believe, desire, hate, forget, know, like,
suppose, want etc.
Type D
present
passive
The lesson is studied.
past passive
The lesson was studied.
Type BC
present perfect
progressive
He has been studying.
past perfect
progressive
He had been studying

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c) Verbs referring to a relationship or a state of being : be, belong to, contain, involve,
own, require etc.
A number of meaning s and overtones go with the progressive aspect such as limi ted
durat ion, incompletion, simultaneity, vividness of description, emotional colouring, and
emphas is can be added to process and continuation.
So far , I have tried a general treatment of th ese categor ies of the verb called tense and
aspect , which are of a great importance in dealing with the sequence of tenses .

1.2. Rules of the sequence of tenses

1.2.1. Backshfting

In simple sentences we simply choose the tense according to the time it happens and
we don’t have a certain rule to follow, just the meaning o the sentence and the intent of the
speaker , but in sequences of speech and writing that contain complex sentences, the question
of which tenses or combination of tenses should be used arises. We decide whi ch tense is
suitable for each separate action, this depending on the aspect of activity and the aspect of the
speaker’s time and then we follow the sequence of tenses rules, which refer to the very
relationship between the tenses in subordinate clauses and those in principal clauses, a logical
grammatical relationship in which the tenses in the subordinate clause are determined by the
tenses in the principal ones. The sequence of tenses rules apply mostly to direct object
clauses, but I will explain later o n in this paper, we may encounter them in various types of
subordinate clauses.
If we pay attention to and take care of each tense, the sequence of speech or writing
will take care of itself. Nevertheless, at times, sudden or frequent change of tense can b e
confusing to the listener or reader, unless this is deliberate or intended. We as listeners or
readers are used to finding present tenses with other present tenses or future and past tenses
with other past tenses or future -in-the-past; this leads to the sequence of tenses rules.
From a historical point of view, the sequence of tenses phenomena were found in
Latin and Greek and the grammarians of the day used terms similar to sequence of tenses . The
Roman grammarians noticed that the tense of a finite verb is influenced by that of the verb in
the main clause, and devised rules for what was called “the ‘connection’ ( coniectio ),
‘conjunction’ ( contiunction ), ‘coming together’ ( convectio ), or ‘sequence’ ( consecutio ) of

18
tenses ( temporum )” (Binnick, 1991: 86) , which today is known as the sequence of tenses
rules.
Among the traditional grammarians that dealt with English, Curme (1931) uses the
term sequence of tenses when talking about the rule that applies to the tenses in complex
sentences, while Jespersen (1931) uses back -shifting when talking about the contrast between
direct and indirect speech, thus narrowing the applicability of the rule. The more modern
ones, Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik (1972) use the term back -shift when they
explain the sequence of tenses phenomena, but they refer strictly to reporting verbs, again,
restricting the applicability of the rule. More recently, Comrie (1985) , Baker (1989) ,
Hornstein (1990) and Stowell (1993) have supported the sequence of tenses rule.
No matter how ma ny forms or explanations the sequence of tensed has had over the
years, traditional grammarians and also modern ones agree that the phenomena mentioned in
the rules are triggered by the presence of a past tense verb in the higher hierarchic position
within the complex phrase.
In accurate speaking or writing, the tenses “agree both logically and grammatically”
(Garner, 2016: 2051) . Trask (2000) notices though that the sequence of tenses rules are less
rigorous in English than in other languages, but we have to take into consideration that these
rules are not found in all the languages.
The basic rules of sequence of tenses are stated easily and clearly and I will present
them thoroughly and in detail, but first I want to highlight some of the basic rules that I have
found in the sources I have studied when writing this paper. Some grammarians have simple,
yet different approaches on the rules of sequence of tenses, and also some contexts may
contradict their apparent simplicity.
In Garner ’s (2016) opinion, the sequence of tenses has three simple rules , which, in
my opinion, do not cover all the situations we may encounter :
1. When the verb in the p rincipal clause is in the present tense, present perfect or
future, the verb in the subordinate clause is in the present form; this is called the
primary sequence.
e.g. I assume you’ve known the truth all along.
He has already noticed that you are absent -minded.
She will find out that you are leaving.
2. When the verb in the principal clause is in the past tense or past perfect, the verb in
the subordinate clause is in a past tense; this is called the secondary sequence.
e.g. I believed that they were at t he office.
She had thought that you were loyal to her.

19
Interestingly enough, the past tense required in a subordinate clause can easily
refer to a present time. In such cases, the sequence of tenses overrules the normal
meaning of past and present tenses.
e.g. I didn’t know you were here.
Trask (2000) , on the other hand, thinks that in some cases it is not necessarily
ungrammatical to have a verb in the present tense in the subordinate after a past
verb in the principal one, but he does say it is somewhat unnatural and after a past
verb in the principal clause we normally put the verb in the subordinate into the
past as well.
e.g. Jamie said that he is coming.
3. When the subordinate clause states a general truth, it should be in a present tense,
regardless o f the tense in the principal one. We might call this the “ongoing -truth
exception”.
e.g. Even little children know that the sun rises in the East.
He had known that the Danube flows into the Black Sea.
There are situations in which the primary sequence is distorted.
e.g. No one expects that he would pass his exams if he took it.
The secondary sequence also undergoes distortions when the speaker starts with a past
tense in the principal clause and then continues with a present or fut ure in the subordinate
clause.
e.g. He rarely left the house for fear that someone will follow him and rob him
Garner (2016) discusses other problems that occur with tenseless infinitives, which
are wrongly made perfect infinitives when they are placed af ter a past tense verb, as we can
see in the following examples:
e.g. How would you have liked to have been neglected at the party?
It would have been wrong to have lied to him.
We may as well encounter frequent problems regarding the verbs seemed and
appeared , as shown in the examples:
e.g. She appeared to have enjoyed the concert.
He seemed to have liked the novel.
Some of the speakers , ignore, by mistake, or from the need to be “as accurate as
possible” the on going -truth exception.
e.g. The student apparently ignored the fact that ice melted when it was heated, so the
experiment was a disaster.

20
The relationship between the tenses in the complex sentence has to be a logical one, in
accordance with the real or possible train of events from a chronolo gical point of view and
also in accordance with the speaker’s intent. Nevertheless, the logical relationship has to be
also grammatical, i.e. to be expressed by means of adequate grammatical forms and tenses
meant to carry out the functions requested by th e logic of the complex sentence.
In numerous cases, the logical -grammatical relationship between the tenses in the
clauses is to a certain extent simple and natural, but in contemporary English the sequence of
tenses is a much more complex phenomenon and not knowing the sequence of tenses rules
means not knowing basic elements of the English language, because, in a multitude of
contexts there are temporal relationships in almost any sentence.
Levițchi (2008) does not totally dismiss the mechanical learning of the sequence of
tenses rules, if anyone decides to learn them by heart, but he suggests that, considering the
wide variety of possible situations and for a better mastery of the sequence of tenses rules,
knowing certain theoretical aspects is mandatory :
a) Firstly, it is essential to know the various functions of the tenses and also to keep
in mind that any grammatical form and thus the verb forms have most often
specific functions – basic, important and usual ones – and nonspecific functions –
circumstant ial ones, less important – and we must keep away from what Levițchi
(2008) calls “the fetishism of specific functions”.
e.g. I should be happy if I pass my exams.
“I should be happy ” is present conditional and it is used in its specific
function. “ Pass” historically is a form of the subjunctive and today it is a
preterite that in this example carries out a specific function of the present
conditional, in other words, it was not used to show an action in the past
without any connection to the present, whic h is a specific function, but to
express a condition, a nonspecific function.
Such changes in function of the verb forms allow us to think that any
grammatical -temporal relationship correctly expressed becomes a logical
relationship, even if the verb form is not the adequate one.
b) In various periods of its historical evolution, the English language has undergone
certain developments of verb forms and functions. Contemporary English though
has its own verb system, but here and there older forms and functions of the verb
have been kept and they must be learned as such.
e.g. I wish I were taller.
“Were” is an old form of the subjunctive.

21
c) There is a synonymy between the sequence of tenses cases in English, which
implies the study of the overtones where they occu r.
e.g. I should announce him if I see him.
Should I meet him, I should announce him.
The two examples are almost identical . They differ modally, but historically
speaking , there is a stylistic synonymy between the two sentences.
d) The rules of the sequence of tenses regard literary English, where the rules are
more or less obeyed. In other styles than the literary one, like the journalistic style,
we can observe a certain dismissal of the rules.
e.g. The mayor announced that he will take part in the unveili ng of the monument
in the afternoon .
The correct literary form would be:
The mayor announced that he would take part in the unveiling of the
monument in the afternoon .
e) The sequence of tenses system in English varies considerably from the one in
Romanian, which constitutes once again a warning against mechanical
substitutions from one language to another. For those Romanians that study
English, one of the few encouraging aspects regarding the sequence of tenses is the
fact that often the subordinates in Rom anian – mainly the tenses of the subjunctive
– are substituted in English with impersonal verb forms, preferably infinitives.
e.g. Aș vrea să te rog ceva. – I should like to ask you something.
Voiam să te rog ceva. – I wanted to ask you something.
Voi în cerca să nu mă implic. – I shall try not to get involved.
Încercam s ă nu spun nimic, ca s ă nu fiu implicat. – I was trying not to say
anything, in order not to be involved / so as not to be involved.
f) A few very general principles constitute a basis for the sequence of tenses rules:
1. When the verb in the principal clause is in a present tense, the verb in the
subordinate clause can be in any tense required by the logic of the sentence.
e.g. I am sure that they will arrive on time.
They think that everything was a lie.
She has already admitted that she had stolen the jewellery.
2. When the verb in the principal clause is in the past tense, the verb in the
subordinate clause has to be in a past tense or future -in-the-past.
e.g. I suspected they hadn’t met him before.
He knew that they would meet the next day regardless of the weather.

22
We had always thought they were meant to be together.
3. When the verb in the principal clause has a future meaning, the verb in the
subordinate is in a present form.
e.g. I will listen to what you have to say.
I am going to ask him what he wants.
What is more, Levițchi (2008) states that the abnormalities and the variations
sometimes become rules themselves when the issue is analysed according to the
types of subordinate clauses . On the other hand, some types of subordinate clauses
ignore the tense in the principal clause and thus the verb in the subordinate clause
is conditioned by the intent of the speaker and their function is exclusively a
specific one.
e.g. I’ll show you the dress that I bought yesterday. – relative clause
He sang better than he usually does. – comparative clause
He didn’t say anything to me, as we are meeting later to discuss it . – clause of
reason
On these premises, we may proceed with the sequence of te nses rules, combining all
the situations the grammarians have identified in what I think is the most accurate and
complex system of sequence of tenses rules:
I. As many grammarians agree, if the verb in the principal clause is in a present
tense, the verb in the subordinate clause can be in any tense required by the logic
of the sentence and the intent of the speaker, with no other restrictions.
e.g. I know that they will come.
I know that he left. etc.
II. If the verb in the principal clause is in a future form, in the subordinate clause we
may use any tense except a future tense.
e.g. I will tell him that I need his help tomorrow.
III. If the verb in the principal clause is in a past tense, the verb in the subordinate
clause has to be also in a past tense or future -in-the-past.
e.g. I saw that he had left.
I knew he had to go.
I hoped that he would come.
Exceptions here are:
 Sentences that express a general fact or a universal truth:
e.g. She told us that Einstein is the most recognized physicist.

23
 Direct object clauses after verbs like know, realize, believe, think, hope,
regret that express a truth that is still valid at the moment of speaking:
e.g. I then realized she is Polish.
IV. After verbs like ask, demand, require, order, urge, suggest, propose, arrange , we
use the analytical present subjunctive in the subordinate , should with the
infinitive :
e.g. The teacher demanded that the students should read the whole chapter.
And sometimes in written English the synthetic present subjunctive is used:
e.g. The teacher demanded that the students read the whole chapter .
V. After the verb wish:
 We use the past tense to express regret towards an action not done in the
present or a longer situation:
e.g. I wish they were here.
I wish I lived in the Netherlands.
 We use past perfect to express regret towards an action not done in the
past:
e.g. I wish they had joined us.
 We use would with the infinitive to express desire for a future action,
action that may not happen, of a polite request:
e.g. I wish he would stop doing that.
I wish you would spell th at.
We have to take notice, if the verb wish is followed by an indicative, it
means to hope for something in the future, that may happen:
e.g. I wish he will get here on time.
The same rule applies both to I’d rather and I’d sooner :
e.g. I’d rather he studied more.
I’d rather he had studied more.
I’d sooner he practiced more often.
I’d sooner he would come tomorrow.
Gucker (1966) highlights the difference between sequence of tenses, which refers to
the logic according to which we use the same tense or different tenses in various subordinate
clauses, and the shifts of tense, which is an illogical or unnecessary change in tense and he
mentions some situations in which the sequence of tenses rules are present:
1. In typical narrative, the past tense or the historical present may be used, but not
both tenses in the same context, as that would be a shift of tenses.

24
e.g. Then I trip over his shoes, I fall to the floor and I sprain my ankle.
Then I tripped over his shoes, I fell to the floor and sprained my ankle.
2. Like Garner’s (2016) ongoing -truth except ion, Gucker (1966) says that in a
subordinate clause that refers to a general truth, present tense has to be used,
regardless of the tense in the principal clause.
e.g. She often reminded me that a bit of honey goes a long way .
Ancient scholars did not kn ow that the earth is round.
3. When the change in the point of view from direct speech to indirect speech may
require a change in tense.
e.g. Paula said, “I really like this band.”
Paula said that she really liked that band.
4. When expressing past time, we have to differentiate past tense, used to indicate a
given time in the past, from present perfect, used to cover a period of time up to
the present of the speaker, but this does not involve the presence of a complex
clause, i.e. a main clause and at least a subordinate one.
e.g. I talked to him yesterday .
I have read the article several times .
5. When the past perfect is used for indicating a past action earlier in time than other
past actions.
e.g. I remembered that I had n’t locked the door .
When I saw him , I realised that I had forgotten his book at home.
6. After if, in the subordinate clause past perfect must be used, and not would have .
e.g. If you had been more attentive , you would have noticed him .
If he had studied harder, he might have passed the exam .
7. When expressing an action completed earlier than the main verb, the perfect
infinitive must be used and for a normal sequence of tenses, the present infinitive
must be used.
e.g. I planned to visit you next summer .
I should have liked to see them more often .
I should like to have seen them more often.
8. In contrary -to-fact statements, after if or verbs expressing a wish, the subjunctive
form were must be used.
e.g. If I were her, I’d refuse the offer .
You speak to me as if you were my father.
At times I wish you were more responsible.

25
1.2.2. Time setting

As I stated previously when I presented the tenses, t he present moment, the moment of
speaking, or the moment at which the discourse is uttered, constitutes the point versus which
some events show :
a) anteriority – this means they take place before the moment of speech i.e. they are
recollected.

b) simultane ity with the moment of speaking, i.e. they happen at the same time.

principal clause
•present /
present perfect /
future
•past simple /
past perfect
subordinate clause
•present perfect
•past perfect
principal clause
•present /
present perfect /
future
•past /
past perfect
subordinate clause
•present
•past

26

c) posterior ity to the moment of speech , i.e. they are anticipated and therefore will
take place after the moment of speaking.

The tenses used in the complex sentence are also chosen according to the relationship
between the activities expressed by the verb form s. The verb in the subordinate clause may
indicate a simultaneous activity with the one in the principal clause or an anterior or posterior
activity.
When the verb in the principal clause is in a present tense, a verb in the future forms in
the subordinate clause shows posteriority to the activity in the principal clause.
e.g. I hope they are going to deliver the parcel soon.
When the verb in the principal clause is in a present tense , a verb in a present tense in
the subordinate clause shows simultaneity wit h the action in the principal clause.
e.g. I think he knows the lesson very well.
When the verb in the principal clause is in a present tense, a verb in a past tense or in a
present perfect tense in the subordinate clause shows anteriority to the action i n the principal
clause.
e.g. I understand she visited you yesterday.
I know you have done your homework.
When the verb in the principal clause is in a past tense, a verb in the future -in-the-past
form shows posteriority to the action in the principal cla use.
e.g. I knew he would call to check on us.
principal clause
•present /
present perfect
•future
•past / past
perfect
subordinate clause
•future
•present
•future -in-the-past

27
When the verb in the principal clause is in a past tense, a verb in a past form shows
simultaneity with the action in the principal clause.
e.g. It was clear to me they were talking nonsense.
When the verb in the principal clause is in a past tense, a verb in the past perfect form
shows anteriority to the action in the principal clause.
e.g. She was in a hurry because she had lost the bus.
When choosing the verb tens in the subordinate clause, attention must be paid to the
sequence of tenses rules, but also to the time relationship between the activities in the
complex sentence, so as to express the intended meaning in the correct manner .

28
2. Chapter 2: Application s of Sequence of Tenses
2.1. Reported s peech

2.1.1. Rules

The accurate repetition of what someone says in a given context regardless of the type
of sentence – declarative, interrogative, and imperative – is called direct speech. Direct speech
is not influenced by the sequence of tenses, although the clauses are direct object clauses.
Unlike in Romanian, direct speech in English is not introduced by colon, it is introduced by
comma.
e.g. She asked me, “Can you sing?”
He had asked me, “Do you like painting?”
Indirect speech or reported speech renders the content of what s omeone says in a given
context and like the clauses in the direct speech, the clauses in indirect speech are direct
object clauses , and also, they do comply with the rules of the sequence of tenses , i.e. when the
reporting verb in the main clause is in past tense, the tenses of th e verbs in the reported
speech, in the subordinate clause, are backshifted , meaning they are changed from present to
past and from past to past pe rfect, but I will analyse the transformations in more depth in the
following chapter.
e.g. Martin says that he is tired.
Martin said that he was tired.
She told me that she had read the book.

29
Huddleson and Pullum (2007) mention that backshifting is most obvious in indirect
speech, but it also occurs in constructions in which a clause is embedded within a larger
one,after a past or preterite verb form.
e.g. She didn’t know that Gina was Italian.
I wondered whether she knew the truth or not.
I wish I knew if the sketches were genuine.
All the verbs in the subord inates have backshifted tense. “Knew ” in the third example
is actually a modal preterite and it doesn’t refer to past time, but it provides a context for
backshift t o take place. Backshifting cannot be understood on the basis of the simple idea that
preterite tenses refer to a past time, it is a special grammatical principle regarding the use of
the preterite tense inflection.
Holisky (1997) too finds other contexts f or backshifting, arguing that backshifting
does not occur only in indirect or reported speech, but also in reported thoughts and feelings,
after verbs like think, know, realise, forget etc.
e.g. He knows that we are meeting tomorrow.
He knew that we were meeting tomorrow.
He points out that in the first example the reporting verb in the main clause is in the
present tense and also the verb in the reported clause is in the present tense. In the second
example, since the reporting verb in the main sentence i s in the past tense, the verb in the
reported clause is backshifted to past tense. What is interesting is that the time of the action
itself has not changed, it remained in the future.
Furthermore, Palmer (2001) draws attention to the fact that backshiftin g occurs also
to modal verbs, not only to full verbs, after a past tense reporting verb in the main clause , I
will also expand on modals transformations in the next chapter .
e.g. He said that he might be there.
She told me she would help me if she could.
Although modals do not inflect for numbers, there is evidence that they do inflect for
tense, the evidence being the sequence of tenses rules that they obey in indirect speech, as
they follow the general rule of replacing a present tense verb with its past tense counterpart
after a past tense verb in the main clause.
e.g. Meg asked if she could close the window.
Paul asked whether he had to wear a uniform.
As we could see in the examples, will can be replaced by would, can by could , may by
might etc. in i ndirect speech and thus we have clear evidence that the sequence of tenses rules
are involved. It seems, therefore, that the present – past change that is that is relevant to verbs

30
in general is relevant for modal verbs as well, as we can clearly distingui sh the past modal
forms from the present modal forms.
Interestingly, McArthur (2005) thinks that backshifting is optional in some situations:
 When what is reported still applies at the time of reporting, this is also what
Gălățeanu -Fârnoagă and Comișel (19 92) are saying and Holisky (1997) as well.
e.g. Justin said that he is/was coming over to watch the game together tonight.
 In relaxed, colloquial reporting or storytelling.
e.g. And then she says she’s leaving and he says she could leave or not, for all h e
cared.
This particular situation I think applies more to native English speakers and less to
those who are using English as a foreign language, because, in my opinion, we
non-native speakers are too preoccupied with accuracy and cannot really “relax”
when speaking for fear that we might commit other mistakes.

2.1.2. Transformations

When speech is reported, which happens quite often, there are changes not only in the
main clause, but also in the reported clause, i.e. the direct object clause , reflecting the
differences between the time of the original speech and the time of reporting that speech, as
well as possible differences between speakers and /or location . The changes that take place
are general, that affect any kind of reported sentence, and specific, which are typical for each
type of sentence: declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, imperative.
A. General transformations concern persons, determiners and tenses.
The personal, reflexive and possessive pronoun changes according to the meaning: 1st
person and the 2nd person usually become the 3rd person.
e.g. Mike told Sarah, “You should have talked to me first”.
Mike told Sarah that she should have talked to him first.
There are also cases when this change doesn’t take place.
e.g. Tom said, “You are right, Nicole.”
Nicole: Tom said that I was right.
The pronoun remains unchanged when the speaker reports his own words.
e.g. “I think we should go home”, I said.
I said I thought we should go home.

31
The demonstrative pronouns or adjectives and the adverb s of place and time that show
closeness to the speaker are replaced by others that show a distance from the speaker:

I
become s he / she
we they
me him / her
my his / her
our their
us them
this that
these those
here there
now then
today that day
tonight that night
tomorrow the next day /
the following day
yesterday the day before /
the previous day
next the next
ago before
the day after tomorrow in two days’ time
the day before yesterday two day before

e.g. She said, “I will give you this book tomorrow.”
She said she would give me that book the next day.
The changes of the adverbs of place and time do not happen automatically, the context
and the moment of the indirect speech suggest the necessary changes.
e.g. Mother to ld Sam, “Clean your room the day after tomorrow.”
Mother asked Sam to clean his room in two days time.
Like Holisky (1997) pointed out, the adverbs of time are replaced only if the
relationship between the time of the indirect speech and the time of the d irect speech is not the
same , when their meaning is still valid to the speaker .
e.g. Audrey called yesterday and said that we are still having that meeting tomorrow.

32
Audrey called last week and said that we were still having that meeting in two
days time.
If the speaking and the reporting of that speech take place in the same day, changing
the pronouns and the adverbs is no longer necessary, because their meaning is the same in
connection to the present.
e.g. Jeremy told me this morning, “This boy sta rts work tomorrow.”
Jeremy told me this morning that this boy starts work tomorrow.
When the reporting verb in the main clause is in the present form, the tenses do not
backshift, as we have already discussed previously, but there are nevertheless changes in
personal pronouns, possessive pronouns and adjectives, but the demonstratives or the adverbs
are not modified.
e.g. Dorothy says she has already typed this letter this morning.
Mr Stevenson claim s that his house is the largest in his neighbourhood.
When the reporting verb in the main clause is in past tense, the tenses of the verbs in
the reported speech, i.e. in the subordinate clause, are backshifted. Backshifting is the
changing of a verb from a present tense to its past tense counterpart and a pa st tense to its past
perfect tense counterpart after a reporting verb in a past form or preterite, according to, as I
have said before, the sequence of tenses rules.
Transformations of the tenses:

The changes in tenses in the indirect clause apply to de clarative, exclamatory and
interrogative sentences only, as they have personal verb forms , and they change according to
the rules of the sequence of tenses .
e.g. I told Paul, “I’ve wanted to meet you .”
present
tense
past
tense
past
perfect
present perfect
past perfect
past perfect
future tense
future -in-the-
past

33
I told Paul I had wanted to meet him.
I told Paul , “I’m so happy to meet you!”
I exclaimed that I was so happy to meet Paul .
I told Paul, “Are you happy to meet me too?”
I asked Paul whether he was happy to meet me too.
The reporting verb to say in the main clause is kept in reported speech when it is not
accompanied by an indirect object, when it has an indirect object it is changed to to tell and
the subordinate is introduced by that, which may also be omitted .
e.g. She said, “I’ll be back soon .”
She said that she would be back soon.
He said to me, “I haven’t seen her all day.”
He told me that he hadn’t seen her all day.
The imperative sentences, however, when they are reported do not follow the sequence
of tenses rules, because they do not h ave a personal form verb.
e.g. Kate told her children to be careful and to look both ways when they cross the
street.
According to the sequence of tenses rules, after a past reporting verb, present simple
usually becomes past simple, with a few exceptions:
a) when the present simple expresses a repeated action, a habit or a characteristic of
the subject, the verb in present simple can remain unchanged if the action or
situation is still consistent with the reality at the time of reporting:
e.g. Dan said, “I si ng very well.”
Dan said he sang very well. / Dan said he sings very well.
b) when the direct speech expresses a universal truth or a universal fact, the tense
doesn’t change:
e.g. The teacher said, “The sun rises in the East.”
The teacher said that the sun rises in the East.
c) when the content of the direct speech is still true at the time of the indirect speech:
e.g. My parents said, “We can’t move to a new house now, we haven’t got enough
money.”
My parents said we can’t move to a new house now, we haven ’t got enough
money.
Present continuous usually becomes past continuous:
e.g. “I’m painting”, he said.
He said he was painting.

34
A future action is reported using would or was/were going to , as we may see in the
chart below, while w ould from the direct speech remains would in indirect speech .

e.g. Eve said, “I shall order that book.”
Eve said she would order that book.
Eve told me, “I’m going to fire him.”
Eve told e she was going to fire him.
When the action is still in the future at the time of reporting, the future form is kept
and the sequence of tenses rule doesn’t apply:
e.g. Pete said, “I’ll take up golfing when I’ll be old”
Pete said he will take up golfing when he will be old .
Past simple becomes past perfect simple:
e.g. Tim said, “I read that book.”
Tim said he had read that book.
Past simple can remain unchanged in situations like the following:
a) repeated actions in the past:
e.g. George said, “I walked to school every day as a boy.”
George said he walked to school every day as a boy.
b) expressing a fact:
e.g. The children asked, “Were there any monkeys at the zoo?”
The children asked if there were any monkeys at the zoo.
c) speech reported immediately after it was uttered (in the same day):
e.g. Paul said, “ I met Jane this morning.”
Paul said he met Jane this morning.
d) when there is no anteriority relationship between the verb in the principal clause
and the direct object clause:

35
e.g. He said, “Sting was the best singer of all.”
He said Sting was the best singer of all.
e) in speaking, if there is no confusion between the times of the two actions:
e.g. Amy said, “I saw a good film last night.”
Amy said that she saw a good film last night.
f) when reporting time clauses , and also the main clause may keep the past tense or it
may be changed to past perfect:
e.g. Sam told us, “I met Michael when I was living in Brussels.”
Sam told us that he met Michael when he was living in Brussels.
Sam told us that he had met Michael when he was l iving in Brussels.
g) in the 2nd type conditional:
e.g. Tony said, “I would read that book if I liked it.”
Tony said that he would read that book if he liked it.
h) After wish, would rather, it is (high) time :
e.g. Mother told me, “It’s time you got a job.”
Mother told me it was time I got a job.
Past tense continuous changes to past perfect continuous, but as we know, in real life
interaction, it often stays the same and the change takes place only when it refers to a finished
action :
e.g. She said, “I was thinking of buying a new car, but I changed my mind.”
She said that she had been thinking of buying a new car, but she had changed her
mind.
Modal verbs change , as we presume, to their past form:

e.g. Meg said, “T he secretary can type all my letters, bu t she won’t.”
Meg said that the secretary could type all her letters, but she wouldn’t.
•may
•can
•will
direct speech
•might
•could
•would
indirect speech

36
If the modal verbs used in direct speech do not have a past form, like must , need ,
ought to , had better or they are already used in their past form or in the conditional, like
could , might or used to, (only past tense) , they remain unchanged in indirect speech:
e.g. The students said, “We must study more for our exams.”
The students said they must study mor e for their exams.
Mother told me , “You ought to make your bed.”
Mother told me I ought to make my bed.
Generally, must is kept in indirect speech, but when must shows obligation, it may be
replaced by would have to or had to , according to its meaning:
e.g. Zoe said, “I must go to the police urgently.”
Zoe said she had to go to the police urgently.
Ian said, “I must attend a conference tomorrow.”
Ian said he would have to attend a conference the next day.
Similarly, could is kept the same in indirect speech or changed according to its
meaning:
e.g. Rob asked, “Could I close the window?”
Rob asked if he could close the window.
“I could swim when I was ten”, he said.
He said that he could swim when he was ten.
He said that he had been able to swim w hen he was ten
“I couldn’t go into the water alone when I was a child”, he added.
He added that he hadn’t been allowed to go into the water alone when he was a
child.
Conditionals type 2 and type 3 may not change in indirect speech , and the 1st
condition al becomes a type 2 conditional in indirect speech , but I will elaborate more on this
subject in the chapter on conditionals :
e.g. She told me , “You’ll miss the train if you don’t hurry.”
She told me that I would miss the train if I didn’t hurry.
B. Specific transformations regard the verbs that have to be used in each type of
reported sentence (declarative, interrogative, exclamatory and imperative ), the punctuation,
the word order etc.
As regards reporting declarative sentences, the verb say is sp ecific to direct speech,
being accompanied or not by an indirect object. If it is accompanied by an indirect object, the
verb say is usually placed after the actual uttered words:
e.g. “I didn’t do my homework,” Jane said to her teacher.

37
As I have already mentioned earlier in this paper, in indirect speech the verb say is
kept when the indirect object isn’t present, and the verb say is placed before the reported
speech:
e.g. Jane said she hadn’t done her homework .
When the indirect object is mentioned in the main clause, we have to use tell instead
of say.
e.g. Jane told the teacher that she hadn’t done her homework.
There are situations in which we cannot report someone’s actual words and we have to
paraphrase what they have said according to the meaning of the message so as not to create
confusions :
e.g. Paula said, “ Sorry I’m late.”
Paula said she was sorry for being late .
The answers yes and no are expressed in indirect speech by means of a subject and an
auxili ary verb or by replacing them with verbs that express approval or denial:
e.g. “Are they already here?” grandma asked. “Yes,” replied my uncle.
Grandma asked if they were there already and my uncle replied that they were.
He said, “No .”
He denied it. He refused. He answered in the negative.
He said, “Yes.”
He accepted. He agreed. He answered in the affirmative.
When we report interrogative sentences, if the reporting verb is say, it has to be
replaced by ask, wonder , inquire , want to know etc.:
e.g. “Why is Helen here?”, Henry said to me.
Henry asked me why Helen was there.
Henry wondered why Helen was there.
When interrogative sentences are reported, they become declarative sentences, as a
consequence, the interrogative form of the verb changes to an affirmative or a negative form,
the subject is placed before the predicate, auxiliary do is omitted and the question mark
becomes full st op:
e.g. Candy says, “Isn’t Robert coming along?”
Candy wants to know if Robert is not coming along.
Andy said to me, “Where are you from?”
Andy wanted to know where I was from.
As an exception, when a question word like who, what , how much is the subject of the
interrogative sentence, we have to maintain the word order from the direct speech:

38
e.g. Linda said, “ What’s the matter ?”
Linda wanted to know what was the matter .
If the question in the direct speech begins with an interrogative pronoun or adjective, it
is kept in indirect speech:
e.g. The operator said, “How do you spell your name?”
The operator asked me how I spelled my name .
As for general ques tions, the indirect questions are introduced by if or whether :
e.g. Monty asks me, “Have you ever eaten snails?”
Monty asks me if /whether I have ever eaten snails.
Using whether in alternative questions is compulsory:
e.g. “Are you staying in or are you coming with us?” Peter asked me.
Peter asked me whether I was staying in or I was going with them.
General questions that begin with will / would / could you are reported in various
ways, according to the meaning of the question :
a) a question about an action in the future:
e.g. “Will you pick me up tomorrow?” he said to me.
He asked me if I would pick him up the next day.
b) a demand, a request:
e.g. “Could you make the cake?”, Bob said.
Bob asked if I could make the cake.
Bob asked me to make the cake.
c) an invitation:
e.g. “Would you join me for dinner?” Ann said to me.
Ann asked me to join her for dinner.
An invited me to dinner.
d) An order, a command:
e.g. “Finish your homework, Sam.”, Father said.
Father told Sam to finish his homework.
Similarly, questions that start with shall I / we are rendered differently in indirect
speech:
a) if it is a question about an action in the future, we use would with an infinitive :
e.g. “Shall I see you in the office tomorrow?” Kelly said.
Kelly wanted to know if she would see me in the office the following day.
b) if the speaker asks for advice, we use should with an infinitive :
e.g. “Shall I read it all?” the girl asked.

39
The girl asked if she should read it all.
c) if the speaker makes an offer, we use offer with a long infinitive :
e.g. “Shall I help you?”, Diana said.
Diana offered to help me.
d) If the speaker makes a suggestion, we use suggest with a gerund or should with an
infinitive :
e.g. “Shall we have lunch?” Vicky said.
Vicky suggested having lunch.
Vicky suggested that we should have lunch .
Other than the changes mentioned above, the changes of tenses in interrogative
sentences are the same as in declarative sentences, i.e. they follow the sequence of tenses
rules:
e.g. “What have you been doing?” he said.
He asked me what I had been doing .
“What is he listening to?” Mia asked.
Mia wanted to know what he was listening to.
“When will we arrive?” the child asked.
The child wanted to know when they would arrive.
Exclamatory sentences become declarative sentences in indirect speech and as a
consequence, the exclamation point is no longer necessary:
e.g. “What an interesting book!” she said.
She exclaimed that it was an interesting book.
In the case of exclamatory sentences, there are more transformations possible,
according to the nature of the exclamation:
a) exclamations beginning with what (a) or how become direct object clauses:
e.g. “How kind of him to help!” she said.
She exclaimed that it was very kind of him to help.
b) Exclamations like Ah!, Oh! or Ugh! become:
e.g. He gave an exclamation of surprise / disgust etc.
He exclaimed with surprise / disgust etc.
According to the meaning we are trying to convey, we can use verbs like: exclaim ,
complain , remark , shout , observe , say admiringly / scornfully etc.
e.g. “What a gorgeous blouse!” Angie said.
Angie said admiringly that the blouse was gorgeous.
She sa id, “Good afternoon!”

40
She greeted me / wished me a good afternoon.
He said, “Liar!”
He called me a liar. etc.
The predicate of the exclamatory sentence follows the rule of the sequence of tenses
after a reporting past verb.
e.g. John said to me, “How beautiful she is!”
Jon remarked that she was beautiful.
If the verb in the exclamation in the direct speech does not have a personal form, it is
replaced by be in indirect speech:
e.g. James said, “What a pretty girl!”
James exclaimed that the girl was pretty.
Unlike the other types of sentences, imperative sentences become infinitives in
indirect speech , as follows:
a) affirmative form:
e.g. “Open your books!”, the teacher said.
The teacher told the students to open their books.
b) negative form:
e.g. “Don’t talk in class!” the teacher said.
The teacher told the students not to talk in class.
The verb in the principal clause say or tell is replaced by a verb that expresses an order
– tell, order , command – a request – ask, request , urge – advice – warn , advise , recommend –
according to the message it conveys.
e.g. “Stand up!” the coach told the athletes.
The coach ordered the athletes to stand up.
“Please, pass me the salad , Jenna !” Maya said.
Maya asked Jenna to pass her the salad.
Graham said to Cindy, “You should go to the doctor.”
Graham advised Cindy to go to the doctor.
These verbs have to be followed by an indirect or a prepositional object and if the
objects are not present in the direct speech, they will be added i n the indirect speech.
e.g. “Give me the doll back!” the little sister said.
The little sister shouted at her elder sister to give her the doll back.
If the verb in the principal clause is in the passive, the indirect object is no longer
needed:
e.g. “ Return your book!” she said to Joanne.

41
Joanne was told to return the book.
The imperative for the 1st person in the plural let’s (with the infinitive) usually
expresses a suggestion and is rendered using the verb suggest with a gerund or a direct object
clause introduced by that:
e.g. “Let’s go to the cinema!” Liam said.
Liam suggested that they should go to the cinema.
Liam suggested going to t he cinema.
The imperatives that express a general order may be transforme d into indirect speech
using be especially when:
a) the verb in the principal clause is in the present:
e.g. “Read the lesson!” the teacher said.
The teacher said they are to read the lesson.
b) The order is preceded by a time clause or a conditional clause:
e.g. She said, “If you see him, call me!”
She said that if we saw him we were to call her.
The imperatives that express a general order may also be transformed into indirect
speech using should :
e.g. “Get out of the house!” the police ordered the burglars.
The police ordered that the burglars should get out of the house.
After all these rules and exceptions to the rules, I have to mention something that I
find rather interesting in a language full of so many rules, which is the free indirect spee ch”,
as Gălățeanu and Corni șel (1992) call it. The free indirect speech refers to an intermediary
state between direct and indirect speech and it is often used in narratives. It is mainly
characterized by the change of tenses, pronouns and adverbs like in indirect speech, but the
principal clause is usually omitted and some forms of direct speech are also unchanged, like
vocatives, interrogative sentences or tag questions.
This form of free indirect speech id often used in literature for rendering the thou ghts
of a character or, in the case of modern writers, to create the stream of consciousness , like
Virginia Woolf in To the Lighthouse :
e.g. One wanted, she thought, dipping her brush deliberately, to be on a level with
ordinary experience, to feel simply that's a chair, that's a ta ble, and yet at the
same time, i t's a miracle, it's an ecstasy.

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2.2. Conditionals

2.2.1. An outline

As complex sentences, conditionals are made up of one principal clause and a
subordinate clause – if clause – that expresses a condition that may render possible the
completion of the action from the main clause, which is in fact the result or the effect of the
condition .
The conditional clause is introduced by if, provided (that), so long as, on condition
that, in case, suppose or supposing (that) . The negative condition in introduced by unless .
In case and provided are used mainly in type 1 conditional clauses:
e.g. In case I see him, I will tell him.
Provided I see him, I will tell him.
Suppose is mainly used in type 2 and type 3 conditional clauses:
e.g. Suppose you met him, what would you say to him?
Unless is most often used in type 2 conditional clauses and it is followed by an
affirmative verb. We use unless when we want to emphasize the ne gation, as if not is
somewhat neuter.
e.g. I will tell him anything if he doesn’t bring it up.
I will not tell him anything unless he brings it up.
The conditional clause may also be introduced by other connectors, situation in which
is loses its typical conditional form:
e.g. Study harder and you will pass the test.
Study harder or else you will not pass the test.
Study harder otherwise you will not pass the test.
In literary English, there are conditional clauses in which the usual subject – auxiliary
verb order is reversed and if is omitted. This usually happens when the conditional clause has
one of the auxiliaries: be, have, could or should.
e.g. Were I you, I would read more.
Had I known about this before, I would have announced the headmaster.
With notional verbs, we use should or would with infinitive:
e.g. Should the taxi arrive on time, we might catch the bus.
In terms of order, usually the conditional clause follows the principal clause, but when
they are reversed, they are separated by a comma :
e.g. If you meet him, give him this parcel from me.

43
2.2.2. Types of conditionals

Although there are some variations, usually the conditionals are divided into t hree
basic types referred to as type 1, type 2 and type 3, with their respective variations as marked
below :
I. Type 1 conditional represents a real future condition or a general condition, which
expresses an anticipated or possible situation
 in the future ,
e.g. We’ll go to the park if the weather is good.
 or in general:
e.g. If I lie, my mother always finds out.
II. Type 2 conditional represents an unreal condition in the present or future, which
refers to
 an imaginary situation, contrary to the present reality
e.g. If the weather were better, we could go to the park.
 or an imp robable situation in the future
e.g. If I didn’t have to go to work tomorrow, I’d go to the seaside .
III. Type 3 conditional represents an unreal condition in the past, with reference to an
imaginary situation or to a situation contrary to reality at a certain moment in the
past:
e.g. If the weather had been better, we would have gone to the park.
In terms of tenses used in the conditionals, they are presented in the following charts :
a) In type 1 conditionals :

principal clause
future /
present /
imperative
You will visit her
You visit her
Visit her
conditional clause
present
if you have time.

44
In type 1 conditionals that refer to a real or possible condition , we can also use
 past tense in both clauses, which express a condition and a result in the
past:
e.g. If he felt stressed, he went for long walks.
 future / present / imperative in the principal clause and present perfect /
past tense in the conditional clause to express a past condition and a present
result:
e.g. If you didn’t hear him, ask him again.
If he didn’t collect his prize yesterday, he will collect it today.
If he hasn’t finished redecorating, you will help him finish .

b) In type 2 conditionals :

c) In type 3 conditionals :

principal clause
present
conditional
She would read
more
conditional clause
past
if she had time.
principal clause
past conditional
He would have
called
conditional clause
past perfect
if he had had
time.

45

If the verb in the principal clause is in future -in-the-past, in the conditional subordinate
we use:
 past tense to express simultaneity:
e.g. He told me he would call if he had time.
 past perfect to express an action anterior to the one in the principal clause:
e.g. He told me he would call if he had finished his work.
In English there may be combinations of the three types of conditionals and these are
called mixed conditionals and they are as follow s:
 type 1, the real condition, with type 2, the unreal action:
e.g. If you finish your work early, I would ask you to join me for dinner.
 type 2, the condition contrary to the present reality, with type 3, action not
done in the past:
e.g. If he were a bet ter student, he would have won the contest.
 type 3, an unreal condition in the past, with type 2, the result of the action in
the present:
e.g. If he hadn’t missed the train, he would be here now.
Should with the infinitive may be used in the type 1 and type 2 conditionals and were
to with the infinitive in type 2 conditionals to express a high degree of uncertainty, a less
probable situation:
e.g. If you should see him, call me immediately.
If you were to meet him, call me at once.
In these situations, in literary English there is often an inversion between the subject
and the auxiliary verb and if is omitted:
e.g. Should you meet him, call me immediately.
We can use the will future after if when the sub ordinate clause is a direct object one
and not a conditional one:
e.g. I don’t know if he will make it on time.
And also, will can be used in type 1 conditionals and would in type 2 conditionals,
when they have a modal value , meaning willingness:
e.g. If you will wait a few moments , I’ll put him through.
If you would accept our invitation, we would be delighted.
This construction is used to express a polite request:
e.g. If you will do this for me, I shall be grateful.
If you would do this for me, I shall be grateful.

46
Could or might with the infinitive (present of past) are used in type 2 or type 3
conditionals instead of should or would with the infinitive (present or past), when there is a
certain modal value implied:
e.g. If the weather were fine, we co uld go to the seaside over the weekend .
If she had studied more, she might have passed the exam.

2.2.3. Conditionals in reported speech:

The same way we report all other types of clauses, we may report conditionals, which
follow more or less the same rules as all the other subordinates.
Type 1 conditionals:
e.g. “If we catch the train, we will get there in time.” she said.
She said that if they caught the train, they would get there in time.
The direct speech expresses a real condition and a possible action in the future. We
can notice that the type 1 conditional sentence be comes type 2 in reported speech, it become s
an unreal condition and an improbable situation, as when reporting, we comply with the rules
of sequence of tenses , as I have proven so far.
On the other hand, if the condition is still true and the action still possible when
reported, we may keep the tenses, as we could see in the sequence of tenses chapter:
e.g. “If I win the lottery, I will buy a house, ” Martin said.
Martin said that if he wins the lottery, he will buy a house.
Type 2 conditionals:
e.g. “If we caught the train, we would get there in time.” she said.
She said that if they had caught the train, they would have got there in time.
The direct speech expresses an unreal condition and an improbable action. The type 2
conditional becomes type 3 in reported speech, and we can understand from the indirect
speech that the condition wasn’t met and the result of that condition was not possible.
If the condition is still real at the time of reporting and the result still possible, though
not necessary probable, we may not change the tenses, as what is being reported still complies
with the present reality:
e.g. “If I won the lottery, I’d buy a hou se”, Martin said.
Martin said that if he won the lottery, he’d buy a house.
Type 3 conditionals:
e.g. “If we had caught the train, we would have got there in time.” she said.

47
She said that if they had caught the train, they would have got there in time
In this type of sentence, the tenses necessarily rem ain the same in reported speech,
according to the sequence of tenses rules.
We report conditionals with commands and requests as follows:
e.g. “If you finish your work, clean the house.” he said.
He aske d me to clean the house if I finished my work.
He said that if I finished my work, I was to clean the house.

48

3. Chapter 3: On Communicative Competence
3.1. What is communicative competence?

Basically, when we think of the term communicative , the first definition that comes to
mind is which involves communication or being able to communicate , but what implies
communicating or being able to communicate? I have already argued that producing language
effectively does not mean only uttering words or making appropriate sounds or mastering
perfectly the rules of grammar, as we will see in the next part of this paper, communicating or
having communicative competence involves much more than that.
Unfortunately, some teachers still think nowadays that grammar and vocabulary are all
there is to teaching and learning a foreign language, but in my opinion, a student that has a
perfect mastery of vocabulary and grammar rules may not produce accurate language.
Moreover, I think that a truly competent speaker 's ability to interact linguistically with other
members of society cannot be restricted to rules of the language or to grammatical and
semantic well -formedness alone.
Over the years, observing vast samples of language produced by nati ve speakers,
linguis ts realized that vocabulary and grammar alone are unable to account for the infinite
variety and creativity of individual sentences. In addition, their observations showed that
ordinary communication abounds in non -well-formed or faulty linguistic construc ts, yet their
non-well-formedness does not prevent meaningful communication. The socio linguist Dell
Hymes (1972) showed that the competent speaker knows how to use the language not only
correctly, but also appropriately with respect to context, the other speaker and register. He
insisted that the rules of grammar alone would be useless without rules of how to use the

49
language, and even suggested that some occasions may require the speaker to make use of ill –
formed grammat ical structures.
Such findings led linguists to conclude that non -well-formedness is a typical feature of
ordinary communication and that it actually belongs to the fluent speaker's knowledge of the
language, so that Chomsky's (1965) insistence on linguis tic well -formedness as criterion for
linguistic competence is too narrow.
The highly influential works of linguists such as Hymes (1972) , Leech (1983) ,
Levinson (1983) , etc., determined the emer gence of new branches of linguistics, like
pragmatics or dis course analysis to sup plement the traditional ones. They also brought about a
changed attitude towards language and its role in society, which in its turn triggered the
emergence of new approaches towards foreign language teaching.
Hymes (1972) suggested that linguistic competence is only one aspect of competent
speakers' communicative competence, i.e. their overall ability to interact with others with the
help of the lan guage. An experienced person knows the rules of appropriate social behaviour –
when to speak and when to keep silent, what to talk about in different situations, or how to
address different types of persons. Even small children know that they must address an older
person differently from the way they address their peers (using different v ocabulary, tone of
voice etc.).
Analyzing the native speaker's communicative behaviour and a wide sample of
ordinary exchanges, linguists concluded that the competent speaker's ability to communicate
largely depends on pragmatic factors, i.e. on factors r eferring to his knowledge of the world
and of the unwritten rules that govern human society and communication. Knowledge of the
world and of society (in which every linguistic interaction takes place) enables competent
speakers to convey more meaning than is carried by the semantic load of their words.
Moreover, the competent communicator also knows how to use language functionally and
strategically, so as to obtain the best results and to avoid negative consequences.
Based on what I have just said, I woul d like to expand on this topic, discussing a few
aspects :
a) Discourse means text and also context
Everyone in even slight contact with the study of any language knows that discourse
consists of text interconnected with context. In the real world, language do es not come in
isolated sentences (or utterances, when referring to oral communication), but in a continuous
flow, a logically connected string of words or sentences. The meaning of each individual
word or sentence is influenced by its linguistic context, i.e. the words or sentences that
precede and follow it. In oral exchanges (such as face -to-face conversations), the utterances

50
belong alternately to the interactants, who build up their part in the discourse so as to
contribute to it meaningfully.
If we lo ok, for example, at the following dialogue:
e.g. Are you a student?
Yes.
Are you leaving?
Yes.
The meaning of Yes is determined by the question before it, meaning I am a student
and I am leaving.
The linguistic message – the text – is only one element of the discourse , defined briefly
as (linguistic) text in its (non -linguistic / real -world) context . Whereas, t he linguistic message
produced by the interactants – the text – is embedded in a real-world context , which consists
of large numbers of elements: the interlocutors and their roles, the physical and temporal
location of the utterance, the activity type etc. The meaning of the text greatly depends on the
non-linguistic context in which the linguistic intera ction occurs.
For example, interactant roles and speech event or activity type can change the
meaning of an utterance completely and also the huge variety of contexts gives rise to a
boundless variety of discourse types : the political speech, the mediatic discourse, the legal
discourse, the discourse of advertising, the friendly chat, or the telephone conversation, etc.
Linguists soon understood that language is only one mode of communication and that
meaning can be carried by other modes, too (gestures, visuals, music, etc.), so that
communicative competence involves mastery of other codes as well. Among the most
powerful modes of communication available for the message sender is paralanguage , i.e.
his/her meaningful behaviour. Oral paralanguage comes thr ough the speaker's tone of voice,
facial expression, eye contact, smile, gesture, or body posture, while written paralanguage is
conveyed by the quality of the paper, that of the handwriting, by embold ened or italicized
words, icons and drawings, or inven tive layout.
Linguists also realized that what one says is often of lesser importance than how s/he
says it. Their experiments confirmed the fact that the weight of the paralinguistic message is
greater than that of the linguistic message, i.e. when the p aralinguistic message contradicts the
linguistic one, listeners take the paralinguistic message to be the correct one. For example if
someone breaks a vase when visiting a friend and the friend says It’s OK! with a quivering
voice and avoiding eye contact, the listener will probably interpret the answer as It’s not OK
at all! I’m really upset!
b) Knowledge of the world and indirectness

51
One of the most important observations linguists made regards the high degree of
indirectness of ordinary linguistic exchanges: speakers do not put into words everything they
want to say; nevertheless, listeners generally know how to bridge that gap and interpret the
speaker's message correctly.
The basic reason for the massive indirectness of communicative exchanges is the fact
that all members of society share a certain amount of knowledge of the world, so that
experienced communicators need not spell out every detail to get their message across .
If we take, for example, the dialogue:
e.g. Speaker 1: We went to a restaurant last night.
Speaker 2: Was the food good?
Speaker 1 does not say they had a meal at the restaurant, yet worldly -wise members of
society know that a restaurant implies food.
Furthermore, the speaker often implies much more than what s/he actually says; in his /
her turn, the listener makes inferences concerning the interlocutor's intended meaning and fills
in the informational gaps so as to interpret the utterance correctly , as we see in the following
exchange:
e.g. Speaker 1: Let’s go see a movie tonight.
Speaker 2: I have a test tomorrow.
Speaker 1: OK. We’ll go another time.
Speaker 2 does not actually say s/he can’t go because , still speaker 1 interprets
speaker 2’s words as representing not only a refusal, but also a reason for the refusal to
comply with the invitation.
Knowledge of the world gives rise to an abundance of real -world synonyms that give
richness and variety to the language. For instance, instead of repeatin g Shakespeare's name
time and time again, one may refer to the greatest English playwright or the creator of
Hamlet, etc. Obviously, knowledge of the world increases with education and the foreign
language teacher can contribute significantly to widening t he students' intellectual horizon.
c) Cooperation
In everyday dialogues the interlocutors' contributions to the exchange seem to be
unrelated: for instance, one person makes an invitation to a movie and the other talks about a
test instead of answering the invitation. Neverthe less, person A understands that person B's
words come in response to the invitation and that the test represents a relevant detail, i.e. the
reason why s/he cannot go to the movie. In such cases, exchange of ideas occurs thanks to the
cooperative character of the inter action: the two interlocutors cooperate, each person
contributing relevantly and mean ingfully to the exchange.

52
The cooperative character of human communication has been described by Grice
(1975). He observed that, in ordinary face -to-face communication, people often say things
that are radically different from what they actually mean. However, even clearly false
responses are generally interpreted correctly by world -experienced members of society, du e to
their knowledge of the world and also due to the cooperative essence of communication, as
we can see in the dialogues:
e.g. Speaker 1: I lost your key.
Speaker 2: That’s great!
or
Speaker 1: Dad, can I have £100?
Speaker 2: Of course, I’m a millionaire!
Speaker 1 will understand that speaker 2 is only joking and s/he is saying the exact
opposite of what s/he really means, which is s/he is upset and respectively, he will not give
him/her the money.
d) Negotiation of meaning
On the basis of such observations, linguists reached the conclusion that meaning is not
inherent in words alone: sentences/utterances carry the denotational and additional meanings
of the words included, but they also carry their sender's meaning . Just like material goods,
information circulates among speakers, who negotiate its value on a case -to-case basis.
The reason may be that the speaker uses words and explanations that are beyond the
listener's comprehension, or, the speaker's explanations are so vague and ambiguous th at the
listener cannot make head or tail of what s/he says. The listener's obvious con fusion will make
the speaker reformulate his/her ideas, adapting his/her language and explanations to the
listener's ability of comprehension.
On the other hand, as we k now all too well, people often prefer to avoid
straightforward language and use intricate, indirect, constructs to convey more or less vaguely
the meaning they want to express (e.g. You know what I mean. ). Qualitative adjectives are
exceptionally prone to bargaining: if the teacher tells the student that his paper is good, the
latter will want to know more exactly how good it is (i.e. what grade s/he will get); or, if a
mother says that her daughter's boyfriend is strange, the listener will want more detai ls about
what she actually means by strange . Furthermore, there is paralanguage to support or
contradict the speaker's linguistic message.
If the sender often enjoys producing vague or ambiguous messages, the receiver's task
is to interpret the speaker's meaning correctly. Experienced people generally know how to
decode messages; however, this may not always be easy. Quite often, speakers are so obscure

53
that their meaning is difficult to grasp, obliging the listener to ask, What do you mean ? Or, the
speake r's words may seem exaggerated, causing the shocked listener to exclaim, You can't
mean that! Or, language and paralanguage contradict each other (e.g. serious words uttered
with a smile on the speaker's face), triggering a surprised, You must be joking! It also happens
that the listener misinterprets the speaker's words, meaning s/ he takes the speaker's joke
literally.
e) Speech acts
Linguists also noticed that usually people use language not only to say things, but also
to do things, i.e. to perform action s – or speech acts, Austin (1962) named them. For example,
the utterance, I pronounce you husband and wife! can actually perform the act of uniting two
persons in holy matrimony (for the action to have value, the speaker must have the right role,
i.e. to be legally endowed with the right to perform the act). Ordinary utterances can also
perform actions: by saying Congratulations! the speaker actually congratulates the listener; by
saying Hand me that book, please, s/he performs the act of requestin g; etc
A speech act can be performed by using various linguistic constructs, and many
speech acts are indirect, mostly because imperative constructions would not be polite. For
example, Open the window! (even when please is added) sounds too much like a co mmand;
therefore, the polite speaker will prefer to ask, Can you open the window? Apparently, the
question seems to ask the listener whether s/he is able to perform the act; however, the
experienced listener will know that the utterance represents an indir ect request for the action
to be performed.
On the contrary, the same utterance can be used to perform various speech acts,
according to the context in which the utterance takes place. For example, the simple utterance
The door is open! can do many differe nt things: it can state a fact, it can function as an
indirect request to close it, as an invitation to leave, a warning (that someone might break in),
and any other thing the speaker might want to express. I have a headache! may represent a
request for a pill, or a refusal to go to a party. Wonderful! can be used to praise or to scold the
person it is addressed to; by saying Thanks! a speaker can accept something or refuse it.
Interjections and time fillers – Oh! , Wow! , Really! , You don't say! – can be used to perform a
boundless range of actions (e.g. praise, criticize, express delight or fright).
f) Linguistic strategies
The previous examples emphasise the fact that people use the language in a much
more complex way than the dictionary or rules of gramma r might suggest. People resort to
linguistic strategies, i.e. intricate, indirect ways of expressing what they really mean, instead
of saying things directly and thus being straightforward. This results in long and elaborate

54
linguistic con structs instead of simple matter -of-fact sentences (e.g. I was wondering. you
knoll', whether you would feel like joining us, instead of a direct Join us !). Obviously,
linguists were eager to find reasonable explanations for why competent speakers use the
language in such intricate ways.
Some linguistic strategies, they concluded, are meant to conceal the speaker's
inadequacy to express his/her thoughts properly. These result in false starts, reformulations,
time fillers or attempt at repairing something said before: You know… well… I mean… I don't
actually know how to put it… Speakers also spend a lot of time and energy in expressing their
agreement with, compassion for, or support of the other speaker, e.g. they make noises or use
interjections to show that they are interested.
Often enough, people use linguistic strategies to show tact or politeness, e.g. to avoid
imposing (It'll only take a minute!) or hurting the interlocutor's feelings (It is not to my liking!
instead of I don't like it! or I hate it!). One o f the main purposes of linguistic strategies is the
speaker's hope to get certain advantages : a polite, Could you perhaps move over a bit, is likely
to succeed, whereas an imperative might fail. Or, s/he may use the language as a strategy to
avoid unpleasa nt consequences: I don't really know what to say, is an appropriate way to
avoid what could be an embarrassing situation.
Linguistic strategies may also be used by the speaker to make his/her speech more
interesting (e.g. Her life was a soap -opera, instea d of She loved drama). An indirect form
often shows irony, too: the speaker might say, What a wonderful surprise! , in answer to a very
unpleasant announcement – meaning, of course, the exact opposite (that s/he is very
disappointed).
g) Language functions
The speaker's ability to perform actions, or speech acts, with the help of the lan guage
is closely linked to the functional potential of the language.
As Leech (1981) points out, linguists generally agree that language has five basic
functions :
 an informational function, meaning people use the language to convey and to
get infor mation; this may seem the most important function of the language,
yet utterances are often subordinated to other aims;
 a directive function, i.e. using the language to con trol the behaviour and
attitudes of others: we tell others what to do, we demand and command,
inquire and request, etc.;
 an expressive function, i.e. using the language to express feelings and attitudes:
likes and dislikes, wishes and desires, fears and h opes, etc. ;

55
 an aesthetic function, i.e. people often use the language for the sake of the
linguistics itself, they construct their utterances so as to please the ear, rather
than tor the information the words carry;
 a phatic function, i.e. using the lan guage for maintaining social relationships in
good health; often, what we say is of lesser importance than the fact that we
say it: not greeting, not inquiring about our interlocutor's wellbeing, or not
congratulating someone on their birthday, can be perc eived as a downright
offence.

3.2. Dimensions of communicative competence

As we might already infer from what I have said previously, communicative
competence has a much wider scope than a mere linguistic one. We can identify at least five
dimensions of co mmunicative competence, according to Canale and Swain (1980) , which are
as follows:
1. linguistic competence, i.e. the speaker's ability to use the language accurately (cor-
rectly) :
 the speaker's ability to recognize and produce grammatically and semantica lly
well-formed sentences/utterances; his/her ability to decode figurative language
etc.;
 the speaker's linguistic competence is related to his/her knowledge of the
vocabu lary and grammar of the language.
2. sociolinguistic competence, i.e. the speaker's a bility to use the language
appropriately with respect to the social environment:
 the speaker's ability to recognize and adapt his/her message to the
interlocutors, the social and situational context in which the exchange takes
place, the activity type etc.;
 choice of topic, vocabulary and style, according to the social context (a certain
kind of language or certain topics can be shared in private, but are banned from
larger social encounters) ;
 sociolinguistic competence results from the speaker's knowledge of society, of
its norms and taboos;
3. discourse competence, i.e. the speaker's ability to recognize and use the language
appropriately with respect to the type of discourse:

56
 the speaker's ability to identify the type of discourse and interpret messages
accordingly: e.g. today's world -experienced receiver of the message Just do it!
knows that, since it belongs to the discourse of advertising, it actu ally means
Buy Nike® shoes! ;
 the ability to adapt his/her language to the discourse type: e.g. knowledge of
the formulaic expressions for telephone conversation, greeting and parting
formulas; e.g. a competent letter writer knows the letter -closing formula, I’m
looking forward to hearing from you! ;
4. strategic competence, i.e. the speaker's ability to use language:
 functionally: using the language to perform actions; language can be an
efficient substitute for action, e.g. peace talks can often avoid open conflicts;
 strategically: using linguistic strate gies:
– of repair, to cover personal inadequacies;
– of indirectness and politeness, to obtain real -world advantages and/or
avoid negative consequences: e.g. to avoid imposing or hurting
feelings; to create a favourable atmosphere; a joke can be more
effecti ve than a thousand words; a persuasive presentation can get the
speaker a good job or save their old one;
 strategic competence results from considerations of discourse effectiveness, of
tact and also politeness;
5. cultural competence, i.e. knowledge of ele ments of culture and civilization of the
foreign language environment: the competent communicator knows facts about the
country, the people, the history, literature and culture of the target language;
therefore, learning a foreign language also involves le arning about the world and
type of society the native speakers of the language live in: their holidays, their
religion, educational and political system, their type of humour, their history and
literature, etc.: knowledge of the language can be useless if one does not possess the
required background information.
In other words, communicative competence means ability to use the language:
 accurately, i.e. correctly in terms of vocabulary and grammar;
 appropriately, i.e. adapted to the social / situational context in which the
exchange takes place and to the discourse type;
 functionally and strategically, i.e. using the language tactfully and politely, to
get things done and achieve real -world aims;
 competently in terms of cultu ral background.

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Apart from the knowledge of the code, i.e. of the vocabulary and grammar, knowledge
of the language also requires possession of language skills, i.e. of skills / abilities that allow
the speaker to interact linguistically with the other me mbers of the social group.
Thus, the person who wants to answer affirmatively to the question whether s/he
knows a certain foreign language must possess listening skills, i.e. s/he must be able to
understand what other people say. In face -to-face interact ion, you cannot know what you are
required to say unless you understand what your interlocutor is telling you. Lack of listening
skills – inability to make head or tail of the interlocutor's words – is especially frustrating when
visiting the country whose language one is learning: the correctly phrased question Could you
please tell me how to get to…? becomes useless when the person asked begins to pour out a
long explanation that is completely beyond the learner's comprehension level. In most of such
cases, the speaker simply gives up his/her brave attempts and switches to another language –
perhaps one that is a foreign language to the inter locutor, too (one speaks a foreign language
with more care and at a slower pace than one’s mother tongue).
Obvio usly, listening skills cannot be separated from speaking skills: the receiver of the
message must be able to express his/her thoughts and feelings coherently, at normal speed and
with comprehensible pronunciation. Many people complain that they under stand very well
the text of movies and songs, or messages on the Internet, but when it comes to speaking, they
can't find the words. The reason is that they lack speaking skills. A person who knows the
language must be able to say what s/he wants to say, when s/he wants to say it, the way s/he
wants to say it, etc. Absence of speaking skills becomes embarrassing in real -life
communicative situations, where exchanges are rapid and there is no time to think and build
up one's sentences. Such situations make many p eople – especially shy ones – lose heart and
give up any attempt to participate in I he conversation.
Furthermore, since much of daily communication is written, the language user must
also know how to decode messages written in the target language, i.e. s /he must possess
reading skills. Whether they are instructions of usage for a certain electronic device or some
household advice (e.g. how to prepare a certain instant pudding), useful travel tips in a
guidebook, an article in a magazine, or Internet infor mation, it is frustrating to be unable to
work out its meaning.
Finally, an educated person must also know how to express his/her thoughts in
writing: s/he must possess writing skills. When crossing the border, applying for a job abroad,
or simply chattin g on the Internet, it is painful and/or time consuming not to be able to fill out
forms with one's personal information, write letters, or give coherent replies.

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Thus, I may draw a partial conclusion that, apart from knowledge of its vocabulary
and grammar , knowledge of a language also implies ability to understand it and to speak it, to
read it and to write it; in other words, knowledge of a language also includes possession of
the basic skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.
According to the ty pe of communication, the skills can be grouped as:
 the skills related to oral communication: listening and speaking
 those pertaining to written communication: reading and writing
Another criterion to categorize the four skills is the speaker's contribution to the
communicative act and thus, we can distinguish:
 receptive skills – listening and reading; the speaker is merely a recipient
(though not a passive one) of the language and information;
 productive skills – speaking and writing; the speaker is actually involved in the
act of producing language.
Obviously, each main skill includes several sub -skills. Some of them are typical for
only one language skill, e.g. pronunciation belongs only to the field of speaking, spelling to
writing. Others (e.g. vocabulary and grammar) refer to all four skills.
Furthermore, the ultimate aim of the foreign, in our case English, language class is to
develop the students' communicative skills (i.e. their ability to use the language appropriately,
functionally and strategically, so as to interact efficiently with the ot her members of the social
group) as well as their cultural skills (i.e. knowledge of the linguistic and non -linguistic
customs and habits typical for the target language environment). The foreign language student
must learn to master communicative and cult ural skills similar to those of the native speaker:
they will need such skills later on, in the real world, with its infinite variety of relationships
and communicative situations.
Obviously, the classroom provides only a limited range of communicative in teractions
– those typical for the physical situation and the teacher -student / student -student
relationships. It is therefore the foreign language teacher's duty to use the classroom as a kind
of laboratory and organize activities that should simulate rea l-world exchanges. S/he must
stretch his/her imagination and expand the classroom context so as to enable the students to
use language realistically and interactively.
Educators have always been concerned about finding the best methods and strategies
to teach their students and test their results. The works of outstanding methodologists have
become models for other teachers to follow. Personally, whenever I encounter an issue in
class, one regarding teaching methods, class management or testing etc., I tal k to my
colleagues but also I look it up in books on English teaching methodology and besides the

59
possible help from my co -workers, I always find an answer in the books, as some
methodologist has explained and maybe encountered for themselves that issue be fore me.

3.3. The communicative approach to teaching sequence of tenses

Like I have already stated before, learning of a foreign language is defined as the
acquisition of the skills to use the structure of the language within the limits of a general
vocabula ry. The learning of the foreign language means also the acquisition of the skills to
use the units and the models of expression in the foreign language, associated with the units
and the models of content with which they form the language. And, last but no t least, learning
a foreign language means also the acquisition of the skills to understand the units and the
models of content when listening to the foreign language. In other words, acquiring a foreign
language involves learning ways of expression, the c ontent and their association in order to
use them quickly and correctly.
In order to teach a foreign language, namely, English, teachers rely on approaches and
resort to methods, procedure, techniques etc. Over the years, the approaches to language
teachin g have changed according to the changes in society, the basic teaching concepts of age
of the student and his/her typical needs. If we look at the teaching methods devised, we can
distinguish some approaches, from the early ones to the ones still used in t he present day:
a) the Grammar -Translation Method emphasises accuracy, language is studied first
through detailed analysis and memorizing of its grammar rules and then this
knowledge of the language is used for translations, grammar is taught deductively,
the vocabulary provided is the one in the texts used for the translations, focus is on
reading and writing, in order to read the literature in the target language or to
benefit from the development that results from foreign language study, the mother
tongue i s used for instruction, for explaining new items and also for comparison
with the target language;
b) the Direct Method, on the other hand, emphasises correct pronunciation and use of
vocabulary, new language is introduced orally, grammar is taught inductivel y, only
everyday vocabulary is taught, concrete notions are taught using realia, while
abstract ones are taught by association of ideas, speech and listening
comprehension are taught, oral communication skills are built up carefully through
graded progress ion organised around questions -answers exchanges between
teachers and students, instruction is carried out entirely in the target language;

60
c) the Audio -Lingual Method emphasises the sound system and grammatical patterns,
language is supposed to be learned au tomatically, so the students would form
habits, drills are used, new vocabulary and grammar patterns are introduced orally,
grammar is taught inductively, again, only the target language is used for
instruction;
d) the Silent Way emphasises pronunciation, the sound and the structure of the
language, but without explicit grammar rules, for the most part, the teacher is
silent, only showing the students what s/he needs to, the students should be able to
express themselves developing their own criteria for correc tness, errors are
important and necessary to the process of learning, mother tongue can be used
occasionally for explanations;
e) Desuggestopedia, as Larsen -Freeman (2000) calls it, emphasises vocabulary,
everyday communication and language forms, grammar is dealt with minimally,
but explicitly, students choose target language names and create new biographies
for themselves, students are presented with (lengthy) dialogues, the students then
activate the language they acquired, the students’ peripheral learning is used, in
this respect posters with grammatical information are hung around the room, music
and movement are also used, the students’ mother tongue is used when needed or
for translating the dialogues;
f) Community Language Learning emphasises communicatio n, initially the students
generate the material, as they decide what they are able to say in the target
language, then the teacher may prepare some materials, based on the material the
students provide, certain grammar points, students learn about their ow n learning,
pronunciation patterns or vocabulary can be discussed, the teacher counsels the
students rather than teach them, mother tongue is used initially, so as the students
to gain confidence;
g) Total Physical Response emphasises vocabulary and grammatic al structures,
imperatives are used, understanding the language should precede its production,
the students imitate the teacher’s model or they act out the teacher’s commands,
the mother tongue is not used, things are explained through body language instea d;
h) Communicative Language Teaching emphasises language functions over language
forms, usually a functional syllabus is used, language is used at the discourse level,
students use the language mostly through communicative activities, authentic
materials are used, activities are usually carried out by students in small groups,
cohesion and coherence are important, although the target language should be used

61
at all times, as students learn also from the classroom interaction, cautious use of
the mother tongue is permitted;
i) Task -based Approach emphasises meaning of language and the students’
performing of a task in order to acquire language, there is a pre -task stage that
prepare students for the task itself and a follow -up stage of the lesson, in which
students activate what they acquired during the task, students are exposed to
authentic situations of speaking and listening: they decide in what way they carry
out the task, and this gives them an opportunity for authentic and meaningful
interaction, mother tongu e should not be used;
j) Cooperative Learning emphasises cooperation between students, language is
acquired by means of interaction in the target language, students work in groups,
usually mixed groups (according to sex, nationality, level of English knowledg e),
students learn from each other and learn how to interact with people different from
themselves and also, mother tongue should not be used.
From all the methods presented above, I have chosen to teach the sequence of tenses
based on the communicative approach. Before detailing the method further, I will start with a
little history that precedes the method; I will then state its premises, its s trengths and
weaknesses, the communicative syllabus, the place of grammar in that syllabus, testing in
general and the communicative testing, stages in the learning processes, error corrections in
the communicative context, exercises for communicative acti vities etc.
By the end of the 1960s it became clear that the structural approach of the audio –
lingual method: with its endless drills and repetitions, could not cover the requirements of the
age, as it did not produce good communicators. The teachers of th e time understood that
learning a foreign language is not just a matter of memorizing words and structures but a
complex educational experience, and that in order to function well in contemporary society, a
person needs to be a competent communicator.
Linguistic structures alone do not enable speakers to express intentions, share
thoughts, and convey attitudes and feelings. Through their situational dialogues, audio –
linguists had aimed at interaction, but had achieved none. Real -world interactions are rapi d
and spontaneous, conditioned by time pressure: you never know what your interlocutor will
say next, so that you have to decode his/her message, formulate your answer, and build up
your response not only fast, but also appropriately, according to your int erlocutor, the
situational context and the activity type. The situational dialogues and pattern practice of
audio -lingual classes could at best provide the learners with a number of clichés for certain
situations; but such clichés prove insufficient or ina dequate in most real -life contexts. At the

62
time, people made fun of the strange and artificial conversational patterns that populated
audio -lingual textbooks and guidebooks (e.g. My uncle's cat is sleeping in my mother's
armchair, to teach the Genitive Cas e). Such phrases are unlikely to be encountered in
ordinary communicative exchanges.
The communicative approach to teaching foreign languages emerged due to the
changes in the English language teaching tradition in the late 1960s. The communicative
approa ch is not a highly structured method, but rather a broad set of ideas generally accepted
by methodologists as good teaching practice. Although it began largely as a British
innovation, it was soon embraced by the educational systems of other European count ries.
According to Littlewood (1981) and also other scholars, c ommunicative language
teaching relies on premises such as:
1. the ultimate aim of foreign language teaching is to develop the learners'
communicative competence: human communication relies on much more than the
interlocutors' linguistic competence; fluent speakers are able to interact
linguistically thanks to their knowledge of society and of discourses, to their ability
to interact spontaneously and cope with a va riety of everyday situations;
2. learning begins with imitation; but, unless the learner moves on to the stage of free
production, it does not turn into actual, long -term learning: teachers must allow
students freedom and encourage their creativity in produc ing their own language;
3. developing language skills is far more important than teaching just content:
 students must be equipped with tools for language performance in the real
world; such tools facilitate life -long learning, outside the school system;
 the students must be taught to use the language functionally and strategically,
to achieve real -world aims, the way people do in real life;
4. meaning is more important than form; fluency of language is as important as
linguis tic accuracy; grammar should b e taught only when necessary:
 learners must acquire confidence in their linguistic abilities and become less
scared of making mistakes; errors are a natural part of learning: as long as the
speaker manages to get his/her message through, the teacher should not
interfere to correct their mistakes;
 the students must learn the language by using the language, i.e. by struggling
to communicate; this way, they learn vocabulary and grammar in context;
5. appropriacy of language is as important as linguistic accuracy:
 communication takes place in a certain social and discoursal background;
communicating means establishing relationships between the interl ocutors

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(e.g. their respective age, sex, familiarity, roles of speaker / listener); between
the speaker and the setting in which the interaction takes place (e.g. place,
time, activity type), between the speaker and the type of discourse (e.g. casual
conve rsation or formal debate) etc. ;
 the students must be taught to observe social conventions and adapt their
language to the requirements of the social and discoursal context, i.e. select
their vocabu lary and communicative strategies according to the situa tional
context;
6. active participation and affective involvement in the learning process motivate the
student and enhance learning:
 the student must become a partner in the learning process, a negotiator
between the self, the learning process, and the object of learning; active
modes of learning (e.g. pair work, group work) ensure long -term
acquisition;
 learners must be able to personalize the topic and relate it to their own lives
and interests; this way, the learning material becomes real and meaningful;
7. spontaneous, improvised practice is more efficient than mechanical repetition:
 ordinary communication is spontaneous and unexpected; memorized
patterns cannot cover the wide range of real -life situations; the students
must be encour aged to use everyday language, typical for ordinary
communicative exchanges;
 analyzing the needs of language learners in society, communicative teachers
concluded that people need primarily oral language skills; however, reading
and writing must also be considered;
8. languag e is a mere medium for communication; communication has a social
purpose:
 language must not be taught for its own sake (e.g. for mastering patterns),
but for the purpose of sending and receiving messages;
 the learner must be given a purpose for producing language (e.g. exchanging
information. approving or criticizing);
9. communication is basically interactive:
 classroom activities must simulate real -world interactions: the teacher must
get the students to s hare and negotiate information, the way people do in
real life, in social and discoursal contexts that imitate those in which real
communication takes place;

64
 interactive techniques (e.g. simulation, role play, debate) are efficient
classroom procedures fo r language learning;
10. language learning should be task-oriented: the students must be made to perform
tasks with the help of the language, the way people do in the real world; e.g.
explain to a friend how to use a piece of equipment, suggest activities the class
might per form;
11. language must be learned with the help of authentic material:
 the textbook is only a framework for the teacher's lesson; the communicative
teacher must free him/herself from the constraints of the textbook and use
his/her imaginati on to improve it in any way s/he can, according to the
students' needs and interests;
 the teacher must use linguistic material similar to which learners may come
across later in real life (e.g. magazine articles, instructions of usage,
guidebooks, adver tisements, literary texts); the authentic material may be
beyond the learners' level, so that the teacher must encourage the students to
infer or predict the meaning of the unknown items;
12. mother tongue is an important element of the students' world: the st udents' mother
tongue should be used whenever explanations in the target language would be too
time-consuming; translation is also accepted; however, the teacher should use the
target language as extensively as possible.
Thus, with communicative language l earning, my fundamental goal as a teacher is the
shaping of the learner's communicative competence and the development of his/her basic
communicative skills, i.e. communicative language teaching targets the learner's
communicative proficiency rather than h is/her mastery of structures.
In accordance with this aim, I as teacher, reject memorization and tedious repetition as
techniques for language learning. Instead, I view language learning as a two -way process:
learning the language in order to use it and using the language in order to learn it , i.e. the
student must learn the foreign language by struggling to commu nicate. This way, discourse
becomes both subject of and context for communicative lan guage teaching.
Communicative teaching also relies on the understanding of the interdependence
between language and communication. Unlike the structural approach of the previous
generation, communicative language teaching lays stress on the functional potential of the
language, emphasizing the role of language a s an essential tool for ordinary interaction. In
opposition to the previous generations' insistence on form, structure and well -formedness, us

65
communicative teachers , if I may call myself one, focus on meaning and interaction, with
special stress on oral communication.
Commu nicative teachers also understood that they could no longer ignore the .socio –
cultural context of interac tions, or the learners' psychological world.
Learning is a natural process that takes place inside the learner as a result of the
person's physical and emotional involvement i n an activity. Therefore, language learning is
more effective if the students ar e active participants in the process (rather than passive
recipients of information), and if they participate emotionally in the act . For instance, t alking
about abstract ideas (e.g. pollution) is boring , even if I claim that it is important for me as a
person ; but if I provide an interesting text about the effects of pollution, and the students offer
examples of their own (e.g. how pollution affects their own town , their life etc. ), debates will
be heated. Consequently, in order to involve the students in the exchanges, the teacher must
guide them from the text to their own personal experience (i.e. they must perceive the
situation as plausible for the world they live in) , which I try constantly to do .
The changed goals of language teaching brought about a new approach to the lan guage
textbook and curriculum (pl. curricula). Communicative teachers understood that both the
textbook and the curriculum must reflect the learners' needs, in terms of vocabulary (e.g.
specialized professional vocabulary), as well as the skill s targeted (e.g. a secretary needs
consistent telephone conversation and letter -writing skills , a hairdresser needs to know about
hair and styles and how to talk to their clients, a mechanic needs to know the parts of a car
and also how to produce language in his field of activity etc. ).
In terms of texts, communicative textbooks exploit the native speakers' communica tive
discourse in its boundless variety , but they also activate the target language, in our case,
English. For my high -school students I hav e chosen textbooks with no Romanian whatsoever,
I have chosen textbooks that contain materials – written or audio – as closest to real -life as
they can possibly be, which would arouse the students’ interest with contemporary articles
and interesting debate issues . The typical text of the communicative approach is the authentic
material (whether spoken or written) coming from the wide range of discourses of native
speakers – from casual conversation to guidebooks, from literature to journalism; the list is
practically unlimited.
In addition, communicative textbooks no longer provide one text for a lesson, with the
implicit suggestion that its content should be learned. Instead, they may offer several short
texts and also tasks centred around a topic (e.g. fiv e short texts offering random pieces of
information about sights in London). This kind of structure provides the advantage that,
instead of merely learning the lesson, the student has to process and systematize the

66
information provided by the texts; it is also closer to the way people come across information
in the real world.
Furthermore, with communicative classes, the text/textbook itself has a much lesser
role according to Harmer ( 2001 ). As we communicative teachers target productive and
communicative skills, the texts may only provide a framework for subsequent activities. On
the basis of the tex t(s) they are reading, the students are asked to create their own linguistic
output in the foreign language (e.g. ask questions about themselves and their past experience,
organize a guided tour of their home town etc.). Obviously, the lan guage and for mat of the
model text will tell them what vocabulary to use and how to organize their mate rial. In
addition, I often divide my students in small groups, mixed grou ps based on their level of
proficiency in English, and thus those that would not manage to perform the task on their own
based only on my suggestions and explanations would have additional support from their
peers.
The modern language curriculum is equally changed. The traditional curriculum
viewed the textbook as a set of lessons sequenced according to linguistic complexity, so that
the lessons had to be taught in the given order. The new type of curriculum abolishes linear
learning: communicative textbook s generally contain lessons/units of similar dif ficulty, built
around a unifying idea or language function (e.g. greeting, apologizing, etc.). Each successive
textbook – each new level in language learning – takes up the same/similar linguistic or
functio nal material at a higher level. This way, language learn ing becomes concentric, spiral –
like. The linguistic difficulty of authentic texts can hardly he controlled; that is why, the
teacher may have to deal with some items only superfi cially (e.g. encoura ge the students to
infer meaning and usage from the context) and come back to teach it thoroughly at some later
time.
Moreover, the modern curriculum no longer focuses on content (i.e. on the lessons to
be learned), but on language functions (e.g. imparting and seeking factual informa tion,
expressing agreement/disagr eeme nt, offering to do something, etc.).
Emphasis on language functions shows that communicative teaching is competency –
based (i.e. learners must show wh at they can do with the help of the language) and task-
oriented (i.e. they are taught to perform practical tasks with the help of the language, in
situa tions that simulate or approximate those encountered in real life). To achieve these aims,
the teacher must devise classroom activities that should simulate real -world lin guistic
situations (e.g. the students are asked to organize a trip with the help of a guidebook , to devise
a plan for recycling in their school and so on ).

67
Communicative teaching lays great emphasis on interaction, on the exchange of ideas
and negotiation of meaning, like in the outside world. The traditional question -answer
teacher -student exchanges are replaced by student -student conversations, offering learn ers the
opportunity to practice the linguistic material in communicative activities which imitate or
simulate the linguistic behavio ur of real -world interactants.
A communicative activity is set in a situation similar to those encountered in the real
world. The situation must be close to the students' life exper ience, so that they can identify
with it. To perform the tasks required by the activity, the learners assume certain roles, and
they are made to use the language in ways typical for the situational context. This way,
learning the foreign language is achiev ed by using the foreign language, i.e. the students learn
to communicate in the target language by struggling to express their thoughts and feelings in
situations close to their own background. Even literary texts can be used communicatively,
e.g. the stor y of Othello can be used as an excuse for a discus sion about a jealous neighbo ur.
When setting up a communicative activity, the teacher must give the students
instructions on what the interaction is about. But more importantly, s/he should provide a
reason and a purpose for the exchange. Unless the students understand why they should
perform a certain task, they won't really put their heart and mind into doing it. Purpose and
situational context also determine the kind of language the speaker must use, so that the
students must focus not only on what is being said (i.e. the message), but also on how it is said
(i.e. on appropr iacy of language according to the social and discoursal environment).
Additionally , for the activity to be successful, the learners must be motivated to
commu nicate: they must want to get actively involved in the task, eager to express their
thoughts and fee lings. To a large extent, the learner's involvement in the activity depends on
the type of material they use. The teacher must arouse their interest by choosing motivating
texts and interest ing exercises, as well as by selecting attractive audio and/or visual materials ,
which is precisely one of my purposes for lessons, even if we have materials in the textbook, I
constantly try to get the students at least to talk as if they were in a real life situation based on
the topic of the material . Audio-visuals m ake classes friendlier, stimulate the students'
imagination, enhance the effi ciency of the teach ing process and facilitate learning. Modern
textbooks are richly and colo urfully illustrated, but teachers must still contribute with extra
material (e.g. pictures, audio materials , animated displays) to explain meanings and make
their classes more attractive.
With communicative classes, the teacher's and, respectively, the student's roles are
quite different from their traditional roles. Traditionally, the teacher was looked upon as
unchallenged leader and source of information, while learners were viewed as passive

68
recipients, supposed to digest and memorize the information provided. The communicative
class is student -centred, and teacher and learners are pa rtners in a cooperative venture, Idea
which I totally support, as if there is such a relationship between the teacher and the students,
besides trust and communication, there is also a more effective learning process.
In the age of information, teachers must relinquish their traditional central
authoritative place in the classroom, and they must cease to be the so urce of informa tion: the
teacher's new role is that of mediator between the student and the learning process. The
communicative teacher is a needs analyst, an organizer and a manager of the class room
activities and, occasionally, an error corrector. S/he must help the students to link the
learning material to their own lives and internalize it as personal experience, so that it should
become meaningful and important. While supervising classroom activities, s/he must facilitate
smooth interaction among the students, with special care that every mem ber of the group
should have the opportunity to participate (e.g. that the shy ones should not be silenced by the
more daring , or, as I often notice, the weaker students by the better ones ).
In his/her turn, with communicative learning the student becomes a researcher and
discov erer. S/he is taught not to expect everything from the teacher, but to locate, analyze and
process information him/herself. S/he also learns to find solutions to problems, interact with
the group, and negotiate meaning, the way people do in real life. This way, student talking
time is increased and learners have more opportunities to interact and produce their own
language.
To achieve communication and student interaction, the teacher must know the stu dents
well and understand their preoccupations and needs. This way, s/he can devise activities that
are challenging and motivating and appropriate to their interests . For a communicative
activity, the teacher creates a situation; sets a purpo se for the interaction; organizes the
students (e.g. in pairs or groups) and assigns them roles; s/he sets the activity in motion, then
stands back to allow the students to use their imagination to expand the context. The teacher
encourages the students to be creative and communicate freely, to negotiate meaning, and thus
solve problems. The classroom atmosphere is positive, relaxed, and supportive, aiming to
reduce the students' anxiety. This way, the learners are taught to use the lan guage as social
individuals, and they gradually arrive at language autonomy.
As long as the language keeps coming, meaning is negotiated properly, and the
message is conveyed, communicative teachers do not stop the students to correct their
mistakes. Unnecessary intervention on the part of the teacher prevents the learners from
becoming involved in the activity, and hinders the development of their communicative skills.
How ever, learners generally rely on the teacher to correct their mistakes. With communicative

69
classes, tho ugh, the learner is gradually taught to employ techniques of self -control and self –
correction, i.e. s/he learns to detect and correct his/her own mistakes.
In spite of his/her apparently marginal role, the teacher's importance is not diminished
within com municative classes. No longer a central figure in the classroom, the teacher is still
a source of guidance and help, a psychological support (especially for those who are slow to
develop independence), sometimes a co-participant in the communicative act; b ut never,
under any circumstances, should s/he become a dominating figure like in the obsolete teacher –
centred class .
Talking about cooperation, it is not by chance that t he earliest version of the
communicative approach – the functional -notional approach – appeared as a result of studies
concerning the new realities in Europe and the changing needs of language learners. In 1971,
a group of experts analyzed the needs of European language learners and devel oped the
functional -notional syllabus , or curriculum, for language teaching (I will expand on the
communicative syllabus further in a chapter below, but I need to explain here a few basic
notions regarding the bases of the communicative approach) . Their basic idea was that
language should be class ified in terms of:
 language functions, i.e. what people want to do with the language: seeking
informa tion, apologizing, expressing likes/dislikes;
 notions, i.e. the meanings people want to put across: asking where the nearest
post office is, apologizing for being late, etc.
They also insisted that language should be categorized by levels, starting from the
basic level (only sufficient to allow the speaker to survive in the target language context).
In 1975, the threshold level syllabus was elaborated, to serve as a basis for more
complex language skills. The syllabus is based on six basic functions , as Wilkins (1976)
points out :
1. impar ting and see king factual information: identifying; reporting,
describing and narrating ; correct ing and asking etc. ;
2. expressing and enquiring about intellectual attitudes: expressing agreement
and dis agreem ent, decl ining an offer or invitation, offering to do something
etc.;
3. express ing and enqu iring about emotional attitudes: pleasure or displeasure,
intentions, wants and desires, etc.;
4. expressing and enquiring about moral attitudes: apologizing, expressing
appreciation, etc.;

70
5. getting things done: suggesting a course of action, requesting, advising,
warning , directing others to do something, etc. ;
6. socializing: greeting, introducing people, etc.
The syllabus also provides a set of criteria to specify situational contexts:
1. social rol es: stranger/ acquaintance , private/official person, patient/doctor,
etc.;
2. psycholog ical roles: neutrality, equality, sympathy, ant ipathy, etc. ;
3. setting : geographical location (e.g. foreign country), physical location
(indoors/out doors, home, classroom) ;
4. surroundings: family, friends, strangers, etc.
A careful reading of the syllabus shows that communicative teaching:
 target s the functional capacity of th e language: informational (functions 1 &
2); affective (funct ions 2, 3 & 4); directive (functi on 5); phatic (functions 4 &
6);
 aims to develop sk ills which should allow learners to perform speech acts
(e.g. re port, request, ap ologize, express appreciation etc.) ;
 views linguisti c appropriacy as essential: starting from the idea that every
speech act can be worded in various ways (Give me that book! ; Would you
give me that book ?; I wonder if you could give me that book! etc.), the learner
is taught to differentiate a mong the va rious choic es available and select the
linguistic form that is most appro priate for a given s ituation.
This triggers the conclusion that, with communicative teaching:
 the aim of foreign language teaching shifts from linguistic content to
language use;
 linguistic competence becomes subordinated to communicative competence;
As a conclus ion, w e may say that the major distinction between traditional and
commu nicative teaching res ides in the different attitude towards the ultimate aim of the
educa tional process, that is to say :
 traditional instructivist language teaching is content -based, i.e. it focuses on
infor mation and qu antitative acquisiti on, on the learning (mostly by
memorization) of the mate rial contained in the textbooks, with emphasis on
the accuracy (i.e. well -formedness) of the language produced;
 communicative teaching is skill-based, i.e. it lays stress on formation and skill
development (how well the learner c an use what s/he has learned), with
emphasis on meaning and appropriacy, and on the efficiency of the

71
communicative act (i.e. if the learner can get his /her message through and
obtain the desired results.
The significant changes induced by the communicativ e approach to foreign language
teaching improved teachers' performances considerably.
Among the improvements the CLT brought about, I would like to mention :
 a student -centred classroom, focused on the learners' needs;
 the learners' active participation and affective involvement in the activities
and in the actual process of language learning;
 deve lopm ent of language skills (e.g. li stening skills, speaking skills etc.) and
of the l earners’ communicative (not only linguistic) competence ;
 emphasis on the l earners' confidence as language producers, on their
creativity a nd imagination; on spontaneous production of language and on
interaction;
 emphasis on the functional potential of the language; focus on the meaning of
the message, rather than on correctness of form; emphasis on the fluency and
on the appropriacy of the message;
 use of authentic material and of task -based activities approximating real –
world situations;
 focus on the socio -cultural context of the interactions , on the learners'
psychological world etc.
In spite of the improvements, language teachers soon realized that communicative
teaching also incurs som e serious shortcomings, from which I will mention the most
important , some of which Richards and Rodgers (2001) identify also :
 acquisition o f bad linguistic habits: with communicative classes, grammar is
explained and practiced only rarely; moreover, in their desire to encourage
the students to speak and express feelings and attitudes, communicative
teachers correct their mistakes only rarely , although I try not to let any
mistake escape without discussing it, usually after the activity, so as not to
interrupt fluency ;
 too little learning is achieved: many of the authentic texts used provide little
material worth remembering; even when the text comes from literature, it is
rarely studied for its own sake, but as an excuse for some communicative
activities , but usually we have other activities based upon the authentic
materials, discussions, role -play activities, etc., which enables students to
practice the language they have just acquired ;

72
 while focusing on oral communication, communicative learning lays too little
empha sis on writing, an important component of the educated spe aker's
communicative competence, although after one or more less ons on a specific
topic, I do ask my students to produce a certain piece of writing on the topic,
be it just a few personal thoughts or an essay.
Consequentl y, foreign language teachers re analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of
the previous generations. B riefly, we get the following image in a parallel with the Grammar –
Translation Method and the Audio -Lingual Approach :

The Grammar -Translation Method:

Positive
Negative

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The Audio -Lingual Method:

Communicative Language Teaching:

Quick success, immediate results
Focus on the ability to "think" in
the foreign language
Habit formation through drilling
and pattern practice
Does not lead to long -term
communicative competence
Emphasis on surface forms, not
on deep structures
Disregard for affective and
interpersonal factors
Acquisition of bad linguistic habits due to
too little concern with grammar
Too little learning is achieved: i.e. focus
on the learning process, disregard for the
content of learning
Focus on oral communication
Writing is largely neglected
Focus on communicative competence, on meaning
and fluency, rather than on form and accuracy
Focus on social, cultural, pragmatic factors
Exploring pedagogical means for real-life
communication in the classroom, equipping the
students with tools for generating unrehearsed
language in the real world etc.

74
The communicative approach not only has predecessors, but it also has descendants, as
the digital revolution that emerged in the late 20th century has had a considerable impact on
both the needs of language learners and on the language teaching technology its elf. Again,
teachers underst ood that they must improve the performances of commu nicative teaching so
as to respond to the changed needs of the beginning -of-the-century learners and to those of the
new millennium.
A number of new approaches to language learning have appeared in recen t years.
Although they cannot be described as a unified theory, the new metho ds show clearly that
teachers have analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of the previous approaches thoroughly
and learned their lesson well. The methods – generically referred to as the post-communicative
era – share some assumptions about education and language learning, i.e. they view language
learning as:
 task-oriented: language learning focuses on meaning and on authentic
activities (i.e. activities that approximate those in the outside world); the
learners are taught to use the language to construct and communicate meaning;
 context -oriented: language learning is successful if the content to be taught and
the context of learning are compatible with the learner's world knowledge and
personal experience;
 collaborative: learning is achieved through social interaction and negotiation
of meaning;
 cognitive: language learning must go hand in hand with cultural awareness;
the students are taught to differentiate between their mother tongue patterns
and those of the target culture; .
 encouraging learner autonomy: learners must control their own learning and
construct their own knowledge, they must be aware of the processes and
strategies o f language learning.
The communicative approach prepared the ground for the fundamental changes in
language teachi ng that occurred in the late 20th century, and many of t he principles and
techniques of the post -communicative turn have their roots in commu nicative teaching.
However , a well -educated person needs more than sheer confidence in expressing thoughts
and ideas. In order to equip the students with a kind of communicative proficiency a well –
educated person requires, the performances of the communica tive approach must be
improved, namely:

75

Therefore, while relying basically on the principles and techniques of communicative
teaching, post -communicative teachers have learned to adapt the procedures of tradi tional
teaching to their own needs. Taking from each approach the methods that are be st suited for a
given class, lesson or educational aim, post -communicative teachers exploit whatever strategy
might trigger a positive reaction from the students.
That is why, in teaching pr actice today we come a cross techniques and procedures
borrowed from previous generations that I think we all use once a while, when a certain
teaching situation requires it :
 beginners, who basically need acquisition of language, benefit from the
techniques of the audio -lingual methods; situational dialogues, pattern
practice, repetition and memorization, etc., lead to good linguistic habits;
 at advanced levels, when the students need to develop an ability to deal with
the language independently, the grammar -translation method may produce
good results – after all, the grammar -translation method is still basic for
achieving high culture ; theoretical presentation of grammar, translation,
summarizing, etc., are efficient tech niques for independent work;
 communicative activities must be set at all levels, to supplement the
performances of the other approaches: the students must be made to develop
the text and interact with one another, express thoughts and feelings, negotiate
meanings, use the language functionally and strategicall y; by using authentic
material, setting up real -world -like situations, activating the students' personal
grammar must be
taught thoroughly
literature must be
given its due role
writing must be
practiced fully

76
experience and involving them emotion ally, the teacher creates a positive
atmosphere that facilitates learning; communica tive activities must be
accompanied by efficient error -correction techniques;
 post-communicative teachers rediscovered the value of writing in the formation
of the educated person; writing assignments can be task-based (fill out an
application form, order a product from a catalogue, find information on the
Internet, etc.); however, understanding the modern learner's need to formulate
thoughts in writing in a systematic and educated way, post -communicative
teachers also returned to non-commu nicative subjective writing tasks (e.g. the
essay).

3.3.1. The communicative syllabus

Communicative and also post-communicative curricula that emerged take into
consideration the premises presented above, as can be seen in the recent versions of Romanian
National Curriculum for teaching English in high school that we all know and use.
An important demoralising factor for both teacher and student in the process of
teaching and learning English is the so called missing -link. It can be defined as the inability of
the learner to com municate in real situation either orally or in writing after having studied the
foreign language for a number of years. They are perfectly able to use a stock of sentences, in
answering a finite set of questions, but unable to produce appropriate utterance in response to
any real situation. The modern psychologists call this phenomenon the missing link . The
teachers are challenged with the necessity of overcoming this aspect.
The main idea emphasized by the syllabus (which became the key word in recent
pedagogical thinking in Romania ) is that language represents the main means of
communication between people. The emphasis has been laid on oral communication and the
teaching objectives for the 5th- 8th forms , for example, are stipulated below, and us, high –
school teachers expect students to be able to perform accordingly.
The 8th form graduates are expected to possess the following abilities within the limits
of the vocabulary studied in the classroom:
1. they should read and write properly in English;
2. they shou ld be capable of comprehending a genuine speaker of English in an
average conversation;

77
3. they should be able to comment in English on various matters, having the ability of
asking and answering questions;
4. they are expected to be able to retell in short, bot h orally and in writing the content
of a text or of a situation;
5. they should be able to talk about social and cultural realities in our country;
6. they should have some knowledge about the culture and civilisation of the people
the language of which they stu dy.
It is obvious that language is conceived as a set of abilities the learner must possess,
manifest in the student ’s specific performances at the end of each teaching period. These
performances are conceived in the light of viewing langua ge as a means of communication
and, a s a result they will be communicative.
Such performances are achieved if the teachers adapt their teaching methods to the
development of communicative competence. There is a need for the teacher to make his /her
student s aware of two so rts of competence: linguistic and communicative , the ones that I have
already presented thoroughly above . So the main object ive of foreign language learning
nowadays has become the development of communicative competence. It has had by now two
methodological approaches, this leading to the eclectic syllabus and the functional/ notational/
communicative one.
The eclectic syllabus u nderlines a language course based on grammar that is
situationally introduced on certain topics such as A Visit on a Far m, At the Grocer’s are. The
text is just a vehicle for introducing and practicing a certain grammatical rule or lexical item.
Numerous c ommunicative task s are introduced for paving the way towards communication .
The communicative or notional or functional syllabus , as it has been called , represents
not so much a different method as a change in emphasis. It is based on language function or
speech acts rather than units of grammar or situations with a grammar focus. Units like
Simple Past Tense , A Trip to the Mountain s to be found in current syllabi would be replaced
by lessons entitled Expressing Approval/ Sympathy/ Happiness etc. In this ca se the grammar
and lexicon of a language is not an end in itself, but simply a tool for performing the
communicative function of the language which is the ultimate aim of learning and teaching.
As Dobson (1986) says, the advantage of the notional syllabus is that it takes into
consideration the communicative factors of the language right from the beginning, at the same
time, not losing sight of the grammatical or situational factors .
We, the English languages teachers in Romania, have to find appropriate wa ys of
applying the new theoretical ideas and teaching techniques materials in the present day school
conditions.

78
In our country the English subject is stated in the curriculum to be studied among
other subjects and so contribute side by side with them to t he development of the student s’
personality.
The syllabus lays down the aim of teaching, extent of the knowledge, habits and skills.
Student s must acquire the sequence of topics which constitutes the academic content of the
subject, the syllabus is an esse ntial document for us, teachers, and we are responsible for the
fulfilmen t of its requirements. There is , so far, a uniform syllabus for all the teacher s working
in schools.
The syllabus itself includes the topics for reading and writing and the requiremen ts for
their performances in habits and skills. As far as the matter of performance objectives is
concerned , we should emphasise the difference in view between the functional syllabus and
our current syllabus.
While the former does not demand absolute mas tery of any linguistic item, its aim
being rather to develop a potential of communicative competence in the learners, the latter
makes clear demands on learners, which, however seldom becomes a reality. The truth is that
the eclectic syllabus finally resul ts in the same development of student s’ potential in further
learning the foreign language.

3.3.2. The place of grammar in a communicative syllabus

Until fairly recently , it has been assumed that foreign languages learning should be
defined in grammatical terms and the attention of the student s has been focused on
grammatical terms rather than on the communicative and practical value of what they are
actually learning.
Grammar learning means learning the basic morphosyntactic patterns of the language
up to the point of productive mastery, i.e. until they become a set of habits for active use. But
grammar learning is not an end in itself , but still an indispensable means for the acquisition of
the communicative competence.
In our present -day textbook s the attention of the student is focused both on
grammatical forms and on the practical and communicative exercises. The more important
structures are introduced in a graded sequ ence, but they are closely linked to a particular
language function. Thus, the student does not practice and use grammar in isola tion, but s/he
is shown how to exploit the grammatical information for different communicative purposes.
The student learns how to link grammatical structures to language functions in order to fulfil

79
the communicative needs. For example the 11h form teach ing unit including the reported
Speech also include th e communicative function about introducing a topic I heard that… or
Did you know that…? . As a language function can be expressed by a number of grammatical
structures and a grammatical structure may be used for a variety of different language
functi ons, the teaching of grammar is, again, no longer done for its own sake, but it becomes a
logical and necessary tool for the learner.
Palmer (1975) thinks that a textbook should introduce all the essential questions early
in order for it to be effective for communication practice. He adds that the introduction of
grammatical patte rns should be based on their usefulness in producing quick communication
rather than on the notion of their linguistic difficulty.
Generally speaking, all our textbooks are effective tools for both teachers and student s.
They are built on the eclectic prin ciples enriched with functional features that the teacher can
make the most of, and also, as I have said before, the teacher can constantly enhance the
quality of materials, bringing to class whatever materials s/he thinks useful and appropriate to
their l evel of knowledge and item that is being taught. .

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4. Chapter 4: Teaching Sequence of Tenses
Communicatively
4.1. The importance of teaching the sequence of tenses communicatively

The sequence of tenses is a rather controversial subject from various points of view.
From observations regarding the liberties taken by native speakers, as well as regarding some
fluctuations present even in literary texts, many learners of English draw the general
conclusion that English people do not abide by the rules of the sequ ence of tenses.
Another bad point is the fact that learners are often apt to mistake the sequence of
tenses for indirect speech. Owing to its great frequency in spoken and written English,
indirect speech is identified with the sequence of tenses being an extensive and very frequent
field of application of the rules of the sequence of tenses although it covers only one type of
subordinate clause, which is the direct object clauses , as I already explained in Chapter 1. .
As for the liberties taken by the nati ve English speakers in this field of sequen ce of
tenses, they represent a laxer kind of speech (and writing occasionally) which is not exactly
sub-standard but it is not formal English either, being typical of colloquial and highly
colloquial English.
Cont rastive linguistics, which compares the structures of two languages to determine
the points where they differ, is of special interest to the English language teacher. Syntax
patterns as well as grammar patterns are compared and the differences described. T he result of
this contrastive description forms the basis for the preparation of language tests and for the
correction of student s.

81
The teaching of sequence of tenses plays an important role in the teaching of syntax.
Usually, the tenses in the same group are accompanied by adverbs or prepositions belonging
to the same group or to a similar group. It is perhaps useful for the teaching process to have
the present always accompanied by the adverb now, the present perfect by adverbial modifiers
of the type this week , the past tense by adverbial phrases introduced by last (last week ) or
ending in ago (a week ago ) and the other perfect tenses by the adverb before or by the
temporal conjunctions before, after, till, until , as Bantaș (1978 ) rightfully observes.
According to him, the symmetrical arrangement of tenses may prove its usefulness in
teaching the constraints of sequence of tenses upon the subordinate clauses where they apply:
direct object clauses etc.

1. Present Indefinite
(I walk) 2. Past Indefinite
(I walked) 5. Future Indefinite
(I shall walk) 6. Future in the
Past
(I should walk)
1’. Present
Continuous
(I am walking) 2’. Past Continuous
(I was walking) 5’. Future
Continuous
(I shall be walking) 6’. Future in the
Past Continuous
(I should be
walking)
3. Present Perfect
(I have walked) 4. Past perfect
(I had walked) 7. Future Perfect
(I shall have
walked) 8. Future Perfect in
the Past
(I should have
walked)
3’. Present Perfect
Continuous
(I have been
walking) 4’. Past Perfect
Continuous
(I had been
walking) 7’. Future Perfect
Continuous
(I shall have been
walking) 8’. Future Prefect in
the Past
(I should have been
walking)

Certainly the last number s in this table (i.e. 8 and 8’ ) occur very rarely in spoken
English.
There is no doubt that good knowledge of the rules of the sequence of tenses is
essential for the mastery of language: we cannot use words and sentences unless we know
how they should be put together . In this respect, I have devised some learning strategies in the
following part of this paper .

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4.2. Strategies of teaching and learning

According to Noveanu and Pană ( 1981 ), the teaching of grammar, in this case the
sequence of tenses , must observe two conditions:
1. Rules will not be learned by heart, in isolation, the student s will be introduced
in the inner structure of language for understanding how it works. It is the only
way to make student s consciously acquire the fundamentals of the language.
2. Rules will never govern function , but rules and functions will be closely
interrelated: grammar is no longer an aim in itself, but a tool for expressing
function.
In this respect , annoying grammatical explanations could be avoided altogether . In
fact, they are no longer rules in the traditional treatment and interpretation, but they have the
form of algorithms that can direct the student s learning and lead them along the shortest way
to the desired end.
The textbook itself offer the algorithmic grammatical forms, the teacher’s personal
contribution consists in supplementing the numbe r of exercises meant to develop the
relationship between the process of selection and that of ordering of linguistic items in the
student ’s mind.
When we teach the sequence of tenses subject , we are (or should be) getting our
student s to learn quite a lar ge number of different, though related, bits of knowledge and
skills : how to recognize the examples of sequence of tenses when spoken, how to identify
their written forms, how to produce both their spoken and written forms, how to understand
their meaning in context and produce meaningful sentences. All these bits, according to Urr
(1988: 177) namely aspects of teaching and learning o f structures may be presented in the
form of a table , as follows :
Form Meaning
Listening Perception and recognition of
the spoken form of the structure Comprehension of what the spoken
means in context
Speaking Production of well formed
examples in speech Use of the structure to convey
meanings in speech
Reading Perception and recognition of
the written form Comprehension of what the written
structure means in the context

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Form Meaning
Writing Production of well -formed
examples Use of the structure to convey
meanings in writing

When we teach, we may have a tendency to concentrate on some of these and neglect
others: we may spend a lot of time on getting the forms right and neglect to give practice in
using the structure to convey meanings; or we may focus on written exercises and fail to
cover other aspect satisfactory , thus it is important to keep a balance.
When teaching a grammatical problem, in our case that of the sequence of tenses, we
have to follow four stages in a classical approach :

4.2.1. Presentation

Usually , we begin by presenting the class with a fragment in which the sequence of
tenses appears . The aim of the presentation stage is to get the students to perceive the
sequence of tenses in both writing and speech and to take the structure into the short term
memory. A story or a dialogue is often used and is also read by the teacher and/or student . As
follow up, the teacher may ask the students to read the fragment aloud, repeat it, reproduce it

84
form memory, or identify instances of the use of the structure within the given text. Whe n the
structure is a very simple one and it is easily p erceived , the presentation text may be just a
sample sentence or two sentences to serve as a model for the immediate practice.
I have introduced the indirect speech to my students in the 11th form using a fragment
from The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde :
About ten minutes later, the bell rang for dinner, and, as Virginia did not come down,
Mrs Otis sent up one of the servants. After a little time he returned and said that he could not
find Miss Virginia anywhere. So, the whole family started looking for her.
The hours passed, but they could find no trace of Virginia. So, after dinner, Mr. Otis
ordered them all to bed, saying that nothing more could be done that night, and that he would
contact Scotland Yard in the morning. Just when everybody was about to leave the dining –
room, the clock struck midnight, and when the last stroke sounded, a secret door opened in
the wall and in that door stood Virginia with a little box in her hand. Every body ran up to
her.
“Good Heavens! child, where have you been? said Mr Otis, rather angrily, as he
thought she had been playing a trick on them.
“Papa,” said Virginia quietly, “I have been with the ghost. He is dead, and you must
come and see him. He had b een very nasty, but he was really sorry for all that he had done,
and he gave me this box of beautiful jewels before he died.”
Then she led the others down a narrow secret corridor to a little low room. There the
family found the skeleton of Sir Simon, who had been starved to death by his wife's brothers.
Virginia knelt down beside the skeleton, and, folding her little hands together, began to pray
silently.
Meanwhile, one of the twins was looking out of the window in the little room and
suddenly said, “Loo k! The old almond -tree has blossoms.”
“Then God has forgiven him,” said Virginia and stood up.
I gave a model reading of the text and asked students to identify the direct speech
situations and to identify the reported speech situations, things that are retold by other people
than the initial speakers, and to underline the indirect speech structures .

4.2.2. Isolation and explanation

At this stage we tend to move away from the context, and focus, temporarily, on the
grammatical rules of the sequence of tenses themselves: what they look like or sound like,

85
what they mean and how they function. The objecti ve of this stage is that the student s should
understand the grammatical rules. In some c ases, we may need to make extensive use of the
students’ other tongue to translate, explain and make generalization s etc. In more advanced
classes, or whe n the rules ar e especially difficult for the students to understand , this stage
might take some more time. Nonetheless , whe n the rules are very simple, or very close to
those in the students’ mother tongue , or when the students show a tendency to learn the
foreign language intuitively rather than rationally , it may take only a moment to be entirely
omitted.
For a better understanding of the rules , we can try to vis ualize them as in a chart
resembling the one I devised in chapter 1, in 1.1.2. Time setting .
At this s tage, I discussed with the students the sequence of tenses rules as they are
found in indirect speech and gave them some examples.

4.2.3. Practice and production

The practice stage consists of exercises done both in the classroom and for home
assignment, whos e aim is to cause the learners to absorb the rules thoroughly; or to put it in
another way, to transfer what the students know from short term memory to long term
memory.
In this stage, I ask students to solve certain exercises or tasks, either individuall y, in
pairs or groups. They perform either oral or written work, while I monitor their activity and I
intervene when I think it is the case to do so, but I am careful so as not to interrupt their
activity of fluency. With regards to the corrections, I make them after the activity is finished
and after I have already given feedback to the students regarding the work they h ave
performed.
Clearly , not every grammar practice activity or procedure can cover all aspects of the
grammatical rules; there fore we need to use a n extra series of different exercises that will
complet e each other and thus together they will provide thorough coverage of the rules .
When the rules are difficult to grasp, we might start by developing some time to
manipulation of the written and spoken forms, without relating particularly to meaning. Such
practice is usually given through exercises based on discrete items (a series word s, phrases or
sentences with no particular connection between them, except insofar as they exemplify the
structure to be practiced, commonly found exercises of this type are: slot fillers (the learner
insert the appropriate item), transformation etc. The f unction of such exercises is simply to

86
help make the rules of the sequence of tenses clearer and to ensure that they are learnt more
thoroughly. A learner who has worked through a series of them may find it easier, eventually,
to express him or herself cor rectly, in language that will be acceptable to a native speaker. But
because they have no practice in making meanings with the structure (and are therefore,
incidentally, usually not very interesting) these exercise have limited usefulness.
If there isn’t a certain degree of simultaneity of such exercises , even at the earlier
levels, the student s will stop at the production grammatically correct sentences, therefore at
the level of usage and linguistic competence. So, we should move on to the meaning -based
practice as soon as we feel our students have a fundamental grasp of the rules and their
application (they may, of course, grasp these rules adequately as a result of the presentation
and explanation, in which case we will not need purely form – based exer cises at all)
Another category of practice procedures still stresses the production of perception of
correct forms, but involves meaning as well as yet unlinked so an y general situational
framework and cannot be done without comprehension. Such exercises a re, again usually
based on discrete items. Some examples of this situation include translation, to or from the
native language: slot filling or multiple choice, slot filling with choice of answers n ot
provided, matching.
The lang uage is still not being use d to do things but merely to provide examples of
them, it is, in other words, not communicative yet, but at least the exercises cannot be done
through mere technical manipulation. They are certainly more interesting to do than purely
form based ones, and t his interest can be increased by the introduction of stimulating or
amusing subject matter , or some game – like techniques, and thus provide more learning value
to exercises .
The third, and probably the most productive – certainly the most interesting – type of
exercises is that in which the stress is on the production or compre hension of meaning for
some non -linguistic purpose, while keeping an eye, as it were, on the way the rules of the
sequence of tenses are being manipulated in the process. Such practic e may be obtained
through information or opinion , gap communication techniques or through activities based on
the production of entertaining ideas.
If all these types of practice exercise s described here are in fact used, they are likely to
come in the ord er they have been laid out here, though not always. We may in the course of a
communicative activity find that the students are making consistent mistakes with a certain
structure and decide to return temporarily to an exercise that focuses on correct form s. Or it
may be found feasible in some cases to do only one kind of practice, usually the third, if the
structure is very easily mastered.

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The creative speaking and writing practice materials follow the oral practice material
and are designed to practice t he same language in a less controlled way, giving the student s
more opportunities to draw from their own experience and express their opinions and ideas.
Visual aids, such as charts, pictures, slides, maps encourage pair or group work, which then
may be fo llowed by written work in the classroom or as homework.
Much practice is necessary for the learner to reach the communicative competence.
Though the functionalists state that communicative competence must be introduced from the
very beginning of the langua ge study, classroom experience proved that a certain degree of
competence (language as usage ) must precede performance (language as use). Decoding
activities must precede the encoding ones. Competence is developed by means of perceptive
skills (understandi ng and reading). Production skills are components of performance (oral and
written expression)
Our teaching problem is finding the most efficient procedures for the development of
the perceptive skills for a further transition to the production skills.
The bases of the interrelation of the four skills are the language elements included in
phonology , semantics and syntax. Oral comprehension precedes speaking, reading preceding
writing. The skills are complementary.
The teaching strategies depend on our knowl edge about the construction elements of
the language and about the learning strategies used by the learners themselves.
In support of this idea, here is an interesting model of learning a foreign language:

Phonological and
spelling level Lexical level Expression level
ORAL -recognition of
sounds
-minimal pairs
discrimination -recognition of lexical
items of their
grammatical value -recognition of
expression:
(morphological and
syntactical patterns)
ORAL -ability of
articulating specific
sounds -capacity of pronouncing
and using words
appropriately according
to the message
requirements -capacity of using
appropriate
morphological and
syntactical patterns in
the message

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Phonological and
spelling level Lexical level Expression level
READING -recognition of the
graphemes and
production of
corresponding
sounds -capacity of recognizing
the lexical elements, their
meaning and producing
equivalent sounds for the
written forms -recognition of
morphological and
syntactical patterns
given in writing and
the written conventions
WRITING -ability of using
specific graphemes -producing written forms
of lexical units -using appropriate
written forms for the
morphological and
syntactical patterns of
the message

Noveanu and Pană (1981) are preoccupied with the idea of the mechanism of
learning. According to their theory, learning is a heterogen eous process, including a large
range of mechanisms, beginning with the simplest ones of the stimulus -reaction type to the
most complex ones of the problem solving type. The relationship between verbal
communication and the thinking process still has a number of unclear aspects.
They start from the analysis of the inner structure of the act of the communication, that
is the process within the mind of the speaker while participating in the act of conversation.
The author s give a graphi c model for the verbal reaction , it is made up of two axes – the
syntagmatic ax is and the paradigmatic one.
The syntagmatic ax is represent s a determined succession of the units in the message. It
is a structure based on lexical conjunction (A and B). The paradigmatic ax is include s a
selection of elements that can be combined at a certain moment. It is a construction based on
lexical disjunction (A or B), such as the conjugation of a verb.
A verbal reaction of a sentence form supposes a spontaneous producti on of the
constitutive units (phrases, lexemes) which are organized on the two axes according to the
rules of the language and according to the stimulus and intention of the speaker. It is this
organization of the act of the verbal reaction, especially on the level of use that represents the
objective of foreign language learning.
The surface area of the act of communication is represented by the articulation
performance which allows the speaker to convey the message that can be received and
decoded by the listener. The deep structure represents a process of selection. There are the

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brain processes that act like a computer which selects on the paradigmatic axes and then order
on the syntagmatic axes the items of the message. The message is the output of thes e
programmed processes.
The application of the two axes theory in teaching is very important for the students
understanding of the inner organization of the English language. It represents a shorter and
clearer understanding of the definition of the differ ent parts of speech the the students are
learning .
A modern grammar teaching means to make the students s use grammar patterns
accurately and naturally, without thinking of them, in the same way they do in their mother
tongue .
It is also important that teac hers know the principles of construction of drills , when
they thing they need them, and have the experience of trying to construct a series of drills
themselves, in order to be able to recognize well -designed drills when choosing textbook s for
the classes.
In Rivers’ (1986) opinion there are some observations that must be taken into account:
a) A drill series is designed for teaching to manipulate a grammatical structure,
not for testing what the students already know. The series therefore should
provide consi derable practice in the use of each element before moving on
the presentation of another structure .
b) Each drill should be concerned with one specific structural pattern. The
student is thus able to concentrate on one English language problem at a
time, usually a pattern that contrasts with his native language habits.
c) The structural features to be drilled will have been encountered already by
the student in recent study material, i.e. in a dialogue s/he had been exposed
to or in a reading passage or conve rsation with which s/he has been
working.
d) In a structural pattern drill, variety of vocabulary will be kept to a minimum.
Only very familiar words will be used so that the student’s attention is not
distracted from the structural feature s/he is learning t o manipulate.
In order to conclude this stage, that is the stage of practice and production , I propose d
the following exercises related to the sequence of tenses constraints applied to that -clauses ,
and also other variations of the sequence of tenses . Rega rding the reported speech , I have to
mention that exercises in reported speech should not be treated as mere practice in mental
gymnastics, although the process of encoding spoken utterance and decoding reports may

90
involve a number of complex operations wh ich can become automatic only through practice.
These can be summarized as a conclusion as follows:
1) the reporter is generally someone other than the original speaker. Equally ,
the receiver of the report is likely to be different from the person who
receive d the original message. Using the correct pronouns to reflect these
changes is a matter of common sense.
2) reports are often given in a different place from where the original words
were spoken, and at a later time. In any reports introduced by a reporting
verb in the past tense, the original tenses will often need to be changed
accordingly, it also be necessary to change adverbs of time, place.
I shall begin with examples of the first, second and then the third type, i.e. those
exercises which do not relate to meaning, those which involves meaning as well, though yet
not linked to any general situational framework, and then exercises in which the stress is on
the production or comprehension of meaning.
I don’t claim originality for most of these exercises, as with these types of exercises
we can’t really be completely original, but rather I try to give a survey of the exercises that
can be used successfully in the classroom in our endeavour to a chieve communicative
competence:
1. Fill in the blanks with the appropriate form of the verb so as to render the idea of
simultaneity.
It seemed that she … (to find) ever such a good job again.
The boy followed the advice that the old man … (to give) him.
Jane knew that she … (to have) to tell about the problem later on.
He realised that his voice … (to be) hoarse.
She explained that water … (to boil) at 100° C.

2. Change the following sentences to Past Tense paying attention to the rules of
sequence of tenses:
Model: She wants to know that you are well.
She wanted to know that you were well.
I’m afraid I have lost my wallet.
I suppose she is right.
They always forget that you can’t sing.
We hear that you must stay here until midnight.
My friend never tells me that I have no idea about planes.

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3. Write out the sentences, using the verbs in brackets in the correct tense:
a) I wish I (can) speak several languages.
I wish I (have) a car.
I wish I (be) younger.
She wishes her parents (approve) of her boy friend.
You wish you (know) everything about her.

b) Change the following sentences according to the model:
Model: Don’t be so rude!
I wish you wouldn’t be so rude.
Don’t put your feet on the table!
Don’t make such a fuss!
Don’t make everything so complicated.
Model: He’s awfully vain.
I wish he weren’t so vain.
It’s awfully foggy.
It’s awfully dark in here.
The train’s going awfully slowly.
Model: You didn’t tell him, did you?
I’m afraid I did. I wish I hadn’t told him.
You didn’t break it, did you?
You haven’t lost it, have you?
He didn’t shoot the hawk, did he?

4. Rephrase the following sentences using the words given in the brackets without
changing the meaning.
Model: I would like to be rich. (wish)
I wish I were rich.
Please, hurry up! (wish)
It’s very late. We really ought to be leaving. (it’s time)
It woul d be nice to know his opinion. (wish)
Please, keep it a secret for the time being. (rather)
When is the weather going to improve? (high time)
Would you mind not smoking at table? (’d rather)

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5. Report the following statements according to the model:
Mode l: “He looks tired”, he said.
He said she looked tired. (the reporting verb is “ to say”)
“I’ll do it tomorrow” he said.
“I’m going to help you” she said.
“I need a prescription” he said.
“I can’t swim very well” he said.
“I’m fed up with trying to lose weight” she said.
Model: “I’m leaving, Mr Hubbard”, he said.
He said he was leaving. (the reporting verb is “to say”)
“I don’t like strawberries, Sue” he said.
“I can’t swim, Andy” she said
“I miss you, Tim” she said.
“I don’t forgive you, George” he said .

6. Put the verbs in brackets in the Past Tense and Future in the Past so as to state the
idea of posteriority:
Model: I (tell) my mother that I (come) back home late.
I told my mother that I would come back home late.
The air hostess (assure) the passe ngers that the storm (not affect) the flight.
I (promise) my parents that I (spend) New Year’s Eve with them.
The dentist (remind) me that I (have to) come again the next day.
The doctor (tell) the little child that nobody (do) him any harm.
I (promise) my mother that I (begin) studying the next week.

7. Put the verbs in the parenthesis in the correct tense form:
I am sure I (to get) a letter from her by Monday.
We were sure that it (to rain) the following day.
He told me he (to read) Shakespeare’s plays in the original.
I didn’t know that your brother (to become) an engineer.
He promised that he (to call) on them when he came to Bucharest.
Still nobody knew that he (to fall) in love with her.
He knew he (can) never do it.
We were happy that the film (to s tart) in a few minutes.

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8. Turn these sentences into Indirect Speech paying attention to the exceptions to the
sequence of tenses:
Model: “Remember that they drive on the left in England” (My friend, remind, I)
My friend reminded me that they drive on the left in England.
“All that glitters is not gold”. (Experience, teach, he)
“Birds of a feather flock together”. (They, remind, me)
“There are thousands of solar systems in the universe” (The scientists, inform, his
audience)
“The weather is often damp and foggy in England”. (We, warm, they)

9. Put the verbs in brackets in the correct form paying attention to the exception to the
sequence of tenses:
I have been very pleased to learn that they (to come) to our far ewell party.
Why didn’t you tell us you (not to be able) to finish your work by yourself?
We decided that we (to go) on holidays in June.
The teacher told them that Bucharest (to be) the largest city in Romania.
Everybody knew that the earth (to revolve) r ound the sun.

10. Supply the correct form of the verbs in parenthesis in order to show the anteriority
relation:
The policemen suspected that they (to rob) the bank.
Nobody suspected that she (to poison) the animal.
He told us that he (to play) tennis the day before.
Donald said that he (to forgive) his friend for those facts.
They informed us that they (to look for) an apartment a whole month.

11. Put the verbs in brackets in the correct tense, according to the model:
Model: It is important that everybod y (to study) local customs.
It is important everybody should study local customs.
It is important that everybody (to be) punctual.
It is necessary that one (to ask) everybody present for permission to smoke.
It is important that one (not to go) into detai ls when telling a story.

12. Change these sentences using “suggest” and “insist”.

94
She told John to accept their invitation.
Helen told me to attend evening class.
Jane advised us to rent a house.
Harry advised us to go to the seaside.
He reminded me to ta ke a holiday.

13. Put the following sentences into Reported Speech and choose one of the reporting
verbs: advise, invite, recommend, forbid, warn, remind, ask.
“Could you shut the door, please?” The interviewer…
“Don’t forget to switch off the fire.” Mo ther…
“Would you like to sit down and wait?” The receptionist…
“I should lie down if I were you.” My friend…
“You mustn’t tell anyone about this product.” My boss…
“Don’t move or I’ll shoot!” The gunman…
“Try to stay at the Imperial Hotel if you can.” Some friends…

14. Turn these sentences into Direct Speech:
His wife complained that he never lifted a finger to help her.
My father promised that he would give me a hand with my homework that evening.
I explained that I was late because the bus had broken down.
My friend admitted that he had had an accident with my car.
The teacher argued that John ought to go first because he was the youngest.

15. Rewrite each sentence in indirect speech, beginning as sh own:
“I wouldn’t cook the fish for too long, Bill, if I were you” said Jean. (Jean said…)
“Well, in the end, I think I’ll take the brown pair”, said the customer. (The customer
said…)
“Me? No, I didn’t take Sue’s calculator”, said Bob. (Bob said…)
“Look, I might not be able to come on Saturday”, said David. (David said…)
“No, you really must stay, Sophia,” Ann said. (Ann insisted that…)
“You are not allowed to smoke in your room, Dick” said his mother. (Dick’s mother
said…)

16. Complete each se ntence with one suitable word. Do not use “say”.
Model: I thought Jim would say something about his new job.

95
But he didn’t mention it.
Sorry. I wasn’t being insulted. I simply … that you seem to have put on rather a lot of
weight lately.
The police… that the crowd was under 50,000 although the organizers of the march
put it at near 100,000.
The children … that their parents were always checking up on them.
It has been … that by the year 2050 some capital cities will be almost uninhabited
because of the effects of air pollution.
Brown … that the arresting officers had treated him well.
Although he didn’t say so directly the Prime Minister … that an arrangement between
the two sides was within reach.

17. Change the main verb in each sentence to t he simple past. Then change the verb in
the subordinate clause according to its time relation to the main verb.
Model: I think Helen needs your help.
I thought Helen needed your help.
I know they are tired. Edward thinks he won the first prize in the comp etition.
I remember that the wind blew very hard the last week.
I hear that he is writing another book.
I guess our friends haven’t heard the good news yet.
I suppose she will finish the work next week.

18. Select the correct word from the parenthesis in each sentence.
We are sure that you (can, could) help us with the work.
Henry regretted that (can’t, couldn’t) go with us.
He thought he (can, could) find some to explain everything to us.
Daniel said he (may, might) send the parcel next week.
We had to p romise Mary that we (will, would) help her.
They didn’t know that we (must, had to) leave at once.

19. Turn these sentences into Reported Speech using one of the following openings:
He said/ promised/ suggested/ thought/ pointed out/ told that.
a) If you give him a little encouragement, he’ll work really hard.
If you take a pill, you won’t be sick.
If you don’t remember your wife’s birthday, she’ll be upset.

96
If you don’t tell me the truth at once, I’ll never trust you again.

b) What would you do if you were in my shoes?
If he got my letter in time, he would be able to change his plans.
If by any chance we missed the 10’o clock train, we would get there late.
If it were not for the fact that his father is on the board of directors, he would never
get the job.
c) If it hadn’t been for your laziness, you could have finished your work by now.
If he had taken a little more time to think, he might have acted more sensibly.
If the driver of the train hadn’t reacted so quickly, the accident would have been much
worse.
If he hadn’t gone to England, he wouldn’t have had to learn English.

20. Rewrite the sentences in reported speech, using the sentence openings:
a) I promised that if…
He made it clear that I…
He said that if I…
His teacher thought that if…
He said he… only if I…
I reassured him, saying that if…
b) I felt that if I…
It was suggested that perhaps he… if I…
I pointed out that if we…
His advice was that if I…
We promised that if they…
He thought that if she…

21. Translate the followin g sentences which contain reporting condition:
I-am spus că dacă m -aș afla în situația lui, n -aș ști ce să fac.
Mi-a spus că dacă aș fi întins mâna, l -aș fi putut atinge.
Mi-a sugerat că dacă îl voi întreba ce înseamnă pentru el reclama aceea, îmi va
răspu nde ceva ciudat.
I-am promis că dacă va reuși la examen îi voi cumpăra o bicicletă.
Ne-am gândit că dacă ar fi fost un bun șofer, n -ar fi avut accidentul.

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22. Translate the following text and try to explain why the sequences of tenses apply.
Debbie said that since she had got married the previous June, she had appreciated the
extra independence that had come from looking after herself for part of the day. She said that
she knew what things cost because she was used to shopping and she knew how much work
went into running a house. She explained that a lot of girls she had grown up with, who had
never learned to fend for themselves, must have come down to earth with a bump. She finished
by saying that when she had children she hoped she could do as well as h er mother, but she
didn’t know if she would have enough patience and energy.

23. Translate the following sentences into English:
M-a informat că am fost căutat de mai multe ori de colegii mei.
Vecinul mi -a spus că e dispus să mă ajute la repararea gardului.
Cu toate că nu știu precis când voi scăpa de la birou, vă asigur că voi sosi la timp.
Făcând e experimentul , el ne -a dovedit că apa îngheață la 0° C.
Se spune că anul acesta vom avea o iarnă foarte grea.
Spunea că are de terminat o traducere la limba engleză și deci nu ne va putea însoți în
turul orașului.
Știam că mama era acasă și avea grijă de copii.
Ea mi -a scris că va sosi cu trenul .
Directorul mi -a amintit că va avea nevoie de acest dosar până la sfârșitul săptămânii..

24. Make up sentences of your own with the following adjectives, nouns and adverbs
that trigger a subject clause:
Likely/ certain/ possible/ probable.
Clear/ evident/ true.
Problem/ surprise/ pity/ miracle.
Alarm/ discourage/ irritate.
25. Use the following noun – clause as subj ects to sentences:
How he found it out…
That a crime had been committed…
That many people had lost their lives…
How it all happened…

26. Make up predicative clauses with the following nouns as subjects of the “be”
predicate: fact, idea, question, statement, claim, reason.

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Model: The important fact is that you are well again.

27. Decide whether it is possible to leave out the word underlined in each sentence.
It was the first car that I ever drove.
It’s the long winters here that really depress most people.
The letter that arrived this morning contained bad news, I’m afraid.
This is the village that the Romans built.

28. Join these sentences by changing the second sentence of each pair into a defining
relative clause:
The pipe l ine has been severed. It carries the town’s water supplies.
The exhibition was not interesting. My friend took me to see it.
Is the offer still opened? You made the offer last week.
The library didn’t find the book. I need it for my research.

29. Translat e into English:
I-am dat lui John cartea pe care o citește acum.
Voi tăia copacul care va fi uscat.
Ouăle pe care le -ați fiert erau proaspete.
Am dat rochia care fusese la modă acum câțiva ani.

30. Imagine you had an interview for a job yesterday and you are now telling a friend
about it. Report what questions you were asked and what you r answers were.

31. Rewrite this history in indirect speech. Beginning by “The writer said that…” (call
the ant “he” and the grasshopper “she” ):
The Ant the Grasshopper
I will tell you the story of the ant and the grasshopper. It is a cold winter’s day and an
ant is bringing out some grains of corn that he had gathered in the summer as he wants to dry
them. A grasshopper, who is very hungry, sees him and says, “Give me a f ew grains of corn, I
am dying in hunger.”
“But”, says the ant, “What did you do in the summer? Didn’t you store up some
corn?”
“No”, replies the grasshopper, “I was too busy.”
“What did you do?” says the ant.

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“I sang all day,” answers the grasshopper.
“If you sang all summer” says the ant, “you can dance all winter”.

32. Imagine you were in a bank yesterday when, suddenly a thief ran into it. What
happened? What did he tell the people in the bank to do? What did he tell the cashier to do?
Than what happene d?

33. Turn the following report into direct speech.
Last week Tom interviewed a man called Martin Saunders, who was going to go
around the world by bicycle. Tom interviewed him before he left. This is his report.
I asked Martin how long his journey would take. He told me he thought it would take
about two years. He said he was going to travel through twenty -three different countries. I
asked him if he was taking much money with him. He said he had about two hundred pounds.
He hoped he’d be able to find wo rk when he needed more money.

4.3. Communicative lesson plans
Lesson Plan

Name: Mirela Sabău
Date: 18th May 2015
Class: 11th grade C
No. of students: 27
School: Colegiul Tehnic “Mihai Viteazul”
Time allotted: 50 minutes
Textbook: FCE Gold Plus
Unit: VII
Lesson: Indirect Speech
Lesson Aims:
 To create interest in the topic and initiate discussion, to anticipate the content
of a reading text, to guess the meaning of some words;
 To read and identify key information in solving a task;
 To understand the indire ct speech when they read / hear it;
 To manipulate indirect speech structures correctly both, in speech and writing;
 To use the indirect speech in appropriate context in speech and writing.

100
Method: Communicative Language Teaching
Student interaction: indiv idual work, pair work, group work
Teaching resources:
 textbook
 worksheets

Activities:
Activity 1 Type
Warm -up Means
Oral activity
Individual work
Aims:
 to create a proper atmosphere in the classroom
 to arouse the pupils’ interest in the new lesson
Procedure:
1. Administrative measures: greetings,
absence
2. Short dialogue between the teacher and
students Interaction
T – S

T – S Timing

2’
Activity 2 Type
Checking of homework and
of the previous knowledge Means
Oral and written activity
Individual work
Aims:
 to check the written assignment and the previous knowledge
 to stimulate the whole class in this activity
Procedure:
1. The teacher asks one or two students to
read their homework (opinion essay) and the
others pay attention to the content, structure and
possible mistakes
2. Students pay attention to the possible
mistakes and comment on them Interaction

T – S

S – S

T – S Timing

5’

Activity 3 Type
Link Means
Oral activity
Pair work

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Aim:
 to relate the new material to the previous knowledge
Procedure:
 the teacher divides the students into pairs
 the teacher asks the students about their
last family event and has the students ask their
respective classmate what the other members of
the family said to them inducing them to
reproduce conversation s
 the teacher elicits a few students to repeat
to the whole class some of the reported statements
they have heard from their classmates
Interaction

T – S

S – S

T – S

Timing

5’

Activity 4 Type
Teaching new material
inductively Means
Oral activity
Pair work
Aims:
 for students have an idea about the structure of the indirect speech;
 for students to recognize the indirect speech and to understand the meaning of
the grammatical structure and its use from the context
 for students to be able to use the indirect speech correctly for reporting a
conversation
Procedure:
1. the teacher gives the students sheets of
paper containing the text with the new verbal
structures
2. the teacher will give a model reading and
students, while listening, will identify and
underline the indirect speech situations.
3. the teacher divides the class into pairs and
asks them to try to identify the structure of the
indirect speech
4. the teacher discusses with the students the
structure of the indirect speech, writes the t itle on Interaction

T – S

T – S

S – S

Timing

15’

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the blackboard along with some examples, while
stressing the use of the indirect speech
5. the students write down the new
information regarding the indirect speech in their
notebooks

S – T
Activity 5 Type
Practice Means
Oral and written activity
Group work
Aims:
 for students to produce the newly acquired grammatical structure, i.e. the
indirect speech
 to reinforce the grammatical structure recently taught
Procedure:
1. the teacher divides the class into groups
2. the teacher hands out worksheets
containing exercises with the indirect speech:
I. Complete the sentences rendering indirect
speech
II. Turn the following sentences into indirect
speech
3. the students discuss the exercises, solve
them in their respective groups and then, one
representative of each group, in turn, write 2
sentences on the blackboard
4. the teacher together with the students
discuss the sentences, makes possible corrections
and also gives additional explanations when
needed Interacti on
T – S

S – S

S – S

T – S Timing

18’
Activity 6 Type
Feedback Means
Oral activity
Individual work
Aims:
 to point out the most important elements of the lesson

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 to check if the students understood the new grammatical structure taught, i.e.
the indirect speech
Procedure:
The teachers asks questions about the indirect
speech and makes a very short summary of the
lesson
Interaction

T – S Timing

3’
Assigning homework Type
Independent practice Means
Oral activity
Aim:
 to ensure the transfer of the newly acquired grammatical structure from the
students’ short -term memory to the long -term memory
 for students to produce language using the indirect speech individually
Procedure:
The teacher explains the homework to the
students and writes it on the blackboard: write 5
sentences in which to report what someone has
said to you lately. Interaction

T – S Timing

2’

104
Worksheet

Read the following text and underline indirect speech structures

About ten minutes later, the bell rang for dinner, and, as Virginia did not come down,
Mrs Otis sent up one of the servants. After a little time he returned and said that he could not
find Miss Virginia anywhere. So, the whole family started looking for her.
The hours passed, but they could fi nd no trace of Virginia. So, after dinner, Mr. Otis
ordered them all to bed, saying that nothing more could be done that night, and that he would
contact Scotland Yard in the morning. Just when everybody was about to leave the dining –
room, the clock struck midnight, and when the last stroke sounded, a secret door opened in the
wall and in that door stood Virginia with a little box in her hand. Everybody ran up to her.
“Good Heavens! child, where have you been? said Mr Otis, rather angrily, as he
thought she had been playing a trick on them.
“Papa,” said Virginia quietly, “I have been with the ghost. He is dead, and you must
come and see him. He had been very nasty, but he was really sorry for all that he had done,
and he gave me this box of beautiful jewels before he died.”
Then she led the others down a narrow secret corridor to a little low room. There the
family found the skeleton of Sir Simon, who had been starved to death by his wife's brothers.
Virginia knelt down beside the skeleton, and, folding her l ittle hands together, began to pray
silently.
Meanwhile, one of the twins was looking out of the window in the little room and
suddenly said, “Look! The old almond -tree has blossoms.”
“Then God has forgiven him,” said Virginia and stood up.

(O. Wilde)

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Worksheet

I. Complete the sentences rendering indirect speech.
1. He said, "I like that car."
He said ……………………………………………………………………………………
2. "Where is your brother?" she asked me.
She asked me ………………………………………………………………………..…
3. "I don't speak Spanish," she said.
She said ………………………………………………………………………………..
4. "Say hello to Nathan for us," they said.
They asked me …………………………………………………………………………
5. "The film ended at nine o'clock," he said.
He said …………………………………………………………………………………
6. "Dave, do you prefer coffee or tea?" she says.
She asks Dave………………………………………………………………………….
7. "Where have you lost your key?" she asked him.
She asked him …………………………………………………………………………
8. "I never drink coffee at night," he said.
He said …………………………………………………………………………………
9. "Does she know Enya?" he wanted to know.
He wanted to know ……………………………………………………………………
10. "Don't try this at home," the scientist told us.
The scientist advised us ……………..……………………………………………………

II. Turn the following sentences into indirect speech

1 Sam said, “This cake tastes delicious.”
…………………………………………………………… ……………………………
2 “I can’t see you this evening because I’ve got a test tomorrow,” Andy told me.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
3 Phil said, “That vase was painted by my grandmother.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………
4 “The Earth is flat,” said the ancients.
…………………………………………………………………………………………

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5 “I received a letter this morning, but I haven’t read it yet,” Will said.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
6 “Can you speak Italian?”, she asked
…………………………………………………………………………………………
7 “Is your hotel near the park?” he asked.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
8 “Have you visited the history museum?”, she asked.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
9 “Close the window,” she told me.
……………………………………………………………………………………………….. ………………….
10. “I love that book,” Tim said to me.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. ………..

Lesson Plan

Name: Mirela Sabău
Date: 21st April 2015
Class: 10th grade E
No. of students: 29
School: Colegiul Tehnic “Mihai Viteazul”
Time allotted: 50 minutes
Textbook: On Screen
Unit: 5
Lesson: The 1st Conditional
Lesson Aims:
 To create interest in the topic and initiate discussion, to anticipate the content
of a reading text, to guess the meaning of some words;
 To read and identify key information in solving a task;
 To understand the grammatical structure when they read / hear it;
 To manipulate the structure correctly both, in speech and writing;
 To use the structure in appropriate context in speech and writing.
Method: Communicative Language Teaching
Student interaction: individual work, pair work, group work

107
Teaching resources:
 textbook
 worksheets

Activities:
Activity 1 Type
Warm -up Means
Oral acti vity
Individual work
Aims:
 to create a proper atmosphere in the classroom
 to arouse the pupils’ interest in the new lesson
Procedure:
3. Administrative measures: greetings,
absence
4. Short dialogue between the teacher and
students Interaction
T – S
T – S Timing

2’
Activity 2 Type
Checking of homework and
of the previous knowledge Means
Oral and written activity
Individual work
Aims:
 to check the written assignment and the previous knowledge
 to stimulate the whole class in this activity
Procedure:
3. The teacher asks one or two students to
read their homework (vocabulary exercise) and
the others pay attention to the content, structure
and possible mistakes
4. Students pay attention to the possible
mistakes and comment on them Interaction

T – S

S – S

T – S Timing

4’

Activity 3 Type
Link Means
Oral activity
Individual work
Aim:
 to relate the new material to the previous knowledge

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Procedure:
The teacher asks the students about their free time
during the day and how they spend it, what they
will/would do if they have/had more free time,
and what they would have liked to do if they had
had more free time. Interaction

T – S

Timing

3’

Activity 4 Type
Teaching new material
inductively Means
Oral activity
Pair work
Aims:
 for students have an idea about the structure of the 1st conditional;
 for students to recognize the 1st conditional and to understand the meaning of
the grammatical structure and its use from the context
 for students to be able to use the 1st conditional correctly for expressing a
condition
Procedure:
6. the teacher gives the students sheets of
paper containing the text with the new verbal
structures
7. the teacher will give a model reading and
students, while listening, will identify and
underline the conditional sentence(s).
8. the teacher divides the class into pairs and
asks them to try to identify the structure of the 1st
conditional
9. the teacher discusses with the students the
structure of the 1st conditional, writes the title on
the blackboard along with some examples, while
stressing the use of the 1st conditional
10. the students write down the new
information regarding the 1st conditional Interaction

T – S

T – S

S – S

S – T Timing

16’
Activity 5 Type
Practice Means
Oral and written activity
Group work

109
Aims:
 for students to produce the newly acquired grammatical structure, i.e. the 1st
conditional
 to reinforce the grammatical structure recently taught
Procedure:
5. the teacher divides the class into groups
6. the teacher hands out worksheets
containing exercises with t he 1st conditional:
II. Fill in the blanks with the correct form of
the verbs in brackets
III. Change the following into conditional
sentences (use unless whenever possible)
7. the students discuss the exercises, solve
them in their respective groups and then, one
representative of each group, in turn, write 2
sentences on the blackboard
8. the teacher together with the students
discuss the sentences, makes possible corrections
and also gives additional explanations when
needed
Interaction
T – S

S – S

S – S

T – S Timing

20’
Activity 6 Type
Feedback Means
Oral activity
Individual work
Aims:
 to point out the most important elements of the lesson
 to check if the students understood the new grammatical structure taught, i.e.
the 1st conditional
Procedure:
The teachers asks questions about the 1st
conditional and makes a very short summary of
the lesson Interaction

T – S Timing

3’
Assigning homework Type
Independent practice Means
Oral activity

110
Aim:
 to ensure the transfer of the newly acquired grammatical structure from the
students’ short -term memory to the long -term memory
 for students to produce language using the 1st conditional individually
Procedure:
The teacher explains the homework to the
students and writes it on the blackboar d: write 5
possible situations in the future using the 1st
conditional. Interaction

T – S Timing

2’

Worksheet

Read the following text and underline the conditional structures:

Paul is having a gap year and he is going travelling in South Africa with his friend
James. Paul’s mother is worried about this and she is talking to him. She has got an endless
stream of questions.

Mum: ‘Paul, whatever you do, don’t lose your passport! What will you do if you lose
your passport?’
Paul: ‘Mum, if I lose my passport, I’ll go to the Embassy.
Mum: ‘I know, I know, but what if it’s a long way?’
Paul: If it’s a long way I’ll just get on a train or I’ll hitch a lift’
Mum: ‘Oh dear, Paul, what’l l you do if you and James have an argument?’
Paul: ‘Mum, I have known James for many years and if we have a difference of
opinion we’ll talk about it in a grown -up way’
Mum: ‘What if you have an allergy or get sun stroke?’
Paul: ‘Mum, if I have an allergy or get sun stroke, I’ll go see a doctor – but if I wear
my sun hat I won’t get sun stroke. Mum if you worry that much, you’ll go grey!’

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Worksheet
The 1st conditional

I. Fill in the blanks with the correct form of the verbs in brackets:
e.g. She (writ e) to you if she (have) time.
She'll write to you if she has time.

1. If it (cost) too much, I (buy) a cheaper one.
2. If the doctor (not see) me, I (go)
somewhere else.
3. If the class (be) full, we (find) another one.
4. What (we do) if the taxi (not come) ?
5. (you phone) me if there (be) any problems?
6. I (ask) Peter if I (see) him
tomorrow.
7. I (go) next week, if I (can) get a train ticket.
8. If I (ha ve) to, I (complain) to the manager.
9. If he (see) me here, he (be) really angry.
10. Mary (be) worried if you (not come) to
the airport.

II. Change the following into conditional sentences (use unless whenever possible):

1. He may ask you to go with him, what will you say?

2. He won’t get up early, so he will miss the bus.

3. He will get here in time, so he will see the whole film..

4. It might rain, so we will not go for a walk.

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5. Chapte r 5: Testing , Errors and Remedies
5.1. Outline o n testing

Students take tests in order to prove – to the teacher and to themselves – how well they
master the rules of the grammatical structure, i.e. the sequence of tenses, which they have
been studying . The major objective of tests is to provide feedback , without which neither
teacher nor student would be able to make progress. We have to know at all times where we
are in order to have an idea where to go next.
Formal examination, usually preceded by revision of the taught content on the part of
the students , and followed by written evaluation on the part of the teacher, are only one type
of testing, presumably not useful for immediate teaching purposes. Most testing is done
automatically and almost unconsciously by teachers and learners, the most valuable results
being supplied by the students ’ everyday performance during class and in the assignments
given as home work . Oftentimes practice exercises are used by the teacher to supply informal
feedback and in this case they may also function as tests.
The most useful tests for use in class are those tests which the teacher writes himself /
herself . Only the students’ strength s and weakness, and the skills and areas of language s/he
wishes to emphasize in the teaching and in the testing. As a result even the best book of tests
will not be as suitable for our class , as the tests we write especially for our purpose.

5.1.1. Basic princ iples of testing

Every test should be reliable. In other words, a test should measure precisely whatever
it is supposed to measure (i.e. the rules of the sequence of tenses).

113
Every test should be valid. A test should measure whatever it is supposed to mea sure
and nothing else.
Many teachers and students think that exam and test scores can never be wrong.
However, this is simply not the case. Every test score is surrounded by an area of uncertainty.
For example, some students may not be on their best form w hen taking a test or the test may
favour certain students but not the others. For these reasons , it is always useful to take into
account a number of test scores or other factors (that is an interview with the student or an
examination of the student’s wor k in class, e.g. exercises, homework assignment and project
work). It is advisable to treat all test scores with caution.

5.1.2. Reasons for testing

a) Finding out about progress . Perhaps the most important reason is to find out how
well the students have mastered the rules of the sequence of tenses which have
just been taught. These tests look back at what students have achieved and are
called progress tests. Class progress tests are usually the most important kinds of
tests for us, teachers.
b) Encouraging students as they may lose their enthusiasm in learning even if they
may be making steady progress all the time.
c) Finding out about learning difficulties . In our teaching , we may sometimes be
tempted to concentrate on following the syllabus and ignore the very needs of our
students. If we do this, a large number of our students may fail however
thoroughly we have covered the syllabus. A good diagnostic test helps us to check
our students’ progress in mastering the constraints and rules of sequence of tenses.
d) Finding about achievement . An achievement test is usually designed to cover a
longer period of learning than a progress test. It is usually a formal examination
given at the end of the school year.
e) Placing and selecting students.
f) Finding out about proficiency .
We can give classroom test s every few weeks, sometimes even once a week.
Sometimes the test may occupy an entire lesson; sometimes only ten minutes or so. Good
classroom tests should always reflect the teaching that has taken place beforehand.
We, teachers , mustn’t give the impression to our students that we are assessing them
every time we give them a classroom test. A test that creates anxiety in students is harmful.

114
An advantage of short informal test given frequently is that they help stude nts to overcome
such feelings of anxiety , which I have done over the years, and in the case of these tests,
students are the ones that they want their mark taken into consideration if they do well in the
respective test .
We have to make sure that the test is enjoyable as well as useful. A good classroom
test is one which students enjoy doing and do not regard as a test.
Our evaluation of the students will be based on a number of tests rather than just one.
The most reliable form of continuous assessment com bines marks and comments from class
work, group work, homework assignment, oral questioning and progress tests.
I propose the following test for the 11th form , the level of the class being above
average, at our technological high -school, test which is desi gned to show the students’ ability
to apply the sequence of tenses constraints and to see if they know how to turn sentences from
indirect speech into direct speech.

I. Fill in the correct form of the verb. Pay attention to the rules of the sequence of
tenses:
1. The old woman told me that the house (to be build) in 1880.
2. I learned later that at a desk in the house a person (to write) his diary.
3. I told her that I (to move) in that house the next day.
4. I ordered that the house (to be cleaned)
5. Then I informed the woman that I (to be) an engineer and I (to come) from
London right then.
6. She told me she (to know) me well since I (to be) a child and that she (to come)
the next morning.

II. Turn the following text from Indirect Speech into Direct Speech:
Yesterday, John Smith, the reporter, interviewed George Sharp a famous British
athlete. George is going to run for Great Britain at the Olympic Games the next month. John
wanted to know what did George to improve his strength. George said he ate p lenty of fruit
and vegetables and did lots of exercises. He said that he did some exercises every morning,
and that he went running in the park. He told John he was feeling very fit. After he had spoken
to George, John interviewed the manager of the Britis h team. He asked him how many gold
medals he thought his team would win. The manager said they might win one if they were
lucky. Everything depended on George. If he managed to beat the Italian champion, he’d win
a gold medal.

115
5.2. Communicative testing

Every teacher knows only too well that things that are not tested regularly are either
ignored by the students or soon forgot ten. The same is true for productive skills, so that testers
finally realized that speaking and writing must come back to the foregroun d of their attention,
that they must be taught and tested fully and regularly.
By the time testers understood the necessity of some change, teachers had already
concluded that, in a world that requires knowledge of foreign languages for communica tive
purposes, they had to focus on the learners' communicative needs and devise class room
activities that should target their communicative competence, rather than their mere linguistic
abilities.
Competence (both linguistic and communicative) only becomes funct ional through
performance, i.e. actual usage of the language and active participation in communicative
exchanges. Communication relies on productive (rather than receptive) skills, as well as on
the mastery of other communicative strategies: the skills to negotiate meaning, to adapt one's
discourse according to the situational context, the ability to use appropriate paralanguage, etc.
In this context, the objective approach – with its focus on the isolated element and its
disregard for production of languag e and communication – could no longer meet the
requirements of language testing. Nor could objective tasks cope with the wide variety of
skills grouped under the heading communicative competence .
Hence , subjective assessment is the only type of testing th at can evaluate productive
skills. However, a return to traditional subjective testing did not seem to be the right solution,
because the endless summaries and translations of the grammar -translation approach seemed
archaic, artificial and boring. Furtherm ore, traditional subjective tasks (e.g. write a
composition on … or Imagin e a dialogue between …) lack authenticity of task: in the real
world, people speak to other people, because they want to say something, they adapt their
language according to the person addressed and the situation etc. Traditional sub jective tasks
provide no situation, no context, no addressee, and no communicative pur pose. Nor are such
tasks likely to challenge the students' imagination or involve them emotionally in the activit y.
Consequently, testers concluded that they had to modernize their appr oach and
improve their methods, i.e. that just like teaching, testing had to be brought closer to real –
world performance so as to activate the students' personal life experience and s tir their
interest, imagination and feelings.
In answer to the growing demand for change, testers set out to develop a
communicative approach to language testing to parallel and supplement the communicative

116
approach to language teaching. Communicative tes ts aim to assess the learner's
communicative skills – their ability to use the language in order to cope with actual
communicative situations.
There were several attempts to produce communicative tests, but they were limited in
scope and application. The first real c ommunicative test was devised back in 1977 .
Communicative testing – an improved subjective type of testing – aims to approximate real –
world language use. As we find out, communicative tests must as sess the learner's ability to
transform the co mpetence, or the lack of it, into actual performance in ordinary situations,
meaning the learners must use the language to read, listen, speak or write in real -world ways
and contexts.
Moreover, we have to keep in mind that :
 communicative tasks must asses s the testee's knowledge of the language as a
whole, i.e. all his/her language skills, not only isolated aspects;
 language must be tested in communicative situations, i.e. situations that sample
or simu late ordinary communicative interactions.
Morrow (1977) distinguishes seven basic features of a communicative situation:
1. communication is interaction -based:
 communication is a two-way process between at least two participants;
even writ ten interactions (e.g. letters, newspaper articles) involve an
addresser, even though the latter is not physically present ;
 the speaker or writer takes into account the addressee's social status and
expectations and adapts his message accordingly, both in terms of content
and form;
2. unpredictability:
 communication is generally triggered by an information gap between the
interlocutors: one person has to communicate information that is unknown
or new to the other;
 the interactants cannot foresee how the interaction will develop, they do
not know what th e other will say; time pressure is a relevant feature of
language use: the language user needs to process the information he
receives and formulate an appropriate response in an extremely short time;
3. context:
 the language produced by the interactants mus t vary (in terms of choice of
vocabulary and level of formality) according to the role and status of the
receiver, the activity type, etc. ;

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 communicative tests must assess not only the linguistic accuracy of the
message, but also the appropriateness of the language produced;
4. performance: conveying one's message is the most important element of
communication:
 focus on linguistic competence based on semantic and grammatical well –
formedness limits knowledge of the language considerably; linguistic
inaccurac y is unimpor tant as long as it does not prevent the message from
being meaningfully conveyed;
 the meaning of one's message is negotiated between the interlocutors;
repair strategies (repetitions, clarifications, corrections, etc.) are signs of
negotiatio n, not evidence of linguistic inadequacy;
5. authenticity:
 communication is an essential element of human society; in the real world
there are countless types of interactions, and countless types of discourses;
 communicative tests must also assess the test ee's capacity to deal with and
produce authentic (or rather, authentic -looking) written or spoken material:
language adapted to the discourse type, appropriate format (e.g. of the
letter, of the newspaper article), etc.;
6. purpose: people speak or write for a reason; therefore, communicative tests
must a ssess the learner's ability to exploit the functional potential of the
language, i.e. to perform speech acts with the help of the language: to request
or command, to apolog ize and express gratitude, etc. ;
7. communication is behaviour -based, it has a purpose and an outcome, and the
success or failure of an interaction must be judged according to its results;
therefore, communicative tests must also assess:
 the testee's strategic competence, e.g. his/her abili ty to deal with memory
limitations, shifts of attention, matters of politeness; his/her ability to
manipulate the language so as to obtain real -world aims;
 the effectiveness of the interaction: whether the message is convincing
enough to trigger the expe cted result (e.g. whether the speaker has
convinced the audience to vote for him etc.).
To meet these requirements, we have to take into consideration that :
 communicative tests must be integrative: in the real world, language comes in
a continuous flow, not in isolated (discrete point) items;

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 the learner's ability to use the language must be tested in ordinary situations ,
i.e. situations which sample or simulate real-world communicative situations
(plau sible ones, situations one may actually encounter i n the outside world) ;
 communicative tests must test linguistic performance, and not merely the
underlying ability (linguistic competence); the learners must produce and
functionalize language, not merely recognize appropriate forms;
 spontaneous production of language (especially oral production) is essential
for testing the learners' knowledge of the language;
 communicative testing must address all four skills; therefore, the task must
activate simultaneously several of the learners' linguistic and communicative
skills.
Thus, just like communicative teaching, communicative testing reli es on tasks that
simulate real-world linguistic exchanges. To achieve this, the teacher must set the inter action
in a well -defined (situational, temporal, social) context, e.g. a birthday party, paying a visit,
shopping for a present and so on .
Furthermore, as communication requires at least two interactants or interlocutors, the
student must know the roles of the interactants: his/her own role (what s/he pretends to be)
and that of the addressee (who s/he is talking or writing to). These roles must be close to their
life experience, so that they can identify with them.
The interaction must also have a well -defined purpose (the learner must know why
s/he is speaki ng or writing), and there must be an information gap (the speaker or writer
knows something the addressee does not know, but might want/need to).
Communicative tasks rely on authentic input texts: the reading materials are actually
taken from newspapers, guidebooks, the Internet, or literature, and are not simplified.
Similarly, the output text (i.e. the text produced by the students, whether oral or written)
should simulate authentic texts: e.g. a chat, a speech, a letter, or an article.
Moreover, commun icative testing must assess not only the accuracy of the output text
(its grammatical and semantic well -formedness), but also its effectiveness (i.e. how well the
testee managed to convey his/her meaning, caught the audience's attention and at tained
his/h er communicative aim). Similarly, communicative items must test not only the content of
the output (what is being said – its coherence and accuracy), but also its form and presentation
(e.g. fluency, for oral exchanges; its layout and tidiness, for written items).
In order to achieve such aims, the teacher can make use of a wide range of testing
techniques: role play, oral interview, letter writing, telephone conversation, group dis cussion
to solve problems are typical communicative class activities. Such tasks are skill-based, and

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they exploit simultaneously several of the learners' language skills, both receptive and
productive: e.g. their ability to decode a text and interpret its social and discoursal context, to
formulate an appropriate response, to m ake inferences and read between the lines. By using
such techniques, the teacher can also assess the stu dents' communicative effectiveness, i.e.
how efficiently they can use the various resources of the language to get their message
through and attain the ir communicative goal.
Essentially, the communicative/non -communicative opposition is based on the degree
of realism of each task, i.e. how likely it is we might encounter such situations/exchanges in
real life.
When devising a communicative test, we may use t he following checklist to assess the
degree of communicativeness of a test :
1. The test must assess integrative, rather than discrete point language.
2. The test item must assess meaning and content, as well as form.
3. The input texts must be authentic or authentic -like.
4. The task must involve an information gap.
5. The task must give the learner a real -world purpose.
6. The task must simulate a real -world language task.
7. The task must require the learner to interact with someone (in writing or in
speech) a nd to functionalize language.
8. The test must assess fluency as well as accuracy.
9. The output text must be, or rather, look authentic.
10. Learners must know their own roles and the rol es of the people they are
interacting with.
11. The learners must be able to identify with these roles in the real world.
12. The communicative situation must appear to the learner as plausible in the
real world.

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5.3. Types of errors and error analysis

This section of the paper is devoted to the difficulties encountered by the student s,
difficulties evidenced by their language errors; I shall analyze and classify them and conclude
about the learning strategies they have utilized.
Selinker (1972 ) proposes the following classification of developmental errors:
 Faulty generalization;
 Failu re to learn conditions under which rules apply;
 False concept hypothesized by the learner ’s about the English language from
his/her limited experience in the classroom.

5.3.1. Overgeneralization

Jakobovits (1979 ) defines overgeneralization as the use of previously created
strategies in new situations, meaning the learner produces an atypical structure based on
his/her experience with other structures in the target language
For example , we may encounter deviant structures, like the following (the examples
are taken from some previous short progress tests) :
e.g. Wrong: I have visit the museum.
Right: I have visited the museum.
Wrong: Yesterday was happen an extraordinary thing.
Right: Yesterday happened an extraordinary thing.

5.3.2. Analogy generating hybrid structures

Such errors may be the result of certain false analogies at work in the students’ mind
after acquiring structures that seem similar to them. The se might be suggested to them by
certain teaching techniques such as patterns dril ls and transformation exercises.
e.g. Wrong: He mustn’t comes.
Right: He mustn’t come.
Wrong: They catched the train.
Right: They caught him.

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5.3.3. Analogy generating endingless forms

Another thorny problem I have faced is the –s marker of the third form, simple present
tense (since all the other persons are endingless forms , the student s simply generalize it to the
third person singular, too, or they add it to verbs following plural persons, as if they were
forming a plural verb form.
e.g. Wrong: He walk with us in the park every day.
Right: He walks with us in the park every day.
Wrong: She sing very well.
Right: She sings very well.

5.3.4. Overgeneralization associated with redundancy reduction.

According to Selinker (1972) , it may occur with items which are contrasted in the
grammar of the language, but which do not carry significant and obvious contrast to the
learner.
Overgeneralization associated with redundancy reduction may also explain the
interrogative and negative s imple present and past tense forms without do/ does/ did . These
auxiliaries may seem redundant to the student s who mark such cases in terms of punctuation
and intonation.
e.g. Wrong: When comes th e train?
Correct: When does the train come?
A reasonable explanation could be that they would make use of the Romanian
syntactical structure of the wh- questions + verb + subject to form English sentence instead of
the wh-question + auxiliary + subject + verb form.
e.g. Wrong: What said he?
Right: What did he say?

5.3.5. General cases of analogy

Analogy seems to be a major factor in the misuse of the prepositions and articles , by
analogy with Romanian . For example:
e.g. Wrong: The manager said the girl to wipe the counter.

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Right: The manager told the girl to wipe the counter.
Wrong: They said that they didn’t catch the train .
Right: They said that they hadn’t caught the train.

5.3.6. Failure to learn conditions under which rules apply

An example o f this situation would be:
e.g. Wrong: At the theatre bought two tickets .
Right: I / He / We bought two tickets at the theatre.
or: I / He / We have bought two tickets at the theatre.

5.3.7. False concepts hypothesized by the learner

These are sometimes due to a poor gradati on of teaching items. The form is for
example, is interpreted as a marker of the present tense, giving:
e.g. Wrong: He is read a book.
Right: He reads a book.
Similarly, was is interpreted by the inexperienced learners as a marker of the past
tense.
e.g. Wrong: Yesterday I was met him in the park.
Right: Yesterday I met him in the park.
Learners often mistake the past t ense narrative for present tense under the influence of
their native language , in our case, Romanian . There are also interlingual errors that manifest
on the syntactical le vel due to the phenomenon of interference with the Romanian language.
e.g. Wrong: The girl said the dog will behave itself.
Right: The girl said the dog would behave itself.
Wrong: The manager of the hotel said the dog isn’t allowed.
Right: The manager of the hotel said the dog wasn’t allowed.
Both examples generalize the lack of sequence of tenses in the Romanian language.
So far, I have discussed one possible way of interpreting a number of errors. The
problem is not fully covered ; there are as many expl anations as many errors and learning
strategies exist. Finding out some causes of these errors does not solve the problem. But as
Corder (1981) says, if we find errors as systematic ally as we can, we have to find the ways in

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which they are organized, and t hen we will be able to build up suitable teaching strategies to
lessen the learning burden. Therefore we must find and select the best strategies of the
learning and strategies of the communication in order to fulfil our task. He also makes a clear
cut dis tinction between strategies of learning and strategies of communication. They have
common bases but while strategies of learning refer to a mental process by means of which
the learner creates or reconstructs the language system, the strategies of communic ation are
devices by means of which the learner exploits whatever linguistic knowledge he possesses to
achieve his communicative ends.
As I have said before, i n Romanian there is no sequenc e of tenses, as tenses are used
logically . In this respect it is di fficult for a Romanian learner to understand and apply the
correct use of the rules of sequence of tenses in English and maybe this is one of the reasons
why we as teacher encounter (so many) errors in students’ production of language.
The error analysis applied to the students’ tests has highlighted the fact that the
students acquire a language by means of personal strategies, that are more or less common to
all the learners. Nevertheless, certain variability must be considered concerning the age, the
intelligence, the type of memory of the learners, the features of the teaching process (long –
term; continuous, intermittent).
Such an analysis is efficient as far as it represents a basis for remedial teaching
measures to be found and adopted. But these mak e the scope of the next part of my paper. .

5.4. Suggestions for remedial teaching

Our aim is to make our teaching more efficient. By efficiency we mean learners’
proficiency achieved at the minimum cost of time and effort for both teacher and learner.
The me thod used by the teacher is very important from three points of view. First ly,
method depends almost entirely on the teacher and s/he can have control over it: second ly,
because effective strategies can really alter the level of the student s’ knowledge, an d third ly,
because a good method can make the lesson more interesting and can develop the learners’
motivation.
The previous subchapter emphasizes the fact that in designing the teacher strategies
we must take into account among other things, the strategie s the learner use in learning a
foreign language. It was the error analysis that was also investigated in the language learning
processes and it guided the remedial action the teachers must take to correct language errors.

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Remedial teaching is necessary w hen the learner with his /her knowledge, skills and
abilities cannot face the demands that are made by the situation s/he finds himself /herself in.
In many cases , unfortunately, the situation lies totally outside the power of the remedial
teaching to influ ence.
Most language teaching in school focuses on teaching the codes (the language system)
rather than the rules of use on the ground that whatever else a learner requires in order to cope
effectively with any situation of language use, w e must have some basic knowledge of the
language code , according to Corder (1981 ).
The investigations of the error analysis pointed out that the errors were a natural result
of the learning process. The language learner is engaged in the task of discovering the code of
the target language by making for himself, usually subconsciously a set of hypotheses about
how the language works , on the basis of the language data that are available to him.
Inevitably , sooner or later, he will perform some false hypotheses , either because the data is
insufficient to perform correct hypotheses straight away, or because s/he receives incomplete
or ambiguous information.
The teacher must make it quite clear to the students when their utterance s are
erroneous. The students then attempt to reformulate their hypotheses in a more adequate way.
The problem is how the teacher should correct the student s’ errors. The fact is that the
simple provision of the correct form may not always be the most effective form of correction,
because it stops the learner’s possible chain of hypotheses. Letting a learner try to discover
the right form is much more instructive to both teacher and student . For example , a way of
gentle correction would go as in the following example :
e.g. Teacher: What di d he tell you?
Student : He told us that he goes home .
Teacher: What did he tell you ? He told you that he went home?
Student : Ah, yes , he told us that he went home.
In this case , the student has tested two hypotheses about the verb tense in reported
speec h where the constraints of the sequence of tenses apply. The teacher hasn’t provided
him/her with the correct form directly, but let him /her think it over.
In the previous subchapter we found out some of the causes of the errors recorded in
our students ’ test. I have also given a classification of these errors. But the process of
classifying errors does not solve the problem of students making errors. What we need are
suitable teaching strategies, which can remediate and lessen the learners’ learning bur den.
Starting from the errors encountered in our students ’ test s and taking into account
Corder’s ( 1981 ) suggestion that language teaching practice should be reoriented towards

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creative practice in the classroom, we found the following remedial teaching pr ocedures
appropriate and useful.
In order to get a better understanding of the sequence of tenses , much p ractice is useful
and necessary, as follows:
1. The be ginning level exercises consist of practice requiring immediate
recognition: cloze exercises; multiple choice; correct/ incorrect sentences;
choic e statements; substitution drill, transformation drills.
2. The intermediate level exercises require delayed recall: transformation
exercises; tran slation exercises; clauses combination.
3. Advanced level exercises – combine immediate recognition and delayed recall.
Finochiaro (1979 ) proposed reporting activities which can be asked at an
advanced level. The students can be asked to:
a) Talk about what they have heard in a speech or a film on TV.
b) Comment on information they have heard in which they can show
concern, disagree politely, offer congratulations or request further
explanations
c) Engage in prepared or spontaneous role playing when statements are
supp lied on role playing cards by the teacher or at a more advanced level
when only an outline of the situation is given.
d) Have another student tell what the role players have said.
e) Listen to brief dialogues in which information is not given explicitly and
have the student s report what they had heard.
f) Engage the student s in games in which they have to guess what the
persons said.
As we all know, student s find these activities quite stimulating. It is obvious that such
an app roach encourages participation on the part of the learners. It is a step ahead towards
achieving communicative competences with our students .
The interview is one of the most frequent exercises. The most common procedure for
the teacher is to ask a question for which s/he knows the answer, either based on the text or on
reality. But this pattern is artificial as it will be found only in the classroom setting and it is
totally diferent d from a natural conversation setting.
In an average discussion , the exchange of ideas i s accomplished by a heavy use of
hypothetical statements ( If we do this, then… ); probability statements ( We may/ might/
could… ); request for further explanation ( What do you mean?/ I don’t understand… );
restatements of ideas ( What I mean is…); true questio ns asked to get information. Therefore,

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we must design activities which encourage natural communication by giving students
opportunities to expand their ideas, to initiate questions and reinterpret what has been
presented to them.
Here is an example of rep orting interview:
e.g. The teacher invites a volunteer student to the front of the class and interviews him
or her for t wo or three minutes (about hobbies , an interesting experience or future
plan). Then s/he asks the students to write down in indirect spe ech, all they can
remember of what the interview said, as if they were writing a report for a
newspaper. In groups , they then combine their data to produce brief reports .
Variations: for homework we can ask students to interview someone outside the class
on a specific topic agreed on in advance , for example their views on smoking, or fashion, or
an event and then write a report on it.
The interview may be extended to group discussion. Such interviews and group
discussions represent an opportunity for the te acher to emphasize and consolidate the
constraints of the sequence of tenses.
There are also other ways to encourage students to think aloud by showing them that
they can per form certain simple operations with the language. The best way of doing this is
retelling stories. The essence of retelling stories is to provide a mixture of control and
freedom. There are two things that can be controlled: story content and linguistic form. For a
story to be retold, it must be first told by somebody (usually the teach er). The story may be
introduced by an illustrative picture, with a discussion of the subject the story deal s with.
First, we read the story. We give students clues afterwards, for making them listen for our
well-defined purpose: the sequence of tenses (e.g. ‘ Mind the place and the time of action’ ). If
the student s don’t understand the story , we may read it a second (third) time so as to clarify
things in their minds. It is a realistic use of language. Next, the student s are required to retell
the story. Such a procedure leads to linguistic and communicative competences.
Equally useful are the communicative interludes in the classroom. The classes should
become an environment for message -oriented communication. In classrooms, the younger
students like to denounce each other on various reasons. We allow such manifestation on the
condition that the denouncement should be done in English and the reason should also b e
expressed in the same language. They either give up or try to find a suitable expression in the
target language.
Using the target language in the classroom helps us solve disciplinary problems
without sacrificing the valuable teaching time.

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Besides the classroom atmosphere that can be speculated by the foreign languages
teacher for communication, any textbook sentence can be made a point of departure for a brief
communication with a hidden scope (that of exercis ing the use of the rules of sequence of
tenses).
For instance, at the beginning of each class we ask the student s on duty who is absent
on that day. But we don’t stop at marking the abse nce in the roll, we also make inquiries
about the absent students ( Why is he/ she absent?, Is he/she ill?, Have you asked his/her
mother?, What did she say?, I suppose that his/her best friend in the class knows the reason.,
What do you believe? ). The students ’ response represents an example of free communication.
They may commit errors in their uncontrolled respons es. Correction will be done after the
conversation is over.
Nevertheless some of the procedure mentioned above requires a pre -intermediate or
intermediate level of knowledge of English .
Games, jokes, songs, riddles proved to be quite efficient activities f or the students to
practice the use of the sequence of tenses. Games help to create motivating classes. They are
used after the sequence of tenses presentation to see how much the group have grasped or as
revision of the rules.
Students are delighted to be asked to do some thing that feels like an out -of-class
activity and in which they control what is going on in the classroom – they become subjects –
as in the many hours they spend in school they are the objects of teaching. A game can be fun
and serious at the same time. The point is that the fun generates energy for the achievement of
the serious goals.
We must introduce the games ta king into consideration the student ’ ability to handle
certain lexical and grammatical structures. Since most of these activi ties are designed to give
practice in grammatical problems that the student s are already familiar with, we should
review these with the class before beginning any game in which they are to be used. Teaching
through games is very useful , because real learni ng is taking place and the student s are in a
relaxed atmosphere as games normally distract the learners by getting them to accomplish
some purpose. Because of the intrinsic interest in some games and the element of completion,
players can become so involve d in a game , that they forget about the linguistic ends of the
activity and so, they do not see the game activity as work.
I shall try to present a selection of effective games in pr acticing the sequence of
tenses:
Headless sentences is a type of exercise in which the student is internalizing the target
problem (sequence of tenses), by silently reading it, mumbling it, reading it aloud and

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thinking about it. This kind of exercise facilities production of the sequence of tenses structure
at a later stage in the learning process.
Variation: Tailless sentences.

Auction: we pair the students and give each pair an au ction sheet which contains
correct and incorrect sentences in which the rules of sequence of tenses apply. The student s
are to read and decide which sentences are correct and which are incorrect. In the auction that
is to follow , they are going to have to bid for sentences, the aim being to buy only the correct
sentences. We tell the student s that each pair has £ 5000 for buying sentences. The winners of
the auction are the pair with the most correct sentences and the most money left.

Sentence collage: we take a sentence containing the sequence of tenses, we copy each
word of the sentence onto separate strips of a paper. The student s are asked to find a sentence
into which all the words fit grammatically and intelligibly.
e.g. He thought that she would do the washing up the next day.
Sentence collage is quite a neat form of initial presentation of a new structure.

From pattern sentence to poem: we have to choose six representative sentences in
which rules of sequence of tenses apply from a text (we should choose the most suggestive
ones) an have the class write a poem, a letter, a story or a dialogue in which they use at least
three of the given sentences. They may incorporate the sentences into longer ones but the
pattern sentences must not be internally altered.

Translation Call my bluff: we pair the student s and give each pair a translation sheet.
Then we tell them that they have to decide wh ich of the translations into English are correct.
e.g. El ne -a spus că Dan va sosi mâine.
He said us that Dan would come the next day.
He told us that Dan will come the next day.
He told us that Dan would come the next day.
He told us that Dan will co me tomorrow.

Quotation quiz: we give the student s some quotations.
e.g. ‘Let my people go!’ (Moses)
‘I can resist everything except temptation.’(Oscar Wild)
‘I came, I saw, I conquered. (Julius Caesar)

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‘I think, therefore I am.’(Descartes)
Student s get t ogether in group of four or five to prepare indirect quotation quizze s,
each question has to begin ( Who said that …?Who requested/ order ed…to…? ). Then quizzes
are exchanged and groups try to answer each other’s questions. At the end, all groups read
aloud their original questions and check answers.

Correspondence: we give each student the name of one other student , and tell them to
write a brief message to him or her, and sign it. It may be a question, a statement or a request.
The notes are delivered, br ief answers written and sent back, and so on until several lines of
correspondence have been put together. Each student then takes the correspondence him or
her initiated and prepares it for reporting , i.e. writes out an indirect version ( I asked Dan if
he…/ He told me that… )

People used to believe (an exercise in which indirect past statements contrasted with
present) . We introduce the topic of scientific knowledge, and give some examples of what
people used to believe:
e.g. P eople used to believe that yo u could turn iron into gold.
And contrast them with:
But now we know that the world is round.
But now we know that gold is an element.
We ask students to think of some more examples of contrasts between past belief and
present knowledge, and write up on the board only the second half of each. Then students
have to recall what the first half was.

Tell me what they say: we ask student s to look at a picture of people talking to each
other and then to write down what he or she thinks the characters said.

Personal questions: we pair up the students , and then give them questionnaires of the
following type:
Ask a friend and tick the answer:
If he/ she snores
 Yes
 No
 I don’t know
etc.

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The students then have to write the questions in their notebooks and then copy the
different answers into his/ her notebook using the reported speech:
X said that he didn’t snore.
We can also use selected articles from newspapers and then ask students to report
some of them.

Songs represent another important help for student s to acquire linguistic and
communicative competences as there are songs that focus on grammatical patterns. There are
also narrative songs. They are a perfect material for lessons that stress speaking skills. A plan
for using songs like narrative ones can be like that:
 Listen to the song:
 Try to understand the story:
 Tell us what happened:

Jokes are extremely valuable in teaching because their form and content display a
number of advantages:
 Jokes are short and can be told or taught within the space of a few minutes,
proving to be helpful in teaching vocabulary, grammar and speech patterns.
 There is a wide range of speech patterns that they contain. They may take the
form of narrative. They may contain dialogue, sequence of tenses, conditionals,
reported s peech , etc.
 They are funny and they dispel the tension in the classroom.
There are two broad categories of jokes and both are largely represented in our
textbooks. They are the riddles and joking questions on one side and the narrative jokes on the
other s ide.

Undoubtedly, in the course of all these activities the student s make errors. At the level
of linguistic competence , there is a stage in which the controlled manipula tive drills are very
important for the student s to acquire the fundamental s of the code. Here, error correction is
necessary and indicated.
As far as the student s advance in their study of English, and ever more pre –
communicative and communicative activities are introduced, it is important not to interrupt
the train of thought of a student or the flow of conversation with continuous minor
correction s. However, in the case of flagrant violation of rules, the teacher will draw the

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student s’ attention on it as tactfully as possible. As for the written errors made on the
blackboard, t hey will be corrected by the student s themselves.
Learning materials that reflect the communicative approach to language teaching
engage learners in a discovery of the rules of the formal system of English through
participation in group activities focused on information exchange and problems – solving task.
There are a variety of communicative activities that require the spontaneous langu age
use in the classroom (role -playing, interviews, simulation etc). They represent strategies for
providing the emotional involvement necessary for authentic interaction in the classroom.
While the communicative approach in the classroom does not dispense with student s
deliberate memorization of linguistic phenomena, it shifts the emphases to creative
construction s, careful reflection and self correction. Student s must be motivated to correct and
modify their own language performance to the standard of their level of proficiency.
In order to make the student s reach the stage of self -correction, the teacher should
encourage th em to test hypothes es. When the student produces sentences that deviate from
those of the target language, the teacher’s reaction can help him /her to change the hypothesis.
If the student is to progress by forming hypotheses that become closer and closer t o the rules
underlying the target language, s/he should be given a chance to produce sentences freely.
Laying stress on activities that encourage the use of language in real life situation s,
which involve an exchange of information between the participants to a discussion, the
communicative teaching of English grammar introduces and reinforces the sequence of tenses
rules in a natural way through conversation.

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6. Chapter 6: Practical Research: Outcomes and
Analysis
In the previous five chapters I have presented what to teach , i.e. the grammatical
structures, how to teach , the teaching methods, approaches and so on and this chapter I will
analyse the result of the teaching of those particular grammatical structures.
After teaching the sequence of tenses differently to my 11th and the 12th grades
students at “Mihai Viteazul” Technical College in Oradea, they took a test. They are studying
technological school subjects mostly and they have English classes only two times a week,
although English is studied as the first foreign language. Regarding the grammar discussed in
this paper, the curriculum for the 9th grade requires the teaching of the 3rd conditional and the
curriculum for the 11th and the 12th grade requires the teaching of sequence of tenses (all types
of sentences), the conditionals and the reported speech, studied again as revision, as they have
all been studied earlier.
In teaching the sequence of tenses, the conditional and the reported speech to the
subject s in a comparative way, I have used the communicative approach as well as a
traditional one, inductive and also deductive methods, communicative tasks involving group
work and pair work but also tasks solved individually. As a traditional approach, I used a
more modern version, in my opinion, of the Grammar -Translation method, which involves
teaching grammar deductively, but with one class I used only individual work, while with the
other I used mostly group work and pair work. As a modern approach, I used Communicative
Language Teaching, I taught the grammar structures both deductively and inductively, but the
difference here was also between the classes with which I used mainly pair work, and the
classes with which I used mainly group work. Even in the tea ching stage, during the tasks the
students performed, I have noticed differences in the effectiveness in solving the tasks
between classes due to the approach used, the methods and the means used in teaching.

133
In the following part of the paper, I will anal yse the results the students had at an
identical test, the only thing that was different was the teaching process. The main distinction
will be made between the traditional teaching approach and the communicative approach, this
being the frame of the analy sis, but I will also analyse the results according to deductive and
inductive methods, and also according to the type of the tasks given and accordingly, the type
of interaction between students, i.e. communicative tasks and individual tasks.
After the first results, I analysed the students’ errors, I tried to correct them through
remedial teaching and extra exercises, gave the students a similar test and the results were
notably better than those of the first test.

6.1 First evaluation and anal ysis

The test given to the students had three parts: in the first part they had choose the
correct tense from three forms already given and fill in the blanks, so we can say it was an
identification task, in the second part, they had to turn the verb give n in brackets into the
correct tense in order to make correct sentences, this being a tense supplying task, and in the
third part they had to paraphrase a sentence beginning with some words given so as to keep
the meaning of the first sentence and to use t he sequence of tenses correctly, which we can
call sentence production task. Each part was marked with 3 points and 1 point was allotted,
thus having a total of 10 points.
The content of the test is as follows:
I. Choose the correct tense and fill in the blan ks:
e.g. He found out that she all along.
a. was lying b. lied c. had been lying
He found out that she had been lying all along.
1. I knew that they the next day.
a. come b. would come c. will come
2. He thought he the answer to your question.
a. knows b. has known c. knew
3. Her leg was broken, because she while skiing.
a. had fallen b. has fallen c. fell
4. It was already clear to them that they the match.
a. won’t win b. wouldn’t win c. haven’t won
5. She was in a hurry because she the bus.

134
a. had lost b. lost c. has lost
II. Put the verb in brackets into the correct tense and fill in the blanks:
e.g. I assumed they each other. (to know)
I assumed they knew each other
1. Mary her novel before she turned 22. (to publish)
2. Mum was sure I the exam. (to pass)
3. We noticed that they their jackets. (to forget)
4. She hoped she her way through the forest. (to find)
5. I was sure they each other behind my back. (to see)
III. Rephrase the following sen tences beginning with the words given so as the
meaning remains the same:
e.g. He didn’t know what the problem was, although he thought he did.
He thought he knew what the problem was, but he didn’t .
1. I expected her to respect me enough to tell me the truth.
I hoped she…
2. We didn’t think he meant that when he said it.
We thought…
3. They were defeated but they didn’t lose their hope.
Although they…
4. The car was old, so she was thinking about selling it.
She…
5. She had been to Rome before, so I as ked her to guide me.
I…
The average mark for the test was 6.26, above average, but not good enough. Overall,
the test results were better for the classes that studied the sequence of tenses based on the
communicative approach than the ones that studied i t based on the traditional approach:

0 2 4 6 8Traditional approachModern approach
5.326.74Average results

135
In terms of deductive and inductive teaching, the classes that have studied the
sequence of tenses inductively have significantly better results than those who studied it
deductively. The reason for this may reside in the fact that when students make out the rules
for themselves correctly, they have already understood them and have better chances to use
the grammatical structures properly and correctly. On the other hand, when they are presented
with a rule that they h ave to memorise – sometimes without understanding it – students are
less likely to apply it correctly and appropriately. Furthermore, the students in a technological
high school are prone to be logic -oriented instead of being theory learning -oriented, and thus
the mere passing of information, i.e. the rule, is not enough for them to learn it properly.

I have employed deductive teaching, i.e. giving the grammar rule to the students and
explained it, in both the traditional method and the modern one. Th e results differ notably,
thus emphasizing the effect of the communicative approach on teaching. This effect resides in
the fact that language is used for its functional purpose, students communicate in order to
solve tasks, thus attaining communicative co mpetence, and they get feedback from their peers
during task solving and this helps them understand better the rule and its use and also it helps
them produce accurate and appropriate language.
012345678
Deductive teaching Inductive teaching5.827.16Average results

136

Although I have taught the sequence of tenses deductively t o four classes, the
difference between the lessons resides, besides the methods, in the way the students
interacted: individual work, pair work and group work. The students that performed mainly
individual work didn’t have the chance to get advice or feedb ack from their peers on their
knowledge of the rule of sequence of tenses, those that performed mainly pair work were able
to talk the rule through with their classmate and the better student of the two could help the
poorer student and correct him/her be fore producing language and the students who practiced
mostly group work had obvious advantages: they had productive dialogues regarding the rule
and its use, the knowledge pool was greater that in pair work activities, the better students
could help more students, the students got more feedback from their peers and thus gaining
confidence in their knowledge of the sequence of tenses rule.

4.555.566.5
Traditional approach
Modern approach5.326.31Average results of deductive teaching
Individual work Pair work Group work5.056.066.57Average results according to
student interaction in deductive
teaching

137

I have also taught the sequence of tenses inductively, but only as part of the modern
communicative approach to two classes. Being a communicative environment, the students
benefitted from all the advantages of the communicative approach: it emphasises lan guage
functions over form, students use the language through mostly communicative activities,
cohesion and coherence are important in carrying out the tasks, students got to confirm or
correct their hypotheses and provide feedback to each other etc. The st udents performed most
of all pair work or group work, this being the difference between the two lessons.
Overall, their results are better than the students’ who studied sequence of tenses
deductively, but also, the students that performed group work had better grades than those
who performed pair work, for the reasons that I have mentioned previously, i.e. more students
shared their knowledge and understanding of the sequence of tenses rule, the poorer students
got more feedback and more varied explanatio ns, they became more confident producing
language in their group before opening to the whole class.

In terms of the types of exercises, generally the students did better in the identification
exercise, worse in the tense supply exercise and even worse in the sentence production
exercise, regardless of the approach or method used in teaching the sequence of tenses, as I
have already said each exercise was marked with 3 points.

6.60 6.80 7.00 7.20 7.40Group workPair work
7.406.91Average results of inductive teaching

138

I will analyse the results according to the types of exercises, the approa ch used, the
method and the types of activities used in teaching the sequence of tenses.
In the first exercise of the test, the identification part, the students had the information
available in three options and they only had to choose the correct tense. As expected, the
communicative classes did better than the traditional ones.

Also, the students that studied the sequence of tenses rule inductively, i.e. they
discovered the rule themselves, did better than the ones that studied it deductively, i.e. it was
presented to them.

0.001.002.00
3.00I. Identification
exerciseII. Tense supply
exerciseIII. Sentence
production exercise
2.111.861.30Overall average points
1.822.25
0.000.501.001.502.002.50
Traditional approach Modern approachI. Identification exercise

139

The students who practiced pair work and group work did significantly better at the
first exercise; they got more than 2 points, while the individual work students didn’t even get
close to 2 points.

In exercise II, the stu dents had to turn the verb given in brackets into the correct tense
and to fill in the blanks. Generally, the students’ performance is above average, the students
that studied the sequence of tenses communicatively had better results than those who studied
it traditionally.

0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00Deductive teachingInductive teaching
1.962.41I. Identification exercise
0.000.501.001.502.002.50
Individual work Pair work Group work1.772.212.30I. Identification exercise

140

Like the overall results, the students who studied grammar inductively had better
results; they had more than 2 points in average, while those who studied grammar deductively
got less than 2 points.

The more confident students that practiced the sequence of tenses through group work
got in average more than 2 points, those who practiced pair work were really close to 2 points,
while the individual work students barely passed the average of 1.5 points.

0.000.501.001.502.00
Traditional approach Modern approach1.621.98II. Tense supplying exercise
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50Deductive teachingInductive teaching
1.712.14II. Tense supplying exercise

141

In the third part of th e test, the students did the poorest of all, in general. The students
that have studied the grammatical structure according to the communicative approach did just
above average, while the other ones didn’t even get 1 point.

The inductive learners that benefited from the modern communicative teaching
approach got better results than the deductive ones, they got a little over the average of 1.5
points, while the others barely made it past 1 point.

0.000.501.001.502.002.50
Individual work
Pair work
Group work1.551.90 2.06II. Tense supplying exercise
0.891.51
0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20 1.40 1.60Traditional approachModern approachIII. Sentence production exercise

142

According to the type of activity performed in class, the students who performed
group work and pair work have significantly better results, getting above 1.5 points,
respectively immediately below 1.5 points, while the individual work students didn’t even get
1 point. This is another proof that students who communicate in class using the grammatical
structure taught understand it and its use better, quicker and they produce more appropriate
language than those who do not communicate in class.

Some of the results in the test were as I had anticipated, others were somewhat
surprising and others were truly fascinating. I have been using the communicative method for
some time, but I have never compared results so minutely until now. I was surprised at the
power of communicative activities, how much more confident the students feel while
0.000.501.001.502.00
Deductive teaching
Inductive teaching1.151.61III. Sentence production exercise
0.731.381.64
0.000.200.400.600.801.001.201.401.601.80
Individual work Pair work Group workIII. Sentence production exercise

143
performing them and how quickly and sometimes accurately they get to use the structures
taught in class. Pair work is a great way in which the students get more cont rolled practice
before using the newly acquired structured in a group activity. Even if sometimes there is a
difference between a pair of students and a group of students, the results the students had
after being part of a pair or group activity were rathe r close, or anyway, closer than the results
the individual work students had, which, again confirms the importance of the communicative
activities in class.

6.2. The second evaluation and comparative analysis

After I had analysed the results to this test and the errors the students made, I gave the
students supplementary exercises, remedial exercises and they had the chance to get more
practice with the sequence of tenses. After that, I devised a similar test a nd the students took
the test. The exercises were similar, so as to maintain the same evaluation pattern:
I. Choose the correct tense and fill in the blanks:
e.g. He found out that she all along.
a. was lying b. lied c. had been lying
He found o ut that she had been lying all along.
1. I noticed that she , her eyes were red.
b. had been crying b. would be crying c. has been crying
2. He wanted to see her but he if she was in town.
b. hasn’t known b. didn’t know c. hadn’t known
3. She learned in school that the Earth around the Sun.
b. revolves b. has revolved c. was revolving
4. Chloe promised she us with the school project.
b. will help b. would help c. helped
5. Mum was angry because she her car keys..
b. can’t find b. couldn’t find c. couldn’t have found
II. Put the verb in brackets into the correct tense and fill in the blanks:
e.g. I assumed they each other. (to know)
I assumed they knew each other
1. I him before he left. (to meet)
2. It was clear to them that they pay t he fine. (to have to)
3. She remembered where she the car. (to park)

144
4. His health has improved since he from the seaside. (to return)
5. I assumed they what I was talking about. (to understand)
III. Rephrase the following sentences beginning with the words given so as the
meaning remains the same:
e.g. He didn’t know what the problem was, although he thought he did.
He thought he knew what the problem was, but he didn’t .
1. When we got home, the robber wasn’t inside anymore.
The robber had…
2. The train left the station and after that we got there.
When we…
3. I hurt my leg, so I went to the doctor.
After I…
4. They weren’t there when we arrived.
By the time…
5. We couldn’t resist his offer.
He…

The results were slightly better than those of the first test; the overall average was
7.16, almost 1 point higher than the average of the first test. This difference of one point is
relatively consistent throughout the results of the exercises, although t he biggest growth was
in the case of students taught according to the communicative approach, inductively and those
who had the most group work and then pair work. There were also better results in the case of
deductive learners, and the individual work st udents, but they were not as spectacular.
The charts for the results to the second test will be designed comparatively.
The average results according to the traditional and modern approaches are
considerably higher than those in the first test with app roximately 1.5 points, which proves
the effectiveness of supplementary exercises and remedial teaching.

145

In terms of deductive and inductive teaching, still the inductive method had better
results and even marked an obvious evolution from the first tes t, with approximately 1 point
from the first test.

In deductive teaching, the modern communicative approach had better results,
maintaining that difference of approximately 1 point comparatively to those of the first test.

012345678
Traditional
approach test
1Traditional
approach test
2Modern
approach test
1Modern
approach test
25.326.126.747.68Average results
0 5 10Deductive teaching test 1Deductive teaching test 2Inductive teaching test 1Inductive teaching test 2
5.826.567.168.36Average results

146

Student interaction has it well -deserved place in language teaching, through practice
they do get better at language production and this boosts their confidence. Individually
working students improved their results with almost 1 point, but students who worked in pairs
or groups i mproved their performance with almost 1.5 points, it is indeed a notable
improvement, again stressing the importance of communicative activities and tasks.

The students who were taught inductively through communicative methods and
activities also impro ved their results with well over 1 point, maintaining the balance between
the results of the two tests and between pair work and group work.
5.326.126.317.00
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8Traditional approach test 1Traditional approach test 2Modern approach test 1Modern approach test 2Average results of deductive teaching
0.002.004.006.008.00
5.055.97 6.067.42
6.577.99Average results according to student
interaction in deductive teaching

147

This last chart shows the average points earned for each type of exercise in the two
tests. Surprisingly enoug h, the average evolution per exercise is of 0.3 points, which in total
equals to almost 1 point, the general improvement of the results of the students from one test
to another. There is also a balance here; the evolution is almost even throughout the exer cises,
which show a linear development of the students’ knowledge of the sequence of tenses.

The results of these tests are more than just numbers and charts, although we all know
the advantages of a modern approach to teaching and its effectiveness, and we assume that it
gives better results than the older methods, but through these tests and through this analysis I
have found out the value of student interaction, the importance of communicative tasks and
activities in the classroom, and also the impo rtance of correct diagnosis of errors and the
appropriate ways of dealing with errors so as to help my students to get better results.
0.001.002.003.004.005.006.007.008.009.00
Group work test 1 Group work test 2 Pair work test 1 Pair work test 27.408.63
6.918.09Average results of inductive teaching
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50I. Identification exercise test 1I. Identification exercise test 2II. Tense supply exercise test 1II. Tense supply exercise test 2III. Sentence production test 1III. Sentence production test 2
2.112.381.862.161.301.62Overall average points

148

Conclusions

The verb is a very important part of grammar and the category of tense and aspect are
some of the most important categories within the set of categories belonging to the verb. Still,
the two concepts, time and tense must be kept strictly apart, the former being independent of
language and common to all mankind and the latter being the linguistic expression of time
relation and varying from language to language. As far as the concept time is concerned, we
must make a clear distinction between interior time, which, being represented in terms of
human emotions, constitutes the subjective perception of a physical time and public time.
When speaking about tenses, besides the present tense, the past tense and the future
tense, we must also take into account the aspect, which is a specific category of the English
language and includes two types, i.e. the progressive aspect and the perfective aspect. Most
frequently tenses forms in English combine with one of the two aspects or with both.
The fact that the linguistic expression of time differs from language to language, in our
case, from English to Romanian, leads us to the conclusion that the two languages have
different tense systems. In English the rules of general logic (based on the relations between
tense and time) regarding tenses apply in most subordinate clauses while in three types of
subordinate clauses, namely the direct object clause, the adverbial clause of time and the
adverbial claus e of condition, a specific kind of logic is applied, including certain constraints
which do not exist in Romanian
In English there are a few more subordinate clauses which, although there is perfect
freedom in the use of tenses, we may find specific requi rements namely regarding tenses and
especially moods and these subordinate clauses are: the subject clause, the attributive clause
etc. The rest of that -subordinate clauses are not affected by the sequence of tenses rules,
allowing perfect freedom in the u se of tenses and they are called “exceptions” (although we
may apply the sequence of tenses, as well). These exceptions which constitute a peculiarity of
the English tense system are the predicative clauses and the prepositional object clause.

149
The Romanian tense system is characterized by a relatively great laxity, it is true that
we have some rules of the sequence of tenses in Romanian, too, but they are not as rigid as
those present in English , and this may interfere at times with the learning process .
After the theoretical approach of the problem of the sequence of tenses, which I
consider quite interesting and useful for each teacher to be informed about, I have tried to
apply this theoretical approach to the classroom practical activity based on the kno wledge on
communicative competence and the communicative approach to teaching.
Providing the students with knowledge about the practical use of the sequence of
tenses represents a way in which we prepare them to get linguistic competence and
performance. T eaching the rules, or just giving the students the rules, and the verification of
that represent two distinct parts of the lesson with the teacher being in the centre of the whole
process. The presentation of the rules or even having the students make out the rules
inductively implies a harmonious blending of verification and teaching, a process involving as
many students in the lesson as possible, because it is the student that represents the centre of
the communicative teaching process. Short, edifying, w ell-chosen tests are a more efficient
means of global verification of knowledge and a basis for giving students marks.
A good teacher can make an inductive presentation of the rules with tasks and
activities that will lead to habit formation of features of morphology and syntax which will
lead to fluency and accuracy, i.e. to communicative competence, the major goal of teaching
the English language. Along the process, there will be errors and mistakes, but the teacher has
to identify the type of errors made by the students during class or in evaluation stages of the
lessons, s/he has to correct the errors through remedial teaching and then have a final
evaluation to have a clear glimpse on the students’ comprehension of the sequence of tenses
rules and its a pplications.
After teaching the sequence of tenses both deductively and inductively, by using
traditional methods and approaches as well as modern communicative ones, I can assert that
the modern communicative approach together with inductive teaching is the most effective
way of teaching. Nevertheless, communicative activities used in the traditional class also help
the students’ understanding of the language taught, communicative practice giving students
communicative competence sooner than individual ta sks, which is the final goal of teaching:
to form independent communicatively competent students.
We all know what is best for our students in theory , but when it comes to practice , we
have to be flexible, and to use whatever approach, method or technique that works for a
particular class at a particular level at a given time, i.e. even if we teach using modern

150
approaches and methods and techniques, we may include a traditional method in our teaching
from time to time if we feel it would work best in that particular situation.
All this being said, I think t he teacher’s role in making the student s acquire linguistic
competence (in this case to understand and practice correctly the rules of the sequ ence of
tenses) and communicative competence is important an d his /her responsibility is great. And
equally great is the responsibility of the learners , as what really matters is their constant effort
and practice which is the secret of success in acquiring communicative competence.
It is up to us to select the best methods, activities, materials, to choose the best
approach that we consider appropriate to the class , the needs of the students, their level of
knowledge to fulfil our major task: getting students to acquire communicative competence
and thus to be indep endent users of the English language.

151

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