Tips for Past Perfect Lesson Plans

During my Past Perfect lesson plans, my advanced adult ESL students often tell me that they never use this verb tense, although they have studied it in the past.

In fact, ESL students can actually function perfectly well and express almost everything this tenses expresses without ever using this tense! They can just use two Simple Past verbs along with some time marker words (e.g., before and after). But it's still important to encourage English Language Learners to practice this tense so that they can more fully express themselves.

Past Perfect lesson plans for ESL students should include verb conjugation, verb form and verb functions, although not necessarily all in the same lesson. For a thorough discussion on how to teach verb tenses, see Teaching ESL Verb Tenses.



Past Perfect Verb Conjugation

The Past Perfect is formed this way:

The conjugation is fairly simple. Only the subject changes. Here are some examples of past perfect tense verbs with I, you, he/she/it, they and we.

1. I had talked. I had walked. I had danced. I had eaten.

2. You had talked. You had walked. You had danced. You had eaten.

3. She/He/It had talked. She/He/It had walked. She/He/It had danced. She/He/It had eaten.

4. They had talked. They had walked. They had danced. They had eaten.

5. We had talked. We had walked. We had danced. We had eaten.

ESL cloze exercises can be used for Past Perfect lesson plans for verb conjugation.

1. Affirmative Usage (e.g., She had studied simple tenses before she studied the Past Perfect.)

2. Negative Usage (e.g., She had left by the time I arrived at the party.)

3. Yes/No Questions (e.g., Had she played tennis before?)

4. Short Answers (e.g., Yes, she had. No, she hadn't.)

5. WH- Questions (e.g., When had she studied the Past Perfect Continuous?)

Past Perfect Function

The Past Perfect is used to talk about an activity that was completed before another activity or time in the past. There will always be two past events or activities, or an event/activity and a particular time in the past. They don't both need to be included in the same sentence. Sometimes the other event/activity or time will be understood from the context of the conversation.

Here are some examples:

I had already gone to bed by the time you got home.

She had studied English for six months before she left for the U.S.

He had finished dessert before I even started my entrée.

Her older brother had finished college before she started high school.

You'll notice that the Simple Past is used in the second part of the sentences. These sentences could also be written without using the Past Perfect, like this:

I went to bed before you got home.

She studied English for six months before she left for the U.S.

He finished dessert before I even started my entrée.

Her older brother finished college before she started high school.

Overall, ESL students have trouble using this tense easily and effectively because they don't get enough practice using it and because they can get by without ever using it!

With my private ESL students, I try to point out when they can use the Past Perfect to help reinforce the tense.

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