The language of truth is sim ple.

Euripides

On the present perfect rule

This paper is the result of a rather shameful experience from last semester. At a lecture on constructive pedagogy, about 80 MA ELT students were asked to take a simple quiz exercise on present simple and past simple. Amazingly, not one of these MA ELT students managed to get a perfect score, including the writer of this paper. How could that happen? After all, we belong to the earlier generation of students of English in Hungary, which basically remained untouched by the new winds of the communicative approach to language teaching, which prioritized fluency over grammatical perfection. As young learners we received traditional grammar instruction. We believed that grammar and grammatical accuracy were an important, if not the most important, criterion of good English knowledge, and invested a lot of energy in learning about the use of articles, tenses and aspect, etc. In the communicative era, accuracy was our last bastion: All right, we might not be very fluent speakers but we are the only ones in the classroom who know when to apply future perfect continuous. Now, this short test revealed it in a second that we do not even know the rules sufficiently. Pondering over the possible cause(s) of this failure I came to the conclusion that some of the rules we were taught at school were simply inadequate, and some of them were completely unnecessary, therefore confusing, because in some ways our mother tongue operates in the same way as English. The trick is that there is no trick The most amazing thing about the poor results of these MA studentteachers is that all the five sentences which constituted the quiz had a simpler solution than what we presupposed. In other words, the correct

solutions, using past simple in all the sentences, exhibit an almost one-toone correspondence with what we Hungarians mean by past tense; which happens to be an exceptionally happy case in the midst of incongruences between the two languages. In other words, this was a case when the bad student, who failed to learn the sophisticated rules, and knew nothing about the tricky nature of present perfect, would have known enough to pass.1 He would have used past simple simply because this is how we say it in Hungarian, too. He would have invoked what was at hand, his mother tongue. We, good students, who have our textbooks at hand, started to overly analyse the information and came up with an incorrect solution. Rules The need for teaching grammatical rules in a straightforward manner has been a subject of intense debates among experts in language education since the expansion of communicative language teaching (CLT) in the 1970s (and about a decade and a half later in Hungary). CLT suggested avoiding a direct focus on grammar rules, so earlier grammar-based course books were replaced by the so-called notional-functional ones. For some strong CLT proponents, like Scott Thornbury, even the new (notional-functional) books were not satisfactory: Apart from the brief flirtation with functional-notional syllabi in the 1970s, CLT is still shackled to a largely grammatical syllabus, with the result that the linguistic tail is wagging the communicative dog (Thornbury 1998). (It should be noted, though, that Thornbury himself is not against teaching grammar, as such, but rather against the false pretensions of CLT, as he puts it in his A Dogma for EFL (2000):
There are the best-selling self-study grammar books, personal vocabulary organisers, phrasal verb dictionaries, concordancing software packages - you name it. But where is the story? Where is the inner life of the student in all this? Where is real communication? More often as not, it is buried under an avalanche of photocopies, visual aids, transparencies, MTV clips and cuisennaire rods. Somewhere in there we lost the plot.

The situation reminds me of Heinrich von Kleists bear in On the marionette theatre, who being, unaware of human tricks, simply did not react to the feints of his opponent in a fencing duel. He only reacted to genuine moves, and triumphed over his rival with a graceful ease.

For the lack of firm linguistic guidelines, and inconsistencies in both principles and practice, CLT has been criticised not only from outside (e.g. M. Swan (1985) but also from inside (e.g. Celce-Murcia, Drnyei and Thurell 1997), and the role of grammar in language learning seems to have been rehabilitated recently. [L]earning seems to be enhanced when the learner's attention is directed to getting the forms right, and when the learner's attention is directed to features of the grammatical system (Thornbury 2002).

Pedagogic rules If we assume that some of the rules we were taught at school were inadequate, lets now take a look at the nature of pedagogical rules, and what makes a bad rule. In Thornburys (2002) formulation pedagogical rules are rules that make sense to learners while at the same time providing them with the means and confidence to generate language with a reasonable chance of success. Inevitably, such confidence is often achieved at the expense of the full picture. In other words, pedagogical rules are designed for learners (not linguists), so, for the sake of teachability and learnability some compromise must be made between the full picture (i.e. the whole spectrum of truth) and a sufficiently large part of spectrum of truth. Admitting the necessity of a compromise like this I think it can be dangerous, if this expense is miscalculated and too much of the truth gets lost. This can result in a misleading, bad rule, for instance. Pedagogical rules are designed mainly by grammar book writers, so they may vary according to what a particular grammarian thinks about learnability and teachability, among a lot of other individual considerations, of course. Here I will take a closer look at Michael Swans design criteria for pedagogic language rules because, I think, his article ( 1994) on the issue covers all the relevant aspects.

Swan identifies six criteria for pedagogic language rules: truth, demarcation, clarity, simplicity, conceptual parsimony and relevance. Good rules manage to meet these criteria, while bad rules do not. Keeping in mind our original intention to find the possible causes of the poor results on the above-mentioned quiz, I will examine only those criteria that help identify the bad present perfect rules which have misled and confused so many Hungarian learners of English. (Quotations are taken from Swans Design criteria for pedagogic language rules, typed in italics .) Clarity: Rules should be clear. Unclear, vague expressions should be avoided by grammar writers. Lets see how Swan himself can meet this criterion in his Practical English Usage:
We use the present perfect especially to say that a finished action or event is connected with the present in some way. If we say that something has happened, we are thinking about the past and the present at the same time.

The first half of the rule is understandable, but the second is quite puzzling. I cannot imagine how to think of the past and the present at the same time.
Truth Rules should be true. It is obviously desirable to tell learners the truth. However, as Oscar Wilde said, the truth is rarely pure and never simple: it can be difficult to be sure exactly what the facts are, and to decide how much of the truth to tell. This criterion, therefore, is likely to conflict with others, and one will often need to compromise with truth for the sake of clarity, simplicity, conceptual parsimony or relevance.

Swan says it is difficult to decide how much of the truth to tell. If he means that the whole truth cannot be presented at the same time, I must agree. It is acceptable to present one kind of use at a time. In the case of present perfect, the different aspects (with since and for, just, ever, etc.) can be focused on at different stages. But if it means that certain parts of truth should be kept back in order to avoid contradiction, than it is simply not acceptable. For example, Swan tends to mention some rules at the end of his list, as so-called advanced points, which clearly contradict to earlier mentioned rules.

When we talk about finished events with words that mean at some/any time up to now (like ever, before, never, recently, lately, already), we normally use the PP. (p 440) In an informal style, simple past tenses are sometimes possible with always, ever and never when they refer to time up to now. I always knew I could trust you. (OR Ive always known ). (p 442)

In addition, I do not see why Swan mentions the informal use only at a later stage, when it would be more reasonable and useful to teach it at first. Anyway, the contradiction is left unexplained, and learner in trouble. Another pair of contradicting rules by Swan:
Time not mentioned. We use the present perfect when we are thinking of a period of 'time up to now', even if we do not mention it. Have you seen 'Romeo and Juliet'? (= Have you ever seen it? or Have you seen the present production?)Youve done a lot for me. (. .. up to now) On the other hand, we do not use the present perfect when we are thinking of a particular finished time, even if we do not mention it. Did you see 'Romeo and Juliet'? (It was on TV last night.) My grandfather did a lot for me. ( ... when he was alive)

In other words, we use the present perfect when we use the present perfect, even if time is not mentioned, on the other hand, we do not use the present perfect when we do not use the present perfect, even if time is not mentioned. Obviously, this is a bad (misleading, confusing, harmful) rule for not just one reason. First of all, whether time is mentioned turns out to be completely irrelevant, so why is the rule? Secondly, it is presented as almost a kind of formal rule (when time is not mentioned, then something is the case), which is not only meaningless, but also redundant, because the reason why we use present perfect in the first case and not present perfect in the second case follows from the very meaning of present perfect, i.e. some relevance of present. It has nothing to do with mentioning the time.
simplicity: [S]implifying a description involves trimming it to make it more manageable, for example by reducing the number of categories or subdivisions or by leaving out inessential details.

It means, then, that good rules should not be redundant. Redundancy can confuse learners. A couple of simple rules should be able to account for every use of the present perfect.

But Swan fails to meet his own criterion again. All the rules below only repeat the main point of present perfect (relevance of present),
Time words: ever, before, recently etc. When we talk about finished events with words that mean at some/any time up to now (like ever, before, never, recently, lately, already), we normally use the present perfect. Finished events: news. We normally use the present perfect to announce news of recent events. We do not use the PP if we are not thinking about the present. Finished time words: present perfect not used. Repetition up to now. (Ive written six letters since lunchtime.) Continuation up to now: Ive known her for years.

Simplicity is an ambiguous concept. It can both be a merit and a defect. Unfortunately, the basic problem with most of these rules is that they try to simplify/reduce the meaning /sense of this tense to some kind of formal rules, probably because formal rules are easier to remember.
Relevance: [T]he grammar that we teach should relate to learners problems with English. Speakers of Arabic, German, French, Turkish and Japanese all have different kinds of problem with English relative clauses: one-size-fitsall materials cannot take facts of this kind into account.

This is one of the most important criteria, not really for grammarians but for non-native teachers to keep in mind. A Hungarian teacher of English should see the relevance of the present perfect (or other) rule for his/her Hungarian learners of English, and only the really problematic points should be focused on. As I mentioned above, all the five sentences are used in the same way in English as in Hungarian, simply because they mean the same. The fact that so many MA ELT students gave incorrect answers, indicates that something went wrong in the course of our earlier studies. We probably heard too many rules, sometimes even bad ones and applied them mechanically. To specify exactly which rules should and should not be presented to Hungarian learners of English exceeds my competence, I am afraid. I only suspect that instead of the many technical auxiliary rules (which have their role, of course) teachers should try to convey the essential meaning of this tense and should not doubt that even young learners are able to understand the concept of relevance.

An example of good rules Finally, I would like to quote a very clear and reveling description by W. Stannard Allen (Living English Structure 1947), which, as far as I can judge, meets all the relevant criteria: it is true, clear, simple and relevant.
The three perfect tenses (present, past and future) express the completion or perfection of an action BY a given time; NOT an act done AT a given time. The PRESENT PERFECT therefore expresses the completion or perfection of an action by NOW. Therefore it is, strictly speaking, a kind of present tense, because - we are NOT interested in WHEN the action took place, - we are only interested in the PRESENT state of completion; i.e. its effect NOW. So this tense must never be used if we state or suggest a definite time in the past .

It is true because it clearly explains why it would be incorrect to use present simple in the test sentences below. Thats a nice picture! Did you paint it yourself? I bought this in Bond Street. Where did you find this knife? I found it in the garden. I cut my hand rather badly in the shed. Have you a bandage? How did you get that scar? I got it in a car accident.

Present perfect should not be used here because the rule we are only interested in the PRESENT state of completion; i.e. its effect NOW does not apply. Past Simple is used because instead of its effect NOW, we are interested in some circumstances of these past actions. Allens rules are not only true, but they are clear-cut and simple. There is no endless list of sub-rules for the different uses. They all fit in the basic rules. In fact, Allen has two more remarks: one concerns the meaning of since and for, and another one refers to the use of present perfect for a period of time that is not yet over (this year, this month, etc.). They are also relevant for Hungarian students because they reveal the special meaning of this tense which does not correspond with any of the tenses in our mother tongue. These are the kinds of rules we can safely pass down on to our students without causing any harm.

References Allen, W. S. 1947. Living English Structure . London: Longman Celce-Murcia, M., Drnyei, Z.,& Thurell, S. 1997. Direct approaches in L2 instruction: A turning point in communicative language teaching? TESOL quarterly 31(1). pp.141-152 Czegldi, Cs. 2010. Linguistics and Language Pedagogy. AN208 G2 [Lecture notes]. Eger, EKTF, Department of English Studies Thornbury, S. 1998. Comments on Marianne Celce-Murcia, Zoltan Drnyei, & Sarah Thurells Direct approaches in L2 instruction: A turning point in communicative language teaching? TESOLQuarterly 32(1). pp.109-116 Thornbury, S. 2000. A Dogma for EFL. (In IATEFL Issues 153, Feb/March 2000) http://www.thornburyscott.com/assets/dogma.pdf Thornbury, S. 2002. How to Teach Grammar. Harlow: Pearson Longman. Swan, M. (1985). A critical look at the communicative approach (1). ELT Journal, 39(1), pp.212. http://203.72.145.166/ELT/files/39-1-1.pdf Swan, M. 1994. Design criteria for pedagogic language rules. (In Grammar and the Language Teacher, ed. Bygate, Tonkyn and Williams, pp 4555, Prentice Hall 1994) Swan, M. 1996. Language teaching is teaching language (Hornby Lecture, given at IATEFL Conference 1996) Swan, M. 2005. Practical English Usage. 3rd ed. Oxford: OUP