Present perfect continuous

INTRODUCTION

I hope you found time to go over our previous lessons. Practice makes perfect so its important that you do the exercises I give you and keep practising. The topic for today’s lesson is the present perfect continuous tense, this tense tells us about what is going on right now or at this particular point in time. the present perfect continuous tense is formed by putting together:

the auxiliary verb has or have +been and the present participle or the continuous form of the verb. for example:

• you have been reading
• we have not been reading
• what have you been doing
• we have been eating
• have you really been eatingt?

these sentences may remind you of the present continuous tense, which tells us about what is going on at the moment.

Objectives

By the end of the Lesson Students should be able to Difine the Present Continous Tense. use it in sentances and Identify its form in passages

Lesson Content

The Present Perfect Continous Tense indicates an action which was started some time in the past and continues to the present. Here are a few sentences we are going to change into the present perfect continuous tense.

• i am listening to the radio.
• they are going to school.
• the teacher is teaching english.

in the present perfect continuous tense we would say:

1. i have been listening to the radio.
2. they have been going to school.
3. the teacher has been teaching english.

remember that the present participle is made up of a verb + the ending “ing”. invariably if you add “ing” to a verb then the action is ongoing.

take a look at these:

• talk + ing =talking
• go + ing = going
• sleep + ing = sleeping
• rain + ing = raining
• clean + ing = cleaning.

therefore if we want to describe a repeated or continuous action which has been going on for some time and has not yet ended, we use the present perfect continuous tense. here are some other examples:

• the teacher has been teaching here for 2 months.
• Ami has been fasting since friday.
• it has been raining since this morning.

REMEMBER THE PRESENT PARTICIPLE IS MADE UP OF THE BASIC FORM OF A VERB + ING.

TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND LET US HAVE A LOOK AT THIS CONVERSATION BETWEEN KOFI AND AMA.

1. ama says, ‘i have been fetching water all morning.’
2. kofi says, ‘i have been learning how to weave.’

the first statement means that Ama has CONTINUOUSLY been fetching water for the whole morning.

1. kofi says, ‘i have been learning how to weave.’

again, Kofi’s statement indicates that he has been learning how to weave over a period of time.

1. auntie akua says, ‘i can see you have been fetching water. similarly antie aku’s statement indicates that from what she has seen she believes Ama has been fetching water for some time.

are you following the discussion so far? well lets go on.

you will see that all the verbs are in the present prefect continuous tense.

learning fetching weaving the sentences show that the activities described by the verb have been going on for some time and have not yet ended. write these expressions down.

• reading a book.
• ploughing the land.
• been cooking.
• crying
• sitting tests.

Summary

to sum up what we have done so far let us try to answer the following questions using some of the EXPRESSIONS YOU HAVE WRITTEN DOWN. 1.what has esi been doing since morning? 2.what has ekow been doing all day? 3.what has your sister been doing all afternoon? 4.what have the farmers been doing during the dry season? 5.what have the students been doing for the past two weeks? here are my own answers to the questions: answers: a. esi has been CRYING all MORNING. b. ekow has been reading a book all day. c. my sister has been cooking all afternoon. d. the farmers have been ploughing the land during the dry season. e. the students have been sitting tests for the past two weeks. let me explain what we are saying with these statements. in each of the examples above the use of the present perfect continuous tense tells us that the activity is ongoing-the students have more tests to sit, the farmers have not finished ploughing, esi is still crying, and so on. let me give you some more examples of the present perfect continuous tense. kofi what have you been reading all this time. i have been reading a novel all this time. remember that we form the present perfect continuous tense by USING “HAVE” OR “HAS” + BEEN AND THE PRESENT PARTICIPLE OR THE “ING” FORM OF THE VERB. IN OTHER WORDS, THE PRESENT PERFECT CONTINUOUS TENSE IS MADE UP OF PRESENT + PERFECT+ CONTINUOUS. EXAMPLES: HAVE + BEEN + PLAYING HAS + BEEN + PLAYING. note that in both speaking and writing we often use the ABBREVIATED form by joining the pronoun to the auxiliary verb. when we do this we say it has been presented in the contracted form as in the following: WE’VE - WE HAVE IT’S - IT HAS HE’S - HE HAS AND SO: WE HAVE BEEN PLAYING becomes WE’VE BEEN PLAYING i hope it is now clear to you now how the present perfect continuous tense is used. Don’t forget that the present perfect continuous tense is used when you are still performing the activity. note also that if you use SHALL or WILL then you are not using the present perfect continuous tense. remember that all the verbs are in the present perfect continuous tense, that is they end with ‘ING’. remember that in presenting sentences which show an activity that is ongoing. we can use the present continuous or the present perfect continuous tense. the differences between the two tenses are displayed on your screen. present continuous tense present perfect continuous tense 1.We are playing we have been playing 2. She is talking she has been talking 3. We are debating we have been debating 4. I’m learning english I’ve been learning english 5. they are living in kumasi. they have been living kumasi.

the important difference between the two is that, the present continuous tense describes an action going on now, whereas the present perfect continuous shows that the action started earlier and is still going on.

Assignment

to end this lesson write down the following exercises, in the following sentences put the present tense verbs into the present perfect continuous tense form,add any words or PHRASES WHICH you think are necessary, the first two have been done for you. i am living here becomes i have been living here since i was born. issifu is reading things fall apart becomes issifu has been reading things fall apart. the labourers are tired because they are working hard. look, the missing money is lying there. I am trying to write and speak good english. the fire is burning brightly. we are talking about the present perfect continuous tense. I’m sure you’re looking for the wrong person. the dog is barking. amina is studying so we’ii find her at home. our teacher is writing a storybook. i hope you are enjoying yourselves. you must tell me what sister akos is cooking there. my mother is selling corn at the madina market. sedem is raising ridges in the garden

We shall look at your answers in the next lesson. we shall learn more about the present perfect continuous tense when we meet again. meanwhile try and get all the sentences correct. you can easily do that, can’t you? good bye!

Reading

Cambridge GrammarofEnglish

Abibata031 16:56, 27 February 2007 (CET)