Page 92 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

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CHAPTER 4
1. The tense determines the form of verb in the next slot (e.g., present tense ->• walk/walks;, past tense -> walked?), including aspect auxilia- ries (e.g., present progressive —>•is_walking, past progressive ->was walking^, or present/past perfect -> has/had eaten).
2. The aspect (including zero marked aspect as in simple tenses) de- termines the form of verb in the slot that follows, usually, the main verb (e.g., progressive—the base verb + -ing, and perfect—the past participle)
3. The combination of the tense and both progressive and perfect as- pects results in a series of verb elements: the tense, the optional perfect auxiliary have or had, be + en (past participle), and the main verb + -ing.
As mentioned, the verb phrase has only two essential elements, the tense/ aspect and the main verb. In light of the enormous complexity of the English verb system, it is hardly surprising that many advanced L2 learners often have trouble using verb tenses and aspects appropriately in their academic writing. Techniques for teaching L2 academic writers to get around the com- plexities of the verb phrase are further discussed in chapter 7.
SUBJECT AND VERB AGREEMENT
Based on the system of required and optional sentence slots, in the teaching of subject and verb agreement, two easy techniques can be used. However,
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