Turino
- 2008-11-06
to use to be sth/sb, for example in the question: What did he use to be? An acceptable answer: He used to be a teacher of physics.
to be used to (doing) sth/sb is, as you will know, different.
to use sth/sb to do sth/sb is, as you will know, different again.
But as for the grammatical logic behind the first of the three,sorry,I'm no expert on infinitives!
Jane
- 2008-11-05
Hi,
I was wondering if you could explain a diagram of a sentence using "used to..." Would "used" be the verb and then "to ..." be the infinitive phrase acting as the direct object? For some reason, that doesn't sit right with me. I always like to think that grammar is mostly logical, but this one always stumps me.
Thanks so much!
Jane
KJ
- 2007-05-25
Thank you for your excellent response Martin. Yes I agree with you that this is target language best left for high intermediate to advanced learners.
Unfortunately, though, it was introduced in a text book for first year intermediate learners at this university. I do have the creative license to use this text book foundationally; however, my students exposure to it created enough curiosity on their part that it had to be addressed. And, as you can well imagine, the textbook treatment was woefully inadequate.
Furthermore, I also agree that the past simple needs to be brought into the discussion fortunately I did that as well and it seemed to help a little.
Your advice that I think will be the most useful, and Ill definitely apply it, is that of the controlled practice / reinforcement exercise with alternatives. And the graph concept looks to be a good one also.
Over-use and under-use, as you discussed it, is a very valid point also. I would do this and I would do that can be very redundant. I sort of had that feeling while last addressing the issue, but I was reluctant to steer them away from the task at hand.
And finally, I agree that it is unlikely that such language will quickly enter into the realm of their communicative competence but can serve a purpose in terms of creative thinking or consciousness raising. Enabling students to see the beauty of the language itself, expressed as it is by such intricacies coupled with a refined simplicity, is half the battle isnt it? When they have attained an actual appreciation for the English language its ability to flow and yet maintain precision, their learning becomes more meaningful, doesnt it?
Thanks again for your time and trouble Martin.
Martin McMorrow
- 2007-05-24
Hi KJ,
I think your example practice exercise is fine - though there is one inherent difficulty with practice of 'would do' and even 'used to do' ie that in discourse it tends to be used like a spice in a recipe to introduce a sense of routine and a connotation of nostalgia. But it sounds funny if it's used more than a couple of times in a short piece of discourse - like an overspiced dish.
About the underlying distinction, I would say firstly that this is one for high int to advanced levels. They ought to already know 'used to do' and the distinction between this and past simple pretty well. The basic point is that we're not dealing here with differences. It's not 'either / or' as it tends to be with past simple vs present perfect etc. The distinction is one of range - and I think that to really cover it you need to bring in the past simple. Basically, past simple can be used for any past state or event whether a single action or repeated. I combed my hair could be a one-off or could represent my routine depending on the context. Then 'used to do' is a subsection of this. It's for past states or events that lasted for a while. I used to comb my hair can't refer to a single event! And 'would do' is even more restricted. It's for repeated events. You could say 'When I was a child, my mother would comb my hair every night' but not 'When I was young, my mother would love my hair.'
So, anyway, I think that on the level of concept, a Venn diagram, with past simple in the big circle, used to do a smaller circle inside and would do a smaller circle inside that one is a good visual representation of this. Given the fact that these uses tend to be embedded in anecdotes, I think that a text-based approach works well. Firstly using the texts for comprehension practice and then getting students to match the different verb forms to their function.
For practice, I think a controlled practice / reinforcement exercise with alternatives is a good one. Students read a text of another anecdote and they have to decide for each verb whether ONLY the past simple is possible, whether the past simple and used to are BOTH possible or whether ALL THREE are possible. They cross out whichever forms are NOT possible in each case. Something like this:
When I was a child, my grandad took / used to take / would take me to see Chelsea play whenever they were at home. He didn't have / didn't use to have / wouldn't have a car so we had to go by bus. It took / used to take / would take ages to get there because everyone was either going to the game or out shopping on King's Road. Anyway, when we arrived, we went / used to go / would go straight to the hotdog stand. Back then, no one knew / used to know / would know how bad they were for you! etc
I'll never forget one particular match ... etc
In feedback you can reinforce the basic underlying concept simply by pointing again to the Venn diagram and then make the general point about avoiding overuse of 'would do' for this meaning. Spice is a good analogy to use - I've found students get the point this way. For practice, students could write up a similar account, probably using 'would do' only a couple of times. But this is important in itself. I think that getting a feeling for the frequency and density of use of language is important in itself. Overuse is as bad as underuse.
Other follow up exercises could be grammar auctions, correction of texts etc. But as a general rule, I think that relatively subtle and infrequent grammatical structures like this are very unlikely to become part of students' actual competence, so if that's the case, it makes sense to focus on consciousness raising rather than practice as the main thrust of our teaching.
Martin McMorrow, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand
KJ
- 2007-05-24
Thanks Fish for your response; however, I'm looking for a means by which I can clearly illustrate the difference between something I "would do" in the past and something I "used to do."
Today I had my students write down one sentence using "used to." Then I had a five or six of them write those sentences on the board and carried their ideas further by using "would." For example: I used to have long hair. I would wash it every night and then my mother would brush it for me. Sometimes I would wear it in a pony tail and other times I would just let it hang naturally. Another one was: I used to argue with my father. We would often argue about the clothes I wanted to wear to school. And we would argue about the things I chose to spend my money on.
Well, you get the idea. The above went over pretty well, but I still have the feeling that it's a cloudy concept. They get the idea that both can be used for repeated actions in the past. But when to choose one over the other has only sunk in a little bit.
Any ideas on how to get this across? It's kind of interesting huh? I mean it's a pretty obscure language point that, though introduced in a few texts for EFL/ESL students, has not been presented in a way that creates an adequate understanding.
Your input is most appreciated.