Past Times at Iwaki High

The English teachers at Iwaki Koko often approach me with questions concerning various grammar questions. Being a native speaker of the language, they consider me to be somewhat of an authority on the subject. Given that I’ve never really studied grammar seriously, I often have to make stuff up because they usually won’t take “I don’t know” as an answer. These problems are often challenging, but very rewarding as well. I enjoy looking at my language in a context in which I’m not accustomed to.

Today, I was unquestionably wrong about a question and my JTE called me on it. This worked out well because I ended up learning something about using past tense and past participles.

If you search this blog, you will probably find several examples of my misuse of the past participle. For example within the phrase, “while she was in Tokyo, she had seen many Japanese people,” the use of the past participle, ‘had seen’ is wrong because it occurs within the same past event (of being in Tokyo) that is denoted by the original past tense (was in Tokyo). Instead, one should write, “while in Tokyo, she saw many Japanese people.” In order to use the past participle correctly, one must be referring to a past event that occurred before the immediate past event. For example, “before she left for Tokyo, she had seen many Japanese people in Kyoto.” The initial past event is still Tokyo, but now the use of the past participle correctly indicates the happening of another event before this (seeing people in Kyoto).

The relationship between ALT and JTE is an interesting one. In most cases, I would humbly suggest that I am better at using English, but otherwise, the JTE’s often know more about the actual rules that govern the language. They say that one of the best ways to learn about something is to teach it. Teaching English is no exception.