Most students are 'allergic' when they hear the word: TENSES

It is because the teaching of Tenses is too complicated.

Why do students confuse about using the tenses in their English?

It is because they don't understand what they are talking about.

What is TENSE?
TENSE = TIME

So, it talks about the TIME of the action.

As in Indonesia, the basic rule of making a sentence is:


And tenses rules the Predicate. So we will talk about the Predicate only, not the Subject nor the Object/Complement.

I'm sure that your teacher will said that there are 16 TENSES in English.

During my English teaching experience (junior and senior high), I found the 4 basic rules to learn about the TENSES.

Remember: we only talk about the Predicate position, and it is applicable for Active Form only..

1. Verb 1/2
V1 = Present Simple
V2 = Past Simple

2. be 1/2 + Ving
be1 + Ving = Present Continuous
be2 + Ving = Past Continuous

3. have 1/2 + V3
have1 + V3 = Present Perfect
have2 + V3 = Past Perfect

4. modal 1/2 + Vbase
modal1 + Vbase = Future Simple
modal2 + Vbase = Past Future

the rest Tenses are the combination of the 4 rules above.
e.g Present Perfect Continous, Future Continous, etc...

PS:
That's my way to introduce the variant of Tenses.
1/2 is the form of present/past.
ie. be 1 = is, am, are
have 1 = have, has
modal 1= can, may, must, shall, will
Vbase, most teachers call it 'infinitive', but I simplify the term to make the students understand more easily.

When we use each tenses?
Well,...
Talking about tenses means we should seperate what we will talk about, the Action or the Result of the action.

Hope it is useful.

Questions are welcomed...