And can you believe it? I STILL haven’t found what I’m looking for.

Posted by beth on September 18, 2007

For the past week and a half or so, I’ve been teaching my ESL students to correctly use present perfect verbs. For those of you who are not grammar nerds, an example would be “have worked,” as in, “I have worked for the community college for almost three years.” So we started out talking about how to form statements and questions with these verbs, when you use this sort of thing, and how to form (or memorize) past participles. There were many charts and lists involved. Then we did lots of exercises and games to practice, but I wanted to spend just one more class on it to be sure that they understood. Of course, learning when to use a verb tense takes a lot more experience than just learning how to form it, and they probably won’t always get the usage right. Not yet at least. But understanding what it means and knowing how to form it are two big steps. Then, as they read and listen to more English, the usage will start to seep in.

So I wanted to do one more class, and I wanted to use a song because I like using music in class, and the students generally enjoy it as well. It’s excellent listening practice, and it makes them feel like they’ve just learned a secret of American culture. I was having a beast of a time thinking of an appropriate song, though. All the ones I thought of that used present perfect only used it with one verb: “I’ve seen fire, and I’ve seen rain. I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end…,” “I’ve been cheated, been mistreated…,” “To all the girls I’ve loved before….” I had nothing.

Then, last night as I was drifting off to the land of Nod, it occurred to me that U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” uses present perfect with all kinds of verbs! It also uses other verb tenses that my students already know, so I can have them try to figure out which kind of verb they need to use in each case. Genius! Thank you, U2. That song is perfect (present perfect…haha).

Well, it went over really well this afternoon. The class enjoyed it, and we got to listen to U2 for an hour. I mean, we must have listened to the thing six times. Then we played a rollicking round of “Have you ever…?” which was highly entertaining for everyone. We bonded over the fact that none of us have ever understood Marita’s husband.

Then, when I got in my car to head back over to the office between classes, I caught the tail end of the radio station’s overly peppy jingle (Mix 101.5!!) just before the next song started. And any guesses as to what that song was? Yeah…seventh time’s a charm.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand going back for another round of six.