Exaggeration

Storytelling is always more compelling than stating facts and rules, and what stands out and triggers the imagination will be remembered. Just as a bedtime story works better than bluntly ordering a child to go to sleep, a classroom story is far more effective than just telling students what to do. Besides, it can be serious fun.

Exaggerated stories attract attention where bland facts do not. So asserting that a grammatical distinction is a matter of life and death is an exciting heads-up for students; announcing as today's topic the difference between past simple and present perfect tense is not. 

Why should a group of fourteen-year-olds care about present perfect or past tense in the first place? Getting that message across requires a connection, interest and attention. Having built that connection over time, the next step is seducing students' minds by fuelling their curiosity. It's about persuasion as much as about information. 

  Where there is no exaggeration there is no love, and where there is no love
   there is no understanding.

                                                                ~Oscar Wilde

So I tell the story about the tragic death of a little Shih Tzu named Froufrou. The tragedy occurs while you're staying with your aunt Betsy in London. Auntie is putting the kettle on in the kitchen when you, watching the evening news on the telly, hear about a ferocious lion that has escaped from London Zoo.

Little do you realise there's a life and death distinction in British English between a lion has escaped and a lion escaped. The newsreader on the telly says the first, but you report the latter to your aunt.

Later that evening, disaster strikes as aunt Betsy innocently takes her darling Froufrou for a walk around the park. The lion mauls poor little dog and it's all your fault. Aunt Betsy is heart-broken and will never speak to you again. Serves you right for mixing up your tenses.

What students take away from it, and will never forget, is the notion that the distinction matters. From now on, they will pay more attention to the difference between the past simple and the present perfect. It may not be a matter of actual life and death, but the exaggerated story will have a lasting impact.

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