A Perfect Stranger

A PERFECT STRANGER - THE CHALLENGE: 

I was about to teach Present Perfect. I was actually quite excited about it, since I had come up with some interesting activities, meant to engage my group of adult learners in a meaningful learning experience. I was no stranger to the difficulties this tense usually poses to non-native speakers of English, so I had devised a series of “contraptions”. I had suggestive visuals, relevant examples, audio samples, interactive tasks, and all the IT-related analogies I could think of to make sure Present Perfect would no longer be “Undesirable No.1”. We went through most of what I had prepared. They seemed to comprehend. My trainees used Present Perfect almost flawlessly, they smiled and worked together. I was proud.

However, in the middle of our lesson, one of the trainees put up his hand and told me: “Yes, it’s all very well, teacher. But what IS the purpose of Mr. Perfect here? I mean, nobody speaks like that anymore.” Hardly had he uttered this comment when the rest of the group started expressing similar views. They chorused that their school years had been plagued by rules regarding the Present Perfect; they had been quizzed incessantly on this topic and had never seen its purpose. It might have been dubbed “Perfect”, yet it was nothing but “Strange”. They had, obviously, learned the rules to pass the tests (“You know the drill, teacher!”), but had failed to come to terms with them.

A PERFECT STRANGER -  CHALLENGE ACCEPTED: 

So, in spite of my efforts to get them acquainted, Present Perfect was still a… “Perfect Stranger” to them. I was rendered temporarily speechless. Of course these adult learners, who were doing overtime to improve their English (and mind you, they were all a fair B2!), were entitled to go beyond rules and understand why our colleagues from the US said “He just left” or “She already sent the mail” instead of “He has just left” or “She has already sent the mail”. Especially since we couldn’t actually relate to a similar tense in Romanian. As I was sharing this thought with them, I had an immediate brain wave and said: “It’s all about making an informed choice. It’s about conveying what you mean. Like writing code. You rely on certain syntax, communicate intention, define clear parameters, and use sensible indentation. Thus, you produce readable, clean code, which not only works, but can also be understood by the person at the other end.” The murmur ceased. “Think about it in code: If uncompleted action, then Present Perfect (He hasn’t sent the mail yet). Else Past Simple (He sent the mail yesterday). Where yet=uncompleted action, yesterday=finished action.” It dawned on them. The string already-just-yet-for-since-ever-never was merely another set of parameters, bringing them closer to producing readable, real-life “code”. We then talked about differences in written/spoken English, British/American English. 
The following week, I received versions of Present Perfect, encoded in C++, Python or Java. 
I was proud.