Flipped classroom: teaching the difference between the present perfect and the past simple

Resumen

A flipped classroom is just one of the many innovative teaching methods that have been recently used by foreign language teachers, as it allows them to focus on task-based learning in class, while the more theoretical part of the lesson is done by students at home through interactive tools. Hence, this paper aims to propose a teaching project which implements a flipped classroom addressing the differences between the present perfect simple and the past simple tenses. The main objective of the lesson is that students understand and internalize the differences in use, grammatical meaning and pragmatical force of the two aforementioned tenses. This particular topic has been chosen because the present perfect and the past simple are two of the tenses that learners most confuse, since the present perfect actually describes past actions, as the past simple does; nonetheless, the use of the present perfect is conditioned by a series of factors, such as the presence of visible results in the present. For this reason, teaching the difference between those two tenses is a very important task for a teacher; and instructing said notions through a flipped classroom may just prove to be a highly efficient technique, which helps students understand and clarify aspects that a traditional class could still leave unclarified, as previous studies have already shown the benefits of an inverted classroom. And, above all, a flipped classroom simply provides a more interactive, interesting and attractive learningenvironment.