Yesterday I have eaten: finished time kills the present perfect

Objective & content

This Grammar Fix video (about 3 minutes 30) fixes one mistake: the present perfect after a word that closes the time, like yesterday. Freya and Cody give the rule: a finished-time word (yesterday, last year, in 2020) always takes the past simple (Yesterday I ate). They keep the present perfect where it belongs, when nothing is finished (I've lived here for five years). Students repeat two sentences with the hosts, then play a three-round game.

Pedagogical guide

French, Italian, German and Dutch speakers make this mistake. Their everyday spoken past is a compound form used with time words. Polish has no present perfect, so learners overuse the unfamiliar English form. Spanish and Portuguese speakers rarely make it: their own compound perfect already stops at a closed time. Watch for overcorrection: once students learn the rule, some drop the present perfect everywhere, even when the situation is still true. Round three of the game is built to catch this. With no finished-time word, accents differ a little. British: I've already eaten, Have you eaten yet? American: I already ate, Did you eat yet? Both are correct.

Suggested procedure

1. Before (2 min). Write yesterday, last year, in 2020 and when I was young on the board. Ask three students what they did at one of these times.
2. Watch (4 min). Play the video once. Students repeat aloud when Cody says "Say them with me": Yesterday I ate. Last year, I visited Paris.
3. Game (3 min). Play the game again. Both sentences are shown and said. Pause at each thinking beat ("Have a think...") and ask the class to vote. In round three, ask if the sentence has a finished-time word.
4. After (4 min). Go back to the board. In pairs, students correct the sentences and underline the time word that decides the tense.

Materials & prerequisites

• The video, a screen and sound for the whole class.
• The example sentences are at about B1- level.

Assessment & extensions

Each student writes two sentences about their life: one finished, with a time word; one still true now, with none. Students swap and check the tenses.