Capítulo 8

5. Lección 76: Describing ourselves and other during childhood and adolescent years, and referring to past events using the imperfect tense

In today's lesson, you will practice using the imperfect tense to refer to activities that you used to do and how you used to be.

Student's Learning Outcomes (SLOs) as stated in our syllabus:

Students will be able to:

1.3 Present pre-planned personal information and events.

2.1 Identify the main idea of short, simple conversations and narratives (live or recorded material) in the target language, within highly predictable and familiar contexts.

3.1 Read short, simple texts in the target language and find predictable information and vocabulary in familiar contexts.

¿Qué hacer?
1. Lee la Sección 1: La niñez y la adolescencia, en el libro de texto y la Sección 2: el imperfecto.

2. Completa las siguientes actividades:

* Actividad 19. Platero y yo is available in your textbook with small modifications

Sobre ti

Instrucciones: Escribe una descripción de tu casa y de ti, cuando eras niñ@.

 ¿Cómo eras de niñ@? 

¿Cómo era tu casa de niñ@?

¿Tenías una mascota? 

¿Cómo se llamaba?

Paso 1: Use the previous description to practice presenting orally pre-planned information.

-When presenting pre-planned information, it helps to write a draft addressing all the points you want to make.
Writing the draft (checkpoints):
-After you have a draft, practice expressing that information. You could create some index cards,powerpoint to guide your presentation.
Presenting the information orally:
Am I pronouncing the words correctly?
Remmember that:
-the h does not sound in  Spanish
-the v sounds like a b,
-Two lls--such as in ella and lluvia--sound like a j in June
Practice, practice, practice!



3. Para más práctica, completa estas actividades en Pressbook:

Actividad 15. Cierto o Falso

Actividad 16. Yo a esa edad…

Actividad 17. Una entrevista

Actividad 20. La profesora de niña

Actividad 22. La vida estadounidense

Actividad 23. Traducciones

Actividad 24. La hora, el clima, y la edad                                                        Actividad 25. Memorias de la infancia

4. Preguntas para prácticar : Now you practice by answering the following questions in writing and orally.

¿Cómo eras cuándo eras un/un@ niñ@?

¿Cómo era el pelo de tu madre hace 10 años?

¿Cuántos años tenías hace 5 años?

¿Tenías una mascota de niñ@? ¿Cómo er@?

Grammar note:

* As you read in the grammar section, describing how people used to be in the past is done using the imperfect tense. This is due to the fact that the imperfect tense presents events that started in the past without mentioning whether that event/thing has ended or not. Let´s look at the following examples:

Ejemplos:

1- Bárbara fue una gran persona./She was a great person.

*fue is the verb ser conjugated in the preterite tense

2- Bárbara era una gran persona./She used to be a great person.

*era is the same verb ser conjugated in the imperfect tense

As you might have concluded, in the first example, we are expressing that Bárbara was a great person. Since we are using the preterite tense, we infer that she is not alive anymore (the event of being a person ends with death?)

Therefore, when describing how people used to be or act in the past, we use the imperfect tense. By choosing this, as in the second example, we are expressing that she used to be that way (without mentioning its ending), she might still be that way, or not. It is not important.

Some grammarians call the imperfect tense the present of the past! Why?

-Well, if you want to talk about current events, you use the present tense, including how you are and feel.

1- Now, I am tall. / Ahora soy alta.

-If you want to talk about how you used to be, use the imperfect tense. See it as travelling to the past in your mind and describing how you used to be during those times as if you were seeing yourself (being a current event). Since that started in the past, we have to use a past tense that does not refer to an end.

2- Before, I used to be short. /Antes, yo era baja.