Angie’s grammar question didn’t have to wait long for an excellent response from Nathaniel, who just happened to send this in on the same day that Angie asked the question about past tense differences:
Friday was day 4 at my school. This was their first experience with TCI and aiming for 90%+. After 130 reps on “she worked” we had a quick quiz. Then with a few minutes before lunch I asked a meta cognitive question.
I asked why did we say “trabajó” instead of “trabajaba.” The student who addressed the question had a very revealing answer. He said that we used “trabajó” because we were saying that “she worked.” We did not use “trabajaba” because that would mean that there was no time frame involved so we needed to used the…uh…imperfect?
I responded, “Exactly, we wanted to say “she worked” instead of “she was working.”
What stood out to me was how he used two different methods for explaining the difference. After fewer than four days with TCI, he explained “trabajó” by giving its meaning. There was no reference to the preterite or to a completed time frame. But after two or more years of grammar syllabus, he explained (better than many, I might add) in terms of grammatical analysis. He did not give the meaning, because he did not know that “trabajaba” is means “was working,” at least not in an immediate way which is necessary for fluency.
Thanks,
Nathaniel