Israel Jayakaran, India
I feel the approach would be more positive if we adopt the formula method for teaching the tenses. The recommended formula is: Subject + Auxiliary +Verb. In short S+A+V.

We identify the tense by looking at the "Auxiliary + Verb" combination and not just by looking at the timing of the activity. According to my research the English language uses 18 tenses because there are 18 such A+V combinations and they are not repeated. The A+V combination has a definite relationship with the Subject. Once a learner remembers the S+A+V rules for each tense, he/she can never make any mistakes in the grammar part of a sentence.

Next, we need to tell the learners, for what purpose / situation each tense is to be used. In this, there is no question of pairing up some tenses. Every tense is unique. In a few cases only, we may use more than one tense for the same activity. So, tackle each tense separately.

R.V.V.G.Dattu, India
If I were you, at the time of introduction I should not say anything about the topic. I would tell the participants a short narrative joke. Now I would write a few sentences (4 sentences) from this joke on the board leaving some gaps for the participants to fill in with the appropriate verbs. (Of course, I would not use any grammatical terminology at this point.)Without commenting anything on aspect, I would elicit the tense and time reference from the participants. Then, I would write these comments next to the sentences on the board. Even without my comments, the participants would come to realize that there is some difference between 'time' and 'tense'. Then developing the other part of the lesson from thse comments would be easy. Even those participants who listen to you for the first time, would tell you that they enjoy this introductory part very much. This unconcious learning would set the right mood for the participants for learning the other part of the lesson. I would not be surprised if you say, after a few days, that this is the lesson you like most.

Charanjit Singh, India
I have seen that teachers often use formulas to teach tenses. I am aware that this works in a bilingual environment but I am not sure that it is the right thing to do. I want to share my experience which has given very good results.

First, we must avoid things like "We will cover the tenses today" (and then going on to unload what we know about tenses). Deal with tenses in pairs-Simple present and present continuous, present perfect and past continuous and then simple past and past perfect. This is mainly to bring out the relation and the differences between them.

Next is the teaching bit. I follow methods according to the level of the students. One is a question-answer technique. You ask a question so that the student can easily answer using the correct tense. "What are you doing now / these days?" will inevitably get answered with something like "I am writing a letter or I am studying English." One must clearly bring out the difference between use of 'will' and 'present continuous' when talking about the future.

Another effective method is to play situations. Describe your first day at your job - What happened? How did you arrive? What were the others doing? One must clearly bring out the differences between the tenses. The students also need to be told about the thumb rules (unfortunately there are so few of them that one has to improvise!). Tell them places where present participle is sparingly used (state / sense verbs). Give out the basic rules for use of tenses (Present progressive for NOW / Around NOW and for the Planned Future). The students should know these rules properly so that they are able to correct their mistakes. For practice, ask the students to give out jokes, stories, experiences and keep correcting them. They will learn the correct use and association of the tenses. Tenses for fresh learners takes a long time. One needn't get disheartened if one finds the students unable to grasp simple looking tenses!

Lubna, Egypt
I work as an English teacher for adults. Actually, I see that teaching grammar in the sense of rules as you mentioned in your question is very difficult and make the students get bored. Plus, it does not help them to gain accuracy when they come to talk. With grammar, I found out that the more interesting you make it, the more benefit your students are. I use two ways and they are working fine. First, use timelines to show them the tenses. In such a way they will understand the usage of the tense rather than memorising the uses. I use the timeline to teach past perfect. First, I ask them to tell me two things they did yesterday, then I draw a timeline. Next, I ask them which happened first, then I present the past perfect.

8 o'clock ---------- 9 o'clock

I had been to work. I ate breakfast.

The other way is using stories or situations to show them the tense. If you are teaching them present tense, you can tell them a story about your daily routine, give them a recipe for a dish, or tell them about your job responsibilities, etc... Then try to elicit from them rather than lecturing.

Deniz Alptekin, Turkey
As a teacher, I think it is important to explain the main focuses of the tenses, like duration of the action or the action itself, and to give some contextual examples based on the tense. If so, students can understand them better.

Asep Koswara, Indonesia
When I first teach English tenses, I begin by describing the activities that people do, for example; everyday activities, past activities and future activities. At the same time I draw the chart of time on the board showing when those activities happen. After the learners understand this basic concept, I write the conjugation of the verbs, for instance 'did' for past and 'do' for present. Then I write full sentence on the board. After that, I ask the learners / students to do the same thing with other verbs. I do this with my students and they feel easy to understand the tenses without teaching them tenses directly.

Kapil Dev Regmi, Nepal
Yes, I also feel difficulty in making them understand the tenses when they contrasts with each other. On the one hand it is not so good to make them learn the structures of tenses without giving them the function they serve in conveying message. My next try especially to the students of middle school was to teach the structures along with the examples. In both of the attempts I got partial success. Now I won't give them any structure or the explanation of the rules, rather I write examples of a single sentence in twelve tense forms. Drill them and ask them to change other 2 - 3 simple sentences in 12 tense forms. Then I give them structures and comes the explanation of the rules and situations in which these tenses can be used.

George Steed, Polska
Tenses can be considered an abstract idea or a factual notion. Some argue that there is no such thing. However English does use and denote time references. Perhaps you could start with the 'be' word and its forms posting ideas of yesterday and today. Example: I am. I was. Question: Is there or is there not a 'future tense'? I often use a clock, showing now time and then referring sentences about it.

George Alex, Bulgaria
I have been teaching corporate students for almost ten years. I can understand you have some hard time with them since these people are business-minded and they need to find some logic (at least most of them). It is a good idea to link the tense use to some specific example but I would recommend that you tell them the truth and motivate them by repeating it as often as it takes - English grammar is wonderfully well structured, you just need time to get hold of it and use it properly. Everyone wants a quick shortcut but the truth is you need time to learn and start using properly.

Eugenia Papaioannou, Greece
Teaching tenses is not difficult if you:

1. Use examples from your student's real life. Imaginary examples do not help much (e.g. If you ask a 10-year-old to write about a doctor's routine, they will not respond - not because they do not know how to use the present simple but simply because they do not have the culture/experience/vocabulary needed to do so. Instead, if you ask them to describe their friends' / neighbours' routine they will respond better because they live within this context and they have experience in this.

2. Present tenses methodically and in a certain order (Present tenses, past tenses, future tenses, perfect tenses) and stick to the same order when you teach the same class further structures such as passive voice / indirect speech.

3. Introduce tenses first by writing examples and working on them in class. After your students have had enough practice, then you can refer to theory, not the other way round.

4. Use only English, not their mother tongue (grammar behaves differently in each language and this should be respected because translation into the mother tongue can confuse them at the cost of both languages.

5. Use time lines to demonstrate PRESENT, PAST, FUTURE.

6. At warm-up phase discuss your students' activities to practise tenses in a more relaxing way (what film they saw the night before, what they are planning for the weekend, What they have already done that day etc.). Correct them by reinforcement and DON'T show that you are testing them!

7. After you have presented a certain tense use flashcards / pictures depicting scenes (in town / in the countryside) and ask your students to work in pairs and describe the activities shown. Write clear instructions on the board (e.g. Look at this picture / scene and talk to each other about what these people were doing yesterday at 6 p.m. Write a small paragraph describing their activities). Then collect all papers and put them up on the board. Ask them to go to the board and read their friends' paper. Can they suggest any corrections? In this way you expose them to more reading practice and you give them a responsibility which they love, especially the young learners.

Teaching tenses can be fun if you focus on your students' experience first, present things in a nice way (NOT from the books) and practise following the same pattern before you open the coursebooks to do the exercises. At present I teach a small class of lawyers at the beginners level. To practise tenses in the first 30 minutes of each session we have conversation about: a) What cases they had the previous days, b) What the result of the hearings was, c) What kind of new clients they had met that day, d) What new cases they are working on, etc. In this way they are very pleased because they practise the language they are learning, they use specific vocabulary and when need arises I add more and more vocabulary while they talk.
Teaching tenses can be fun if you have the right attitude.