I wrote a bit of rude reply on my son's English test!

[LinoleumBlownapart]

Now I'm feeling a bit bad and I can't erase it because I wrote in pen, but my son got 8.75 out of 10 on his English as a second language test (we live abroad) but he chose the only right answer and the teacher marked it wrong. I wrote because I thought maybe she wanted the answer in past perfect! On the second page he got another question wrong, I think she wanted him to write "haven't" but he wrote "don't have". But "My parents haven't a lot of money" sounds wrong, but is it? I'm attaching pictures because I'm confusing myself. AIBU to talk to the teacher or should I let it go and not be one of those parents.

For the first one (from an english as second language person :)) :it says thst you dhould use the verb in parentheses. And that’s have, so haven’t is right (also it sounds wrong to me too), but that’s probably what they should hsve learned. I agree on the second problem, but maybe the thinking was, that a team ( „it“ , that’s why had chosen is right and chose is the only usable option in the questionnaire) are lots of people, so „they“. Which would then mean „(they) have chosen. But of course you’re comment is right and your kids answer too. That’s the problem with teachers not speaking the language they teach as native speaker....

My mother was "that mother". It was the highlight of my month if I was sent back to school with a corrected sheet. (Yah, it happened regularly.)

Then again I was a cocky brat so I got a good giggle out of the whole thing. One teacher once rang my mother (it was a) incredible that we actually had a telephone and b) if anyone phoned it was a major event) and I remember my mother saying "if you cannot stand to be corrected, you shouldn't be correcting others" and hung up.

Funnily enough, I had a brilliant school time. I think people were a bit scared of my mum, so no one took it out on me.

The present perfect does what its name suggests: it establishes a link between present and past.

That link can be:

actions begun in the past and still underway/relevant at the time of speaking (I've had this T-shirt for years/I've lived here for three years)

actions in the past with consequences in the present
(I've lost my keys (i.e. that's why I'm ringing the bell/sitting on the front step...))

actions described in terms of whether, at any given moment between the past and present, they occurred or not (have you seen X film/ever been to Goa...? I've read all his novels/I've slept with X people)

The present perfect is useful because it expresses ideas that can't be expressed using a present or a preterite in English.
It's slowly disappearing in the US, and the result can be confusing.
In GB English you can't say "X, who died yesterday, has written three best-sellers" because it's clear X will never write any more.
In American articles I find some time references unclear because that type of expression is used, where the present perfect is being applied in ways that we'd associate with the preterite, while elsewhere Americans may use the preterite where GBEnglish speakers would use the present perfect ("Did you do your homework?")

I teach English to non-native speakers, mainly but not exclusively French speakers, and while it's not easy at first, it's no harder than grasping a subjunctive is for an English speaker...

'My parents haven't a lot of money' is grammatically correct. So is 'My parents don't have...'

Had chosen would be the obvious correct choice but as it wasn't an option, 'chose' is the best from the suggested answers.

We also live abroad and my bilingual, primary-school aged kids have come home with some corkers from their teachers, including: ‘apple’ told to pronounce it as ‘epple’ (and the teacher wasn’t South African) and ‘recipe’ pronounced ‘re’sipe’ and given a meaning of receipt (when the kids corrected her on this, the teacher insisted that it could be said either way but still meant receipt ). I didn’t correct the teachers, except over obvious spelling mistakes, as I didn’t want to intimidate them. The one time I intervened was to correct the grammar of a short speech they had to give to some visiting EU honcho.

'My parents haven't a lot of money' not technically incorrect but very outdated. TEFL would teach 'haven't got'.
The other sentence-well, you can't put all those words into one sentence and have it be good English. 'She hasn't been studying this morning' okay. There's no place for the all. Is this teacher a native speaker?
Signed A TEFL teacher :)

Oh, and out of the available options 'chose' is the only one that would fit. I'd say definitely not a native speaker! I used to come across this quite a lot, teachers in state schools telling students something that wasn't correct.

@madamedepoppadom
“Nobody says haven’t”

Really? I use that all the time.

Haven’t had time to go to the gym.
Haven’t done the pots.
Haven’t put the car away.
Haven’t had a pee since I started painting ...

haven't had-wouldn't work without a qualifier e.g. 'since my Dad lost his job.'

Of course haven't is used. We're discussing the context of the particular question.

Fave, in your examples have is an auxiliary used to form the present perfect.
That's not really in question here.

The issue is whether in contemporary English have is used alone in the negative (I haven"t time/money/any energy), or with got (I haven't got time/money/any energy).

As a Scot, I'd argue that it is used alone, but I can see that many other English speakers might not use it in that way...

Re: the 'chose / had chosen' question. It looks like your child did not write an answer in the space provided, is that why it has been given a cross? Was it the teacher who indicated chose as the correct answer rather than your child? Chose is definitely the correct answer, for the reasons others have stated.

With the present perfect tense question , I don’t think your son’s answer uses the present perfect tense, although it makes sense within the sentence. The verb in parentheses is have , so that needs to change to the perfect form had - or actually not had , to fit the question.

The confusing part is that you also need the auxiliary verb have along with the main verb to form the present perfect tense . I think the answer is have not had, though this makes the full sentence sound a bit strained. It would make sense if it were something like My parents have not had much money since their workplace closed.

The first example specifically asks for the 'present perfect' which is present tense of have plus past participle eg
I have seen / I have played

so what they seem to be asking for here is: "My parents haven't had a lot of money" That doesn't make a whole lot of sense though.
But "don't have" / "do not have" or "haven't" would all be just the present tense.

The second one, "chose" is correct. Simple past tense referring to a completed action that happened at a specific time in the past. "Had chosen" would also work in the sentence (depending on context) but where it wasn't one of the options then he needed to select "chose."

I do understand the urge to correct when schools get it wrong, I sometimes feel the need to do the same with my daughter's French teacher. But you do need to make sure you are 100% sure of yourself before doing so. Also, it will not endear you (or your son) to the teacher to be rude. On the rare ocassion I have corrected something I knew absolutely to be wrong, I was very careful to phrase it in a polite way, "Hope you don't mind me pointing out this error, perhaps it was a typo" kind of thing.

@AuldAlliance

I was answering @madamedepoppadom who says "nobody says haven't"

I wasn't answering the OP

Fave, madamedepoppadom was referring to have used as a verb to mean possess (haven't much money):
Haven't = nobody says that
Haven't got = UK English
Don't have = American English

That's a separate question from the issue surrounding have when it's an auxiliary in the present perfect, as in your examples:

Haven’t had
Haven’t done
Haven’t put
Haven’t had

(Doesn't make her right, by any means, just arguing a different point)

The first question asks the student to put the verb in parentheses in the present perfect tense. In this style of question the student needs to use the verb in parentheses as the main verb and add the auxiliary as required, so I expect the answer the teacher is looking for is haven't had. don't have is the wrong tense and haven't got doesn't use have as the main verb.

Learning a foreign language at this level can be a bit unnatural and mechical, and of course the methodology isn't designed for students like your son. It's a strange choice of sentence though. As a pp said you would only use haven't had with a bit more context.

In the second question, chose is correct. at the beginning of the season needs to go with a tense to show a completed action in the past. The past simple (chose) works here, the present perfect (have chosen) does not. The other choices are nonsense (this isn't necessarily an error by the teacher, options can include common mistakes the students make). had chosen is gramatically correct, but pointless as the past perfect is used to show the sequence of actions in the past, and there is only one action. It's impossible to tell if the teacher has a gap in their knowledge or just made a mistake while they were marking.

I was more interested in what Kate and Tom got up to at the party (at the bottom of the page), but it turned out not to be scandalous at all

The answers your son gave are grammatically correct but it looks like the question was to use the perfect present (whereas he has used the simple past) and so I understand why they have been marked incorrectly. However, the second question did not have a correct option as his answer was the only one that made sense and so should not have counted at all. Great mark though, well done to him

*present perfect!

Wouldn’t it be haven’t got a lot of money?

Because otherwise it’s have not a lot of money.

I think he got Q5 wrong but it was marked correctly... The question you mention asks for the negative of have which is haven't. If it was the negative of do have, your son's answer would be correct. This would be marked incorrectly in the UK too. I can't see the other question, but usually it's dependent on the brackets after the question.

Sorry OP I think you are wrong. From what I can tell the worksheet is all about using the specific tense - Present Perfect. 'Had chosen' is past perfect, 'chose' is past tense. While they may work in a sentence it isn't what the teacher is getting them to practice.

He’s changed d as well - it makes perfect sense to me, but I’m not sure that’s what the teacher meant it to mean!

“She hasn’t been studying at all this morning” — she’s not even looked at her books.

“She hasn’t been studying all this morning” — she’s done some, but did something else as well.

Sagelistener that's what I thought but it says "Choose the correct answer" not "give the answer using the present perfect" they studied both simple past and present perfect in this module.

My son queried it and she told him the answer should have been "have chosen". I have a feeling she got the question from the text book when it read "The team__ their name at the beginning of the season" tweaked it by adding "the teams name" and assumed that "have chosen" was supposed to be the correct option.
He got the other question wrong because it should read "haven't had" but I think the sentence "my parents haven't had a lot of money" sounds odd and he just made the sentence more natural but therefore wrong. Probably just rushing to finish.

A bit of background is that she doesn't like being queried , she's told me in the past that she's using American English when saying "Don't let children alone in the street" and that it's not wrong and that I only know British English. We've had a few complaints from parents and students and she's quite a difficult character, so this may not go well. But hey Ho. It's done now.