GROUP A (Simple Tenses)
I love I loved I shall love
you love you loved you will love he loves he loved he will love we love we loved we shall love you love you loved you will love they love they loved they will love
GROUP B (Progressive Forms)
I am loving I was loving I shall be loving you are loving you were loving you will be loving he is loving he was loving he will be loving we are loving we were loving we shall be loving you are loving you were loving you will be loving they are loving they were loving they will be loving
GROUP C (Interrogative Forms)
do I love? did I love? will I love?
do you love? did you love? shall you love?
does he love? did he love? will he love?
do we love? did we love? will we love?
do you love? did you love? shall you love?
do they love? did they love? will they love?
GROUP D
(Intensive and Negative Forms)
I do (not) love etc. I did (not) love etc. I shall (not) love etc.
The child can shuffle his cards in various ways, mixing the verb forms of the three different Italian verbs, or the four tense forms of the English verb; passing then to a reconstruction of the different tenses according to the pronouns, the order of which has by this time become familiar to him.
The next step is to conjugate properly.
C
ONJUGATIONS OFV
ERBSMATERIAL
In our material we offer (for Italian) the conjugation of the two auxiliary verbs (essere "to be,"
avere "to have") and the model verbs of the first, second and third conjugations. The colors used for the five verbs are all different, yellow for essere "to be," black for avere "to have," pink for amare
"to love," green for temere "to fear," light blue for sentire "to hear." Each card has both pronoun and verb form. This is not only to simplify and expedite the exercise but also to make sure of auto-exercise, since the pronoun guides the order of the forms in each tense. These verb forms of a given verb preceded by the pronouns are, accordingly, made into a little package. Here, however, the groups are not so simple as in other cases. For the verb, the cards are kept in a sort of red envelope tied with a ribbon. The infinitive of the verb is written on the outside of the envelope, which, though very simple, is most attractive. When the whole verb is wrapped in its package and tied with the ribbon, it forms a small red prism of the following dimensions: cmm. 35 X 4 X 5.5. On untying the ribbon and opening the envelope the child finds inside ten little "volumes" with red covers. These volumes represent the moods of the verb and they have the following titles inscribed on the first page:
Indicative Mood little volume and taking off the cover we find many other tiny volumes with red covers. These are the tenses. In the middle of each cover is written the name and, to one side, the number indicating the relative position of the tenses in the following manner: the simple tense is marked with the letter S and the compound tense with the letter C. The titles, then, of the eight booklets contained in the little volume for a given mood are:
(For Italian the tenses are: Present, 1s, Imperfect 2s, Remote Past 3s, Future 4s, Perfect 1c, Pluperfect
2c, Past Anterior 3c, Future Perfect 4c.)
Finally, on opening each of these little booklets (which, by the way, are 3.5 X 4 cmm. and only a bare millimeter thick) we have the cards with the verb forms preceded by the corresponding pronoun.
This rather resembles the famous egg in which a number of smaller and smaller eggs were enclosed. For this beautiful package forming as a whole the entire conjugation of the verb contains the booklets of the different moods, which in their turn contain the smaller booklets of the tenses. The orderly enumeration of the moods and tenses, together with the pronouns which serve to show the order of the verb forms, allows the child to conjugate the entire verb by himself and to study the classification of the different forms that make it up. In fact the children need no help in this exercise.
Once they have this attractive, complicated, and mysterious little red package, they evolve on their little tables in an orderly way the entire conjugation of the verb. Having learned the verb forms little by little they shuffle the cards of the different tenses in various ways and then try to put them in their regular order. At length they are able to shuffle all the cards in the entire verb as the children in the
"Children's House" did with the sixty-four colors; and to reconstruct correctly the whole conjugation by tense and by mood. They themselves finally ask to write the verb and they prepare of their own accord new booklets writing out the new verbs as they meet them.
For this purpose we have included in our materials many booklets likewise covered in red and filled with blank cards of a variety of colors. The children themselves fill out these cards in conjugating their new verbs.
The exercises both of working out the conjugation of the verb and of writing out new verbs may be performed at home.