During a writing activity in English, the teacher observes that more than half of the students struggle with the correct use of the
Past Simple and Present Perfect tenses, especially in distinguishing between the two in isolated sentences — e.g., “They have seen
that movie last week” instead of “They saw that movie last week” or “She worked here since 2020” instead of “She has worked
here since 2020”. The teacher notices that the students have no difficulty identifying the two tenses in reading comprehension
activities. This indicates a passive understanding of the structures, but a lack of practice and confidence in their active use. The
students, in late adolescence (16-17 years old), are in Piaget’s formal operations stage, with the ability to abstract, to analyze
critically, and to generalize rules, as long as they are presented clearly, so students have opportunities for practical application.
Their engagement is significantly higher in activities that connect the content to real-world contexts, such as discussions about
personal experiences or global issues. The teacher is then determined to find and implement a strategy to help her students.
Given this scenario, the teacher decides to rethink their assessment practices, adopting strategies that support the students’
learning through meaningful experiences, appropriate to their stage of development according to Piaget. The teacher then
reviews the content covered and decides to