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How To Teach Present Continuous

The document provides strategies for teaching the Present Continuous tense to elementary ESL students, emphasizing its use for actions occurring at the moment of speaking. It outlines methods for introducing the tense, constructing affirmative and negative sentences, forming questions, and practicing through engaging activities like mimes and games. The key takeaway is to create a clear and relatable context for students to understand and use the Present Continuous effectively.

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AndresBarahona
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33 views4 pages

How To Teach Present Continuous

The document provides strategies for teaching the Present Continuous tense to elementary ESL students, emphasizing its use for actions occurring at the moment of speaking. It outlines methods for introducing the tense, constructing affirmative and negative sentences, forming questions, and practicing through engaging activities like mimes and games. The key takeaway is to create a clear and relatable context for students to understand and use the Present Continuous effectively.

Uploaded by

AndresBarahona
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Present Continuous: ideas for your lessons

What do we know about Present Continuous?

Present Continuous or Present Progressive is a tense used to describe an action that is


happening at the moment of speaking and has not yet ended.

We usually teach Present Continuous to elementary students. Typically, their vocabulary


is somewhat limited at this time, they know a few verbs, so there are few examples we
can provide.

There is still good news. Students have already learned the verb to be, which makes it
much easier for us to teach this grammatical structure.

Be a perfect ESL teacher for your beginner students

Discover the tips!


How to introduce students to Present Continuous?
As this tense shows an action that occurs at the time of speaking, the easiest way to
introduce Present Continuous to students is through performing certain actions.

For example, you can take a marker, start drawing on the board, and say:

I am drawing. Continue with other actions: I am reading, I am smiling, I am walking, etc.

There should not be many words, and they should be familiar to students.
This will help them immediately understand the meaning of the grammatical
structure.

Next, do the same with the 2nd and 3rd person. This is where they will need to know the
forms of the verb to be.

Ask one of the students to join you, or if the lesson is online, use the pictures:
I am writing. Steve is writing. We are writing.

Show students that affirmative sentences are built in the following way:

Subject + am/is/are + Verb+ing

For example:

I am writing.
You are writing.
We are writing.
They are writing.
He is writing.
She is writing.
It is writing.
Demonstrate as many verbs as needed. Use illustrations, photos and even videos. Ask
students to say what each person or group of people is doing.
Next, you need to show students how to build negative sentences in the Present
Continuous. Contrast is best for this.

For example, you can take a book and say:

I am reading, I am not writing. You are listening, you are not sleeping.

Show students that negative sentences are built in the following way:

Subject + am/is/are + NOT + Verb + ing or Subject + am not/ isn't/ aren't + Verb + ing

For example:

I am not writing.
You are not (aren't) writing.
We are not (aren't) writing.
They are not (aren't) writing.
He is not (isn't) writing.
She is not (isn't) writing.
It is not (isn't) writing.
Next, ask students to do the same, always alternating affirmative and negative
statements.

After, teach questions in the Present Continuous. Start with yes/ no questions, then add
what, where, and so on. Model the questions:

Teacher: — Are you looking at me?

Student: — Yes!

Teacher: — Ask me!

Student: — Are you looking at me?…

Teacher: — What are you doing?

Student: — I am looking at you.

Teacher: — Ask your partner/ name!

Student: — What are you doing?…

Here it is important to draw students' attention to the difference between general and
special questions. The general questions are built in the following way:

Am/ Is /Are + Subject + Verb + ing?

Am I looking at you?
Are you looking at me?
Are they looking at me?
Are we looking…?
Is she looking…?
Is he looking…?
Is it looking…?
Dos and Don'ts of ESL teaching

Learn now!
In special questions the question word is placed at the beginning of the sentence, and
then the order of words of the general question is kept:

What/ Where/ Why/ How…+ am / is / are + Subject + Verb + ing

Where am I going?
Where is he going?
What is she doing?
What are they doing…?
Finally, move on to teaching the short answers. To do this, ask students yes/ no
questions:

Are you listening to me? Yes, I am. / No, I'm not…

Next, students ask each other questions and practice giving short answers.

Presentation is the easiest and simplest way to present this grammatical structure.
However, there are others.

For example, you can ask students to listen to a song and write all the verbs ending in -
ing, or read the text and underline words with -ing, and so on.

Students will notice this structure, and then move on to explaining its meaning, form,
and pronunciation.

The main thing to remember is that you need to create a successful and understandable
context for students.

How to practise using Present Continuous?


There is a lot of information and fun tasks to practise Present Continuous such as using
pictures of street scenes or miming.

We have selected the most interesting ones so that you can try them with your students
as soon as possible.

Mimes
This fun task can be done both offline and online.
Give students sentences that need to be mimed. If it's an online lesson, you can write a
sentence to a student in private messages.

It's not allowed to speak, so during an online lesson, students can turn off the sound and
gesture a sentence.
Other students have to guess what it is and say or write a sentence in the chat using
Present Continuous. It should match the sentence you gave the student.

Pass the ball


It's a variant of the previous game for younger learners.
The teacher turns on the music and everyone passes the ball in a circle. When the music
suddenly stops, the one who has the ball in his hands goes to the middle of the class.
The teacher shows this student a card with a picture of a certain action, which he has
mime to his classmates.
The task of the rest of the class is to answer the teacher's question "What is he/ she
doing?", using Present Continuous.
Chain Postcards
Prepare prompts to start each line of the postcard.
Each student fills in the first line of the card, for example, “I am writing to you from…”.
The students then fold the paper so that the next person cannot see what they have
written, and pass it on to the next person to continue writing the postcard.

Students continue to write and pass until they finish the postcard. Then they pass the
card for the last time and open it for public reading.
Then they decide which cards make the most sense, which holiday is the best and/ or
funniest.

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