Grammar Games for Explaining a Present Continuous

Students should understand the ABCs of grammar to speak and write properly.

Present continuous verbs tell us what we are doing now. "I am watching television" "He is playing ball" are two examples.These verbs can be in the form of a negative, as in "You are not going to the store," or a question, such as "What are they singing?" Students sometimes find it difficult to understand the meaning of this tense, and how it differs from other verb forms, like present simple. Play interactive games with the students to help them understand and know when to use present continuous verbs.

Pictures

Review the difference between present simple and present continuous with the children. The children should already know present simple. Ask the kids about what they do every day in the morning to get ready for school. Their answers might include "I wake up," "I take a shower" or "I eat breakfast." Then ask the student, "Are you eating breakfast now?" Ask the students different questions like this and they will start to understand the difference. After that, introduce negatives and questions, such as "No, I'm not eating a sandwich now" or "Are you eating a sandwich?"

Distribute pictures to the children of people and and animals. Go around the room and have them answer what is in the picture. "He is climbing a tree." "The dog is smelling the fence." After the children are familiar with all the images, put them in pairs and have them try to guess what the other picture is by saying negative statements. "My person is not swimming in a lake. He is not dancing at the ball."

Mimes

Take a student out into the hallway and tell him he should come in the room in one minute and mime going for a hike in the mountains. Return to the classroom and tell the other students that they should try to guess what the student is doing, but not to guess "Hiking in the mountains." This will get a lot of laughs out of the children as they guess other things and frustrate the student miming.

In another variation, one student should try to get his peers to guess what he is miming by the sounds he makes.

Flashcards

Pass three flashcards out to each student so that they each have a flashcard that shows a girl or a boy; another that shows an action and a third that shows a destination. One student should ask another student in the circle, "Is the girl walking to the museum?" As he asks the question, the other student should shake his head yes or no at each key point of the statement so that the asking student will know if he is on the the right track with "girl," "walking" and "museum." If the other player has all the cards that were in the question, he must turn them over to the asker. If not, he gets to keep his cards and the other students know which were correct and which weren't and can try a different tack next time.

Thinking It Through

Ask the students to write down as many things as they can about what is going on outside the window, in the classroom or in a picture. The winner will have the most sentences written down.

In another example, the teacher will say a present continuous statement and two teams of students will race to find pictures that match that statement from a pile of magazine photos or flashcards.

Family Relationships

A student will describe for his partner what a family member is doing, and the other student must guess the relationship. The student should start off with vague statements.

References

• ESL Base: Present Continuous
• TEFL.net: 15 fun games for the Present Continuous

Resources

• ESL Tower: Present Simple, Present Continuous Worksheets for ESL