(present simple), She is reading a newspaper upstairs. snore and itchy. 0 && stateHdr.searchDesk ? There are also quite a few things you can find in photocopiable activity books for the Present Simple, such as timetables where students have to fill the gaps in by asking each other questions. - David Cain, "Awesome advice!!! It is in progress. Please visit using a browser with javascript enabled.

The strange thing about the use of the Present Continuous to talk about the present is that we actually rarely use it in conversation, and least of all to ask typical textbook questions like What are you wearing? In fact, questions like What kind of underwear are you wearing? are basically taboo. Thank you IMMENSELY for your great ideas!

We use the present simple to talk about permanent facts and general truths. People are probably coming home from bars about now. For example, if they ask for a four point question (usually uncomfortable to answer but not really taboo) and kind of answer it but with lots of pausing and some avoiding of the question, their partners can decide to reward them with two points (half the total of four points that they could have got). Students make Present Continuous and Present Simple questions, then flip a coin to see whether they will have to answer the question themselves (tails = tell) or be allowed to ask the question to someone else (heads = ask). Thank you so much Josef!" If you leave this page, your progress will be lost. The first sentence shows the action that is happening now he is biting his nails right now. I spend most of the day next to the swimming pool or I have breakfast in the same caf every morning), but you could also specifically ask them to stick to those tenses. A group of people who probably use the two tenses together more than the rest of us is tour guides, for example to explain what is happening in a painting and how many people come to see it every day. You could ask Greg if he can help. I would also recommend to watch this short video where I explain the difference between Present Simple and Present Continuous and provide examples: For more information on English Grammar Rules, check out the following links: Hopefully, this short English vocabulary for renting accommodation will help you if you need to rent a property in an. INSANITY: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. When do we use the Present Simple and when do we use the Present Continuous? Shes feeling much better today, thanks. A superb activity and I will get plenty of use out of it!"

I hope this has been helpful in showing the main differences between the present simple and present continuous tenses. He doesnt play golf.Do you drive to work?

Thank you for sharing them! completing I am writing to you from with the best holiday resort ever or the hills of Tuscany. families if they throw a one).

And number 4 just happened to be 20 questions, I dont think so! Especially if you have prepared sentence stems for the start of each line of the postcard, you can combine the ideas in Postcards above with the famously fun game Chain Writing (= Consequences). (present simple), You play chess with 32 pieces. What more could you ask for! Those are ideas are great! This situation is temporary.

cook or hungover) and their partners guess which sentence they put those words in. Lets compare the present simple and present continuous in affirmative sentences, negative sentences and in questions.

This means we canuse the present tense todescribe something in the future. Alternatively, they could roll a dice to decide which tense they should use in their questions (e.g. Give students incomplete sentences for them to complete to give true personal information, e.g. Incredible material. Hear vs. Tks for the ideas. For example, if the word is breathe they could say I do this many many times every day and Everyone in the world is doing this now except some divers., With the same list of words as in Definitions Game above, students ask each other Present Simple and Present Continuous Yes/No questions until they guess which of the words their partner chose. 2. You are eating spicy food and You are blowing your nose) and asking them to go on to discuss how often they do those things and why. 2. Present perfect simple or present perfect continuous? Possible questions include Are you doing this now?, Is anyone in this class doing this now?, Are many people in this city doing this now?, Do you do this every day? and Do you do this more than twice a week?. That is what he does for a job from Monday to Friday every week. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again. Present simple: I work Present continuous: I am working. Im printing them out and saving them. We do use the simple present with verbs that describe states, opinions, feelings and emotions. We use the Present Simple for things that dont change for a long time. Not: Im swearing I gave you back the keys.

Thanks for these ideas! Past perfect simple or past perfect continuous? Running like a blue-arsed fly. We change the order of the subject (pronoun) and the conjugation of the verb To Be when making questions in the present continuous tense.

Like a bolt from the blue. Present Simple and Continuous taboo topics. Great ideas! You better correct this. I am playing tennis at the moment. Here are some of them: know, suppose, think, understand (mental process verbs), admire, adore, detest, hate, like, respect (verbs expressing feelings), smell, taste (verbs describing the senses), consist, contain, last (verbs describing permanent qualities). ^^.

You can use this situation by asking students to guess the tourist site from the descriptions and then make up their own descriptions for other people to guess from, or with roleplays in which the people on the tour keep on asking more and more questions.

It refers to this moment of my life.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings. - Elias Gasparini, 1998-2022 TEFL.NET 7. We use the presentcontinuous tense for actions that we're planning to do in the near future. If loading fails, click here to try again. Brilliant, I just used the Mimes plus 2. 55 online lessons + 6 online courses + direct contact with Harry.

Easy, no prep and fun. The best way of teaching the present tenses is to compare and contrast them. So were going back to the beginning to work with the present tenses. Lets go through some examples. What is the Difference between ERROR and MISTAKE? So impressed." She usually eats healthy food, but today shes eating cake because its her birthday.

He knows a bit about cars. My husband ____________ tennis three times a week. Will work wonders in our advanced class!!" (present continuous), Im busy, Im doing my homework. Next month I plan to live in a different city. Listening | TED Talks |Speaking |Grammar |Vocabulary | Idioms |Blog, Copyright 2013-2022 OysterEnglish.com All rights reserved | Privacy policy. These are often daily routines and they happen always, often, generally, every week, etc. ____________________.". Maybe they are at work right now or somewhere else. She lives in Canada, so they only meet a few times a year.. Actually, I have always problems finding out activities which appropriate for my students.

This means we canuse the present tense todescribe something in the future. (present continuous), The birds return to the island every morning.

Jane is cold because ______________ a jacket. It worked really well. We use the present continuous to talk about something temporary. a clever action in a game or other situation that is intended to achieve an advantage and usually involves taking a risk, Keeping an open mind and opening your heart: useful phrases with open. How many points they actually get depends on how well they answer the question. Each person fills in the first line of a postcard, e.g. - Hamed Lorestani, "Try a little role-switching is a fantastically useful tip." I feel, instead of I am feeling. Would love your thoughts, please comment. I hope this short post has helped you better understand English Grammar Rules and the difference between Present Simple and Present Continuous. (present simple), Marsha goes to dance club every Thursday. Today we are going to talk about the difference between Present Simple and Present Continuous. You have not finished your quiz. Listen - What is the difference? https://www.englishclub.com/esl-forums/viewtopic.php?t=75485, The home page of google.com has a button that says: Im feeling lucky. I am feeling __________, I often feel __________, I rarely __________ and My brother is __________. A characteristic of her; shes a rude person. This is his routine. So many good ideas to try out!

Click on the arrows to change the translation direction. These activities aim to do away with that lack once and for all! When somebody is doing something right now or something is happening right now. These ideas will show you how to do the even more difficult task of combining them in practice activities, all of them done in simple and entertaining ways. We say I speak English, because it is a fact. We use be in the present continuous to talk about current actions or behaviour rather than about a quality or characteristic. It is possibly a temporary job he has this week because next week he will return to his normal job or maybe he will teach at another school next week. Tomorrow it might be sunny. Teaching grammar in interesting ways is always so difficult to me.

We use the present continuous because we are talking about an action that is happening right now. It refers to this moment of his life.). Improve English from intermediate to advanced level in my intensive English course. You take a shower every morning or You sometimes take a shower but you usually take a bath). He normally _________ every weekday, but today _____________ because it's a holiday. (present continuous), Always/usually/often/sometimes/rarely/never.

Here you will learn English idioms and phrases with blue in them. Really helpful! For facts or things that are always true or generally true. Some great ideas here. Give students a list of words and ask them to choose one and describe it with just sentences using the Present Simple and Preset Continuous.

Is he driving to work tomorrow? It is a temporary action because in a moment I might start speaking in Spanish. I play tennis every day. Students read out just the part they have filled in (e.g. Learn the difference between Present Simple and Present Continuous tense with example sentences and useful grammar rules. - Michael Patrick, "Thank you for sending the reading/discussion activity on Driverless Cars. My colleagues normally ____________ lunch in the office. We use present simple for situations that are mostly permanent, for jobs or hobbies and things that always happen.

It is more or less permanent. My cousin never _________ me a birthday present. Here are some examples to help youbetter understand the differences.

I generally speak English. What things are getting better in your country? and Do people in your country pay attention to government campaigns? Very nice I am using it today in a Skype lesson Thank you, thanks for sharing. Hes an advanced student, but he tells me he still has problems with our crazy English tenses. Present Simple if they throw a one, two or three), or the topic they should ask about (e.g. We use the present simple to talk about things that are generally true or to state facts. I think Ill go and lie down. We can take advantage of this by giving a list of such taboo Present Continuous questions mixed up with similarly taboo Present Simple questions like How often do you shave your armpits? If we sprinkle in a few more typical and harmless questions such as What time do you usually get up?, we can ask students to rank the questions from 5 points (taboo) to 1 point (easy to answer), then decide on which ranking of question they want to be asked. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Here are the sentences from the beginning of this lesson. Those are the great ideas we should use them inside the classroom to make it interesting,fun and live. Perhaps the main reason why this approach isnt used more in the classroom is that it can be difficult to find speaking and writing activities with a natural mix of the two tenses.

table manners. (present simple), Youre always forgetting to pay the bills. [Note: Click here to learnhow to form the present continuous and present simple tenses.]. I go over the positive and negative forms, questions, spelling and give lots of examples. Add ${headword} to one of your lists below, or create a new one. They continue writing and passing until the postcards are finished, then they are passed one last time and opened for general hilarity and a discussion about which postcards make most sense, sound like the best holiday and/or are funniest. Another way of combining Present Continuous mimes with the Present Simple is to ask students to mime actions that they do in their real lives (perhaps choosing from a list with sentences like You are taking a shower). I think they often stay up until very late but sleep after lunch to describe their picture of Spanish life. A general fact or characteristic about Hani. In this example we do expect the situation to change. (present continuous), I like the new James Bond film.

I am doing an oral examination on Present Simple vs. Continuous, I can definitely implement some of these in there. These are some great ideas, thanks for sharing, will defenetly be very helpful in my class. Certain verbsare used toexpress opinions, states, feelings and emotions (not actions). Amanda and Oscar always ________ to the gym after work. You can make this more risqu and add vocabulary by suggesting words and expressions that they can or must include in their questions, e.g. The same language is fairly natural to describe Tower Bridge opening, Big Ben striking twelve, and a herd of wildebeest running across the plains. Use the simple present for actions that happen in general. An action happening right now at the moment of speaking. It rarely rains in the desert.

Use code SUMMER22. This is more interesting if it is a topic that is linked to cultural differences, e.g. However, I am sure these activities will be very helpful for them. Why/why not? You can also use both tenses for sentences that students should agree or disagree with, e.g. My sister is living with me until she can find a new apartment of her own. Present Simple vs Present Continuous! Alternatively, you could give them sentence stems that should get them using those two tenses, e.g. The sun is shining or The children are playing beach volleyball) and the Present Simple for their daily routine while on holiday (e.g. "Yes, I can talk now. Usage explanations of natural written and spoken English, Adjectives and adjective phrases: typical errors, Adverbs and adverb phrases: typical errors, Nationalities, languages, countries and regions.

Im feeling a bit faint. (present continuous), Hes always singing in the shower. She plays tennis every day.I dont play golf. Not: Those batteries arent lasting very long. They help a lot in class. better understanding of more complex grammar structures, perfect your listening skills through practing different accents, English Vocabulary for Renting an Apartment, 12 English Idioms Relating to Communication.

- Alyson Watson, "Dear Josef: I'd like to thank you for sharing such great materials with us." Watch out! To talk about something that is happening AROUND the time of speaking but not necessarily at that exact moment. (present continuous), Were leaving at 3 this afternoon.

Please wait while the activity loads. Common time expressions used with the present simple tense are: 1. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); "Great ideas! Now lets compare the two tenses together. Notice how we use the present simple tense with the adverb of frequency, always. We do not use stative verbs with the present continuous (unless they express a dynamic meaning). Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. Hes not playing golf.Are you driving to work tomorrow? If you like learning with me, I want to send you more English tips, language advice and free material. Could you pls subscribe me to your list? Common stative verbs include: be, belong, seem, realize, think, believe, understand, like, love, hate, hear, smell, see, think, understand, want, wish. I have started reading this book and I havent finished it), (It doesnt necessarily mean they are at the hotel right at this moment. Could you subscribe me to your newsletter? Please turn down the music; _____________ to study. (present simple), Shes working at the museum until the end of this month. Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings. This action is in progress and hasnt finished. Other examples: Use present simple to talk about routines and habits (how frequently we do or don't do things - e.g., every day, usually on Tuesdays, often, never, sometimes). some of them are really helpful! Quantifiers with Countable & Uncountable Nouns, Articles with Countable & Uncountable Nouns, Nouns that Can Be Countable and Uncountable: Useful List & Examples, Time Adverbs Used with the Present Perfect, Present Perfect & Present Perfect Continuous, Present Simple vs Present Continuous Differences in Usage, Time Phrases with Present Simple and Present Continuous, Present Simple vs Present Continuous | Picture. Use the present continuous for actions happening at the moment or current/temporary projects. All around me or In the evenings You can then get students to read other peoples postcards with a task to do as they are reading, for example to guess which place the person writing was supposed to be in or to choose the best holiday. People buy brands because they think they are better quality and People are slowly becoming more ecologically friendly in their lifestyles. Alternatively, you can give questions which arent written in those tenses but should elicit answers that are, e.g. ), (It doesnt necessarily mean he is learning the language right now at a desk with all of his language books. Learn the differences between Present Simple and Present Continuous in English with picture. Their partners should listen and guess the country. Some verbs are normally used in the present simple and not in the present continuous. We use DO or DOES to make questions in the present simple tense. This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. For regular habits or repeated actions. Learn all (12) tenses in English with useful grammar rules, examples and ESL worksheets.

This is more fun that it sounds because many present tense questions are quite personal and the person who has made the question will often be dismayed by having to answer their own question.