Category: group work

Level 1 – present tense verb revision

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Present tenses:

Which of these situations go best with present simple & which go best with present continuous?

PERMANENT TEMPORARY HABIT JUST NOW
SELDOM OCCASIONALLY THESE DAYS, BUT NOT FOR LONG CLASS TIMES
SOMETHING YOU DO ONCE A YEAR NEVER AT THE MOMENT THE WEATHER TODAY
  1. ‘How do you prefer to study?’ ‘I _________ about the topic and ______ notes.
  2. ‘What languages ______________?’ ‘Chinese, Slovak and Spanish.’
  3. ‘Who _____________ that violin?’ (violin = musical instrument) ‘My wife.’
  4. ‘Your daughter’s very keen on keep fit, isn’t she?’ ‘Yes, _______ yoga and __________  spinning classes at the leisure centre.’ (spinning class = an exercise class)
  5. ‘Where is she now?’ ‘She _____________ weights in her bedroom.’ (weights = dumbbells – exercise equipment)
  6. ‘Who is  ______________ the saxophone in the flat upstairs? Do they ___________ every night? How do you _________?’ (saxophone = a musical instrument)
  7. ‘What’s that song ___________ upstairs?’ ‘I can’t hear it. Oh, yes, she _______________ to One Direction again. She ____________________ them every day. I really ____________ them!’
  8. ‘I know you like _____________ Arabic, but can we __________ in English in class, please?’
  9.  ‘Do you usually wear that hat?’ ‘No, it’s new, normally I _____________ a baseball cap like Ahmed’s. He usually ______________ that red MAGA red one, but today he _______________ a blue NIKE one.
  10. ‘What a lovely watch!’ ‘It ________________________ I’m afraid – it’s been broken for years.’
  11. ‘Could I use your phone?’ ‘I’m afraid it _________________________ at the moment.’

 

Repeated actions not around the moment of speaking: present simple.

Repeated actions around the moment of speaking: present continuous.

We use the present simple for events – things that happen one after another.

We use present continuous for background – things that are already happening when the story starts, or that continue through part of the story.

  • Write a 3 sentence story using both tenses & read it to your partner.

  • Instructions & directions – what tense do we use to write and give instructions?

  • We use present continuous for changing and developing situations

  • Write 3 sentences to illustrate this use of the present continuous.

The world’s population You Your English Prices
Pandas The company Nokia Teenagers The political situation in the UK
cities Us books athletes
Elderly people The USA traffic Autumn

3rd person singular.

  1. What is the most common way of making the 3rd person singular?
  2. What happens with words ending in vowel + y?
  3. What happens with words ending in consonant + y?
  4. After which consonants and groups of consonants do we add -es?
  5. Which two other common words add – es?

Write the third person singular of these verbs?

Box Brush Buy Complete
Cry Defend Deny Destroy
Excite Expect Fry Guess
Look Pray Reach Receive
Rush Spend Want watch

Verbs we don’t use with present continuous

Try to make sentences using these words in the present tense:

Believe Belong Contain Forget
Hate Like Love Matter
Need Own Prefer Realise
Remember Suppose Understand Want
 ‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘taste’, ‘smell’, ‘feel’ are verbs that describe senses. These verbs aren’t usually used in continuous forms. They are often used with ‘can’.
What is a stative verb in English grammar?
An example of a continuous tense is the present continuous or past continuous. These verbs are called stative, or state verbs. A verb which isn’t stative is called a dynamic verb, and is usually an action. Often stative verbs are about liking or disliking something, or about a mental state, not about an action.

Stative Verbs List – Perfect English Grammar