Present Continuous

Talking about "now"...

He's having a heart attack!

Well don't just stand there, call an ambulance.

I am calling an ambulance!

... or "around now"

Are you reading anything good at the moment?

No. I'm reading Joseph Conrad.

What students need to know

This is the tense to use if you're talking about something in progress at the time of speaking. It can be literally now, or "at this current time of my life." Verbs that we usually think of as "states of mind" such as "like", "love", "hate", "know", "want", cannot be used in this form.

What students struggle with

This is usually students' first encounter with a continuous verb form and it is at this point they start to realise that learning English is no walk in the park. Present simple seemed simple enough, but this is conceptually different, and involves learning a new and complex form. If that weren't enough, students must work out whether their verb is an "action" or a " state of mind."

Generative situation - with materials

A picture or video clip of a busy park or beach can be useful for conveying several different actions:

He's flying a kite, she's swimming, they're playing 'let's bury dad.'

The beach has the added benefit of not being to everyone's taste, enabling you to elicit contrasts of action and state:

"She's having a great time. Yes, she loves the beach."

"He isn't enjoying it so much. He hates it. He wants to go to the museum."

Generative situation - no materials

Assuming your classroom has windows, get students to look out then elicit sentences like, "They're shopping", "He's smoking", "She's talking", "We're looking".

If no windows, or it just isn’t practical, act out some clear actions and elicit as you’re doing so the present continuous sentence: “You’re / I’m cleaning the board.” “You’re / I’m moving the chair.”

Fun practice

“Do nothing challenge”

You sit motionless and impassive on a chair in front of the class. The students must take turns to make present continuous sentences about you: "You're sitting", "You're teaching", "You're testing us". The first student or pair who can't think of anything loses.

“Excuses Excuses”

Make, or, better still, get the students to make, a set of "chore" cards e.g. "walk the dog", "change the baby", "tidy the cupboard".  They also make a set of "excuse" cards, which can be as straight or silly as you like: "do homework", "wash car", "watch important news", "design sports car", "breed panda".

Students work in large groups. One student (the asker) asks for someone to help:

"Can you help me [wash the car]?"

Other students compete to get out of helping by picking up an "excuse" card (without showing it to anyone) and making the corresponding excuse:

"Sorry, I'm doing my homework / watching the news / breeding a panda."

In the pack of excuse cards you should have several 'no excuse ' cards; if a student picks up one of these they must invent a convincing excuse on the spot – trying not to give away the fact that they have ‘no excuse’.  If the asker suspects the card is ‘no excuse’, he or she can challenge the player to show the card. If they challenge wrongly the challenged player gets a point. As soon as a player is correctly challenged, that is the end of the round, and another player assumes the role of asker for the next round.