Teach English in Shimen Zhen - Wuwei Shi

Unit 4: Review This unit covers verb forms and sentence structures with the present tenses. It covers all the four aspects of the present tense; the present simple, the present continuous, the present perfect and the present perfect continuous. The approach for teaching these aspects is pretty similar and include and they follow the patterns: Forms ? usages ? typical student errors and mistakes ? sample activate stage teaching idea. I shall focus on great resources from the unit which I hadn?t noticed before, particularly ideas for the activate stage. Present simple: In the affirmative forms, this tense more obvious with the third person singular as it has an s or es. Example sentence: She ususally dresses like a model. In the question form, the third the main verb for third person singular has no s or es as these have already been absorbed by the auxiliary ?does? Examples: Does your father know that you are here? Some sample ideas for the stage include: Guess my profession where a student chooses a profession and a partner tries to guess it by asking questions in the present simple. An example question could be ?do you have to answer a lot of phone calls in a day?? A day in the life of ?.. uses picture prompts from which students must imagine and construct the daily life of somebody. Other activities may also include questionnaires, find someone who etc. Present Continuous: Here pronunciation drill is necessary for contracted forms, as students, particularly beginners may have the tendency of sticking with the long forms. Also, I learned something vital on how to help students identify non action verbs. They generally fall under one of the following four categories: Verbs of the senses (involuntary) ? taste, hear, look, feel Verbs expressing feelings and emotions ? hate, love, like etc Verbs of mental activities ? think, understand etc Verbs of possession ? possess, have, own, belong etc Some activate stage teaching ideas may include: Miming. A student mimes an action to elicit what it is from a partner. Picture prompts could also be used to elicit the actions they are able to identify in the pictures. Graphs or charts could also be used for students to report the trends they can observe. Present perfect: For and since ? We use for with periods of time (two weeks, three years, six months, a life time etc). Since is used with points of time (Friday, last week, yesterday, last night etc) Been and gone ? when we use been, the trip is finishes and you are probably back (I have been to Angola twice). When we use gone, the trip is unfinished, we probably are still enjoying our stay there. ?Mum has gone to Sidney? ? mum is still in Sidney. Teaching ideas for activate stage include: Find someone who?.. students write a list of experiences they wish to find out about their partners. For example a student might want to find out who ? has ben to eight different countries, has tried cuisines from seven different cultures etc What have you done today: One student mimes the action and a partner guesses what is it they have done, and vice versa. Change the room. One group leaves the classroom and the group that stays in make some changes which the group outside will have the identify when they come back in. Example notices could be ? you have moved the bin, you have rotated the white board etc. Present perfect Continuous: Used to communicate incomplete activities still in action, when you want to emphasis how long. ? I have been standing here for hours waiting for the bus? For a recently finished action whose result or effect can still be observed or that has a present result. Example: ? you are all soaked and wet, yes I don?t doubt it, I?ve been standing in the pouring rain for about half and hour waiting for the bus?. Sample activate ideas include: Ask students to write down any past activity and a result so that they will have to link them up to produce present perfect continuous constructions. Survey. Student walk round the class in a quest to find out who has done something the longest.