Overview of All English Tenses - Present Tenses - Present Simple - Teaching Ideas
Here's a teaching idea that focuses on two very specific aspects of the present simple tense, one of which will be making statements about a habit and a routine. The other will be conjugating the verb into the 'he', 'she' or 'it' form. Here we'll present students with a picture. They will see various objects in the picture. Based upon the presence of these objects in someone's room, the students will have to make an observation such as 'She drinks coffee,' 'She plays the guitar,' 'She watches television,' 'She doesn't smoke.' Again, it's very specific used for the 'he', 'she' or 'it' form and habits and routines. At the end of the activity, the teacher will have the pairs or the small groups report back their various findings. Another idea for the present simple tense will be the classic '20 questions'. The teacher could frame this into the context of 'What's my job?' 'Who am I?' or even 'What am I?' for objects. In order to set this activity up, the teacher will ask a student to come to the front of the room and the teacher will give him or her a card. For jobs, the card will obviously have jobs such as doctor or architect or even teacher. From that, the students will have to ask questions to find out the person's job. These typical questions might be 'Do you work Monday through Friday?' 'Do you work in an office?' 'Do you work with people?' The student at the front of the room will also be answering with present simple short answers 'Yes, I do.' 'No, I don't.' The teacher will give a time limit for each student at the front of the room, perhaps two minutes. At the end of those two minutes, the students in the room will be asking 'Are you a doctor?' 'Are you an architect?' or even 'Are you a teacher?' hopefully by the end of those two minutes, based upon the information given, the students will be able to guess what that job was. The same can also be done for famous people. 'Who am I?' Of course that famous person would still have to be alive, as, have they passed away, we would speak about them in the past tense. You can also use it for objects as well.
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