Learning any language comes with its complications. Even native speakers struggle to master verb tenses, especially with irregular verbs like “to be”. It’s even more complicated for learners trying to master a second language. The present continuous tense, also known as the present progressive tense, requires students to understand the meaning of an activity that’s in progress. The activities below help kids master the present continuous tense through drawing, conversation, movement, and games. Here are 35 present continuous activities for captivating tense practice.
1. Student Interviews
In this activity, students create 5 questions using the present simple tense and 5 present continuous questions. Then, they practice answering the questions by interviewing each other. This lesson helps kids compare and contrast the two tenses.
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2. Teacher Says
This activity combines the classic game students love, “Simon Says”, with a full-body approach to teaching and learning. The teacher tells kids to complete an action (“Teacher says run!”). Then, after the kids run, the teacher says, “What are you doing” and the kids repeat “we are running”.
Learn More: ESL Kid Stuff
3. Picture Narration
Kids narrate a picture with a lot of different things going on in it. As they look at the picture, they generate present continuous sentences like “the girl is wearing shorts” or “the dog is running”. Pictures from Where’s Waldo books or Highlights Magazine are perfect for this lesson.
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4. Listen and Identify
For this activity, kids write down actions on pieces of paper. Next, three students come to the front of the room and draw activity. They then mime the activity for the class. The teacher asks the class “Who is singing” and the class has to call out the name of the student miming the correct action.
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5. It’s NOT a Date
This silly activity is great for middle schoolers or high schoolers. The teacher gives kids the scenario that they are being asked out on a date that they don’t want to go on. The students then come up with reasons why they can’t go on the date, such as “sorry, I am eating with my family!”
Learn More: Teaching English Games
6. Mr. Bean
For this activity, students work in partners. One student faces the other and has their back to a video of Mr. Bean. The student facing the video describes what Mr. Bean is doing to the other student. When the video concludes, the student watches the video and tells the other student what they missed or what they understood.
Learn More: English Current
7. Vocabulary Auction
In this activity, the teacher cuts up individual words in several present continuous sentences. Next, the teacher draws each word, and students have to bid on each word. The goal of the game is for students to get enough words to make a present continuous sentence.
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8. Hot Potato
The students sit in a circle and pass the potato around while the teacher plays music. When the music stops, the student with the potato has to say a verb conjugated in the present progressive tense. If the student can’t think of a verb or conjugates the verb incorrectly, then they are out!
Learn More: ESL Speaking
9. Mes Games
This website quizzes students in a fun, game-style quiz format. Kids can use the game to practice present continuous vocabulary, present continuous conjugation, and recognize present continuous games.
Learn More: MES Games
10. Cheese Quest
In this game, students have to find the cheese by answering questions about the present continuous tense correctly. Teachers can have students play the game individually or the class can play the game together.
Learn More: ESL Kids World
11. Jumbled Sentences
This activity can be done online using the website or in person with some preparation. The teacher gives students jumbled sentences and students have to reorganize the words to create the correct sentence using present continuous conjugation.
Learn More: English Club
12. Car Racing
This game helps students review the present continuous tense by answering trivia questions correctly in order to advance their car. The game includes important vocabulary, verb tense recognition, and present continuous conjugation.
Learn More: ESL Games Plus
13. Dice Drawing
Students draw sentences by using dice rolls. Students roll a die to create a present continuous sentence. Then, they have to draw that sentence. Drawing the sentence helps students conceptualize the present continuous tense.
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14. Letter to a Friend
In this activity, students fill in the blanks using the present continuous tense. Then, students write a response to the letter as if they are a friend. This activity encourages students to practice continuous sentences on their own as well as continuous conjugation for provided verbs.
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15. Matching
In this present continuous memory game, the students match the present continuous sentence with the picture representing the sentence. Kids have to understand how a natural situation is represented in both sentence structures and images.
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16. Conversation Cards
Students learn how to use present continuous forms in conversation. Students use the card to answer the question using the present continuous tense. There are 18 cards included and teachers can add to the cards by thinking of their own examples.
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17. Board Game
This present continuous board game uses question forms to encourage students to practice recognizing the progressive tense. Students have to roll a die to see how many spaces they progress, then they answer the question on the space in which they land. If they get it right, they get to keep moving.
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18. Flip It
This is a flipped classroom activity where students revise present continuous sentences and present simple sentences at home on their own. Next, the students speak in class using the sentences that they revised. The students pick sentences that describe themselves and then use the sentences to speak in class.
Learn More: ESL Brains
19. Sentence Builders
For this activity, the teacher creates sentence builders for students to practice differentiating between the present progressive tense and the present simple tense. The teacher gives students a subject like “the chef” and a state like “in progress”. Then, students create a sentence to meet those conditions.
Learn More: TEFL Handbook
20. Reporting Live
In this activity, students are paired together. One student acts as a reporter and the other acts as a person being interviewed at their place of work. The reporter asks questions that elicit present simple tense and present continuous tense responses.
Learn More: TEFL Handbook
21. Miming Cards
This continuous miming game is very similar to the classic game of Charades, but all the people in the pictures represent continuous actions. A student picks a card and performs the action in front of the class. The first team to correctly guess what the student is doing gets a point.
Learn More: English Current
22. Reading in Spanish
This activity is for learning the present continuous tense in Spanish, but it can easily be adapted in English class as well. The story includes 26 different instances of the present continuous tense that students have to find. Students get to see the constructions in context.
Learn More: Spanish with Stephanie
23. Serpent Game
This is a large class activity where each student gets a card. On the card are a picture and a sentence that they read out loud. If a student’s card has a picture of someone running, they say “I am running” and then they say, “Who is jumping”. The student with the image of someone jumping then stands up and the game continues.
Learn More: Spanish with Stephanie
24. Present Progressive Tales
In this activity, students work in pairs and use conversation cards to create a story. They must use the continuous progressive tense to describe what the characters are doing in the story.
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25. Sentence Exercises
Although conjugations may not be the most fun classroom activity, they are highly effective in helping students practice a new tense. In these exercises, students are given a sentence with a verb to conjugate into the present progressive tense.
Learn More: Really Learn English
26. Create a Poster
This activity combines real-world problems with the present progressive practice. Students pick an environmental problem that they want to solve. Then they create a poster sharing information on how to help that problem using the present progressive tense.
Learn More: ESL Lesson Plans
27. Bingo!
Bingo is a classic fun game that can be adapted for kids to practice the continuous present tense. On the Bingo cards, there are several examples of verbs conjugated into the present continuous tense. Then the teacher calls out a subject and a verb and the kids have to place their markers on the corresponding space.
Learn More: Spanish Academy
28. Tic-Tac-Toe
Tic-Tac-Toe is another game that teachers can adapt to help kids practice verb conjugations. For this game, teachers put questions or tasks in each box. Then, if a student wants to claim a box to place their “X” or “O”, they must answer the question or complete the conjugation.
Learn More: Spanish Academy
29. Conjugation Baseball
In this game, the class is divided into two teams and there are four desks used as “bases”. The hitter rolls a die to determine the number of bases they take if they answer a conjugation question correctly. They pick a question from the hat–if they answer correctly, they get to take the bases. If they answer incorrectly, it’s an out.
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30. One Minute Madness
Teachers put a minute up on the board. In the minute students have to write as many sentences as they can using the correct form of the present progressive tense. The student or team who conjugates the most sentences correctly wins!
Learn More: Fluentu
31. Relay Race
The teacher writes pronouns up on the board for this fun conjugation game. Then kids in teams run up to the board, the teacher says a verb, and the students have to conjugate as fast as they can for all of the pronouns in a relay style.
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32. Mad Libs
For this activity, the teacher creates a story leaving verbs blank. Then students provide a present continuous verb phrase without knowing what the sentence is. The kids love hearing their hilarious story at the end.
Learn More: Reach to Teach Recruiting
33. And then…
This classroom game uses a list of verbs on the wall for students to choose from. The first student begins a story by saying a sentence that describes what a character is doing using one of the verbs from the wall. Then the next student chooses another word and adds to the story.
Learn More: Your Dictionary
34. Fill-It-In!
For this activity, encourage your kiddos to fill in the blanks with the correct form of the continuous tense. Have them use the verbs on the colorful worksheet to help them figure out the present continuous tense word that fits into each blank space.
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35. Pictionary
In this present continuous drawing game, students pick a present continuous verb from a hat and then draw a picture of the verb on the board. The team that guesses the word correctly first wins a point.
Learn More: Studocu
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