I have covered nearly all the tenses there are on my website. But it is the first time I deal with the present perfect continuous tense. It is not an easy tense, but I think it is not really difficult either.
To help you teach this tense there is an infographic, a worksheet, an audio and an online quiz. I hope you find these useful.
Present perfect continuous – audio
You should listen to the file first and then stop the recording when the woman is expected to answers.
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This BBC recording can be freely downloaded at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/1313_gramchallenge28/
Present perfect continuous – infographic
Then explain the usage of the tense.
Present perfect continuous – worksheet
Activity 1: Students look at their pictures and tell their partners whether they have been doing the activities in the pictures. If they say that they have been doing something, their partner immediately asks how long they have been doing it. In this way you ensure that the students listen to each other.
Activity 2: Students complete the exercise with present perfect simple or continuous.
Present perfect continuous worksheetPresent perfect continuous – quiz
Present perfect continuous – Links
Students make a lot of mistakes in present perfect tense. I have tried to collect the most typical ones and I have put them into a mind map and tried to explain the rules there. Moreover, I have added two games to give the students a chance to practice the grammar one more time.
To be able to form the present perfect tense correctly, it is necessary to know the past participles. Students can learn the past participles in the following posts:
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Common mistakes – Mind map
In the first bubble there is the wrong sentence, then there is the correct sentence and at the end of each branch there is the explanation.
For teaching purposes it might be a good idea to leave the end of the branch empty and ask the students to come up with their own explanation. You can find the mind map here:
Common mistakes – Games
- bad knowledge of the past participles
- Not using has
- wrong subject in the answers.
If you feel that you have problems with the past participles I recommend the following video:
If you need more practise of past participles and irregular verbs go to Irregular verbs straightforward and Irregular verbs straightforward#2.
To deal with problems 2 and 3 I have prepared two games. The first one is an HTML5 quiz and your task is to answer the tasks correctly. At the end there is a game as a reward for your effort.
[showmyadsa] The second game is more game like, but it is in Flash and it will work only on your desktop. It is called On Target and your task is to answer the questions and then shoot the bad ducks. Common mistakes – present perfect On Target
By now you should know the grammar well.
Common mistakes – Share
Some time ago I presented here an infographics on present perfect tense. This infographic contains a lot of interesting information but when I tried to teach the present perfect tense using it, I found out that I failed. That is why I have prepared this new one where I try to introduce the form and the basic usage of the present perfect tense.
To teach the grammar successfully though the students have to know the past participles. You can learn present past participles here. There is mind map and three games to learn 40 of them.
Present perfect tense – mindmap
This mind map shows the form of present perfect tense and the basic usage.
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Present perfect tense – RAP
We have used a rap before to explain the grammar. You can see the explanation of the present simple and present continuous tenses here and the rap presentation of past participles here.
Play this rap after reading the graphics above and it should help you memorise the form and the usage of the grammar.
Present perfect tense – practise
And now it is time to practise the grammar. Try the following video. Watch and use the words on the screen to make a sentence in the present perfect tense.
You can play other games for example here in our post Present perfect basic.
Conclusion
I hope this post helped you understand the usage and form of the present perfect tense better. You can find more grammar posts on our blog. For example, there is a post on Second conditional or creation of questions starting with HOW. Enjoy.
Many students do not understand the present perfect tense. Here is an infographic which should make the present perfect tense easier for students to understand.
(more…)Many students find the difference between present perfect tense and past simple very confusing. To help them I have created the following infographic.
(more…)To learn this difficult tense you first have to learn the past participles. Regular verbs just add the ending -ed but you have to memorise the irregular ones. Here is a mind map which might help you memorise the irregular verbs first
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