Verb to be in present tense

When I was looking for some materials to teach the present simple tense of the verb to be I was rather unpleasantly surprised by the fact that there are very few speaking activities. Obviously, the verbs IS/AM/ARE are taught to elementary students whose vocabulary is severely limited. But, there should be some speaking activities anyway. And I could not find any.

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That was why I decide to create one. Moreover, I managed to find a great song to help me drill the verb to be with my students. I hope you like the two activities, too.

When I searched the internet I found the following simple song by Rockin’ English Lessons. It is simple, short and yet catchy. My students loved it and sang it three times.

Display the song and then simply play it and ask your students to sing along. It is a wonderful drill.

Print the following worksheet.

Verb to be present simple speaking

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Cut it in the middle. Students work in pairs. Each students gets one half of the worksheet.

First students complete the exercise 1 with the verbs IS/AM/ARE. They use only these three verbs. To check their answers here, is a simple way to do it. Say:”If your first sentence starts with “My father …” STAND UP.” Now go through the sentences with those who are standing. Then ask them to sit down and ask the others to stand up and check their answers too.

In the second task, students read their sentences and write YES or NO into the squares provided. They write YES, if the sentence is true for them and NO if it is not.

In the third task, they work in pairs and read the sentences to their partner. Their partner listens and says YES, if they think it is true. If they think it is not true, they say NO. They count how many times times they were right. (About 25% of students get all their answers right.)

In exercise 4 students use the negative forms of the verb to be in the present simple tense. They take five of the NO sentences from the exercise 1 and write them in negative.

The last exercise is a classical gap fill. Students complete it with the correct form of the verb to be in the present simple tense.