Mystery Movements: An activity to practice the present progressive

How have you practiced the present progressive with basic level students? Over the years, I’ve relied on some old favorites, for instance, talking about who’s wearing what today, having students pantomime actions for others to describe, and describing actions seen in photos and film. In a post back in 2009, I suggested that photos from cell phones could even be used in this manner.

Today, in preparation for my next lesson with Natasha, I was thinking of pulling photos together with a theme or a narrative. I came up with a short activity that could easily work one-on-one or in a classroom setting. Please take a look at my Mystery Movements_handout.

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7 Comments on “Mystery Movements: An activity to practice the present progressive”

  1. haris Says:

    hey jennifer can you example that how to use past perfect because most of the time i stuck in that tense
    Regard
    Haris


    • Hello Haris,

      This is a good question for my community forum.
      http://www.englishwithjennifer.com/forum/

      The quick answer: The listened to the fairy tale with wonder. She had never heard the story about the Little Mermaid before I read it to her.
      = I read the story. (in the past) Before that point in time, she did not know the story. > We use the past perfect to show which of two past points or events in time came first.

      For more discussion on verb tenses, please join the forum.
      Best wishes!

      • haris Says:

        hello jennifer,

        Could you give me a audio with american accent. Do you Please i need so much i will very thank full if provide me

        Thank you

        Best Regard
        Haris


      • Hello Haris,

        Have you seen the final lesson in this series?

        I contrast my accent with accents in the UK and New Zealand.

        Have you ever visited IDEA (Int’l Dialects of English)?
        http://web.ku.edu/~idea/

        Hope the links help!
        Best,
        Jennifer

  2. hars Says:

    thank you Jenny

    Regard

    Haris

  3. Dave Says:

    Enjoyed reading this thanks!


  4. [...] begun to practice the present progressive. I’ve already shared both with Natasha and you the first Mystery Movements activity. This proved to be a good exercise since  I encouraged my student to retell her narrative multiple [...]


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