Present Tenses-Present Continuous

Form
The present continuous ( also known as the present progressive) tense is made with the present simple tense of the auxiliary verb to be and the present participle ( verb plus ing - working) of the main verb.

Affirmative; ( subject + aux. verb 'be' + verb + ing )

Negative: ( subject + aux. verb + 'be' + not + verb + ing )

Question; ( aux. verb 'be' + subject + verb + ing )

Regular Form
Person Affirmative; Negative; Question;
I I am learning; I am not learning; Am I learning
You You are learning; Your are not learning; Are you learning
He/She/It He is learning; He is not learning; Is he learning
They They are learning; They are not learning; Are they learning

Contracted Form
Person Affirmative; Negative; Question;
I I'm learning; I'm not learning; None
You You're learning; You aren't learning; None
He/She/It She's learning; She isn't learning; None
They They're learning; They aren't learning None

Pronunciation
The main point relates to contracted form:
Beginners can have difficult with these and may resort to using long forms instead; drilling and constant reminders are often necessary.

Listed below are some of the main usages of the present continuous.

1. To talk about an action that is in progress at the time of speaking
Please be quite. I'm watching TV.

2. To talk about a temporary action that is not necessarily in progress at the time of speaking
I am reading a good book at the moment.

3.To emphasize very frequent actions
(often with always) She is always biting her nails.

4. Background events in a present story
So I'm standing there when a policeman comes in.

5. To describe developing situation
It's getting dark.

6. To refer to a regular action around a point of time-
He's usually working at this time.

Non-progressive verbs
Most non- action verbs are not normally used in the continuous forms, we usually used the simple form instead. following are some of the most common:

Like, Love, hate, understand, want, believe, bear, own, owe, seem, appear, wish, mean remember

Non- progressive verbs can be roughly divided into the following groups:

* verbs of the senses (involuntary)
* verbs expressing feelings and emotion
* verbs if mental activity
* verbs of possession

There are exception and some verbs have different meaning depending on whether they are used in the simple or continuous tense, e.g. She thinks you are right (meaning = has the opinion that); She's thinking about it (meaning = considering)

Typical student error/mistakes

Make a note of the nature of each of the following errors/mistakes:

* He watching T.V.
* We are have a meeting.
* Do you not coming to the cinema.
* I'm working hard every day.
* I'm believing in God.

Teaching ideas
* Developing situations
-> A good may to get students to use the present continuous is to provide them with different information in the form of graphs, charts, or tables; they can then describe any changes which are occurring (e.g. ruses in crime rates, unemployment, etc.)

* Telling stories
-> Narrating stories using a combination of the present simple and the present continuous; These can be based on usual prompts and/or other stimuli.

* Action in progress
-> Mine is an excellent way of demonstrating actions; This could be a game whereby students have to guess what the action is.

-> Pictures of action are also good an idea for an information - gap activity is to give student different pictures (of various action) and have them discover which is the same by asking Their partner about their pictures, or spot the difference type activity.