1B: Present Simple (A2)

This lesson is about Present Simple but I prefer to call it "habitual present" because it gives you a clue (pista) about how to use it. The verb is formed with the infinitive verb (except the verb to be) and it takes an -S for the 3rd person in singular. In many ocassions we use a frequency adverb wtih this tense (tiempo verbal). You need to use the auxiliary DO/DOES for negative or interrogative sentences. These are some examples:

• I study English  ---   I don't study Japanese   ---  Does she usually eat meat? No, she doesn't . She never eats meat because she's a vegan.

On the Internet you can find some videos about habitual present and daily routines:

• this video is with the 1st person in singular and the 3rd person in singular: click here
• A video with grammar explanation: click here

In class I explained the 3 pronunciations of -S and -ES (which are usually used in 3rd person in singular of present, plurals and some contractions or saxon genitive) . This video can help you to remember what I said about it: click here. You can use the mnemotechnique rule (PeTaKaSh) for voiceless consonants and also remember that any vowel sound (-y, -er, -o) is always voiced. The extra syllable is after a "sybillant" sound (sonido silbante).

Now do these exercises to practise with present simple or habitual present:

• The Queen's routine: click here
• As a curiosity, this is the routine of a Canadian teacher: click here (more difficult than the others!)

Grammar exercises:     exercise 1 (this is the exercise we saw in class)     exercise 2  (this is a link with exercises)     exercise 3  (this is a test to check you've understood present simple)

To finish with, this is the video woth the song Eternal Flame

See you in class!

Habitual actions - present simple (1)

The typical or habitual actions are with present simple. You need the auxiliary DO/DOES for negative or interrogative sentences. These are some examples:

• I study English  ---   I don't study Japanese   ---  Do you study French? No, I don't / Yes, I do

On the Internet you can find some videos with some verbs about daily routines: 

• these are videos for children and they are very easy: click here, here or here
• this video is with the 1st person in singular and the 3rd person in singular: click here
• This is the video we'll see in class in which Fred talks about his routine: click here

Now do these exercises to practise with present simple or habitual:

• The Queen's routine: click here
• A video with grammar explanation: click here
• a video to practise pronunciation: click here

Grammar exercises:     exercise 1    exercise 2    exercise 3    exercise 4    exercise 5    exercise 6

See you in class!

Unit 2: Work

This unit deals with work so I've taken some links to hear people talking about their jobs. Here you have them:

• here you can find a link form BBC Learning English. Although it's difficult at first you can use the script when you've listened to it several times. Click here
• this is the opposite to work: to get redundant. You can listen to this person and his experience; click here
• here you have a game about matching  what you hear with a photo; click here
• this listening is about a dream job for a girl; click here
• a memory game about jobs; click here

About grammar you have present continuous or present simple. You can go to a previous entry in this blog; to do it faster click here

If you want to practise more or you've alredy done the other exercises, here you have some extra ones to do

• exercise 1        exercise 2
• exercise for frequency advebs: click here and here
• a video with clips of songs working with present simple; click here but I prefer the song Tom's diner by Suzanne Vega or this version of Abba's song I have a dream
• if you have children, you can use this really easy video about present simple; click here

Revision of Present and Past Simple

We're going to revise this tense but keep in mind that it's not the same as the Spanish simple present: this tense is connected to routines, habits or frequent actions. That's the reason why we normally use frequency adverbs with this tense. There are also verbs that are normally used in present simple such as need, think, feel, want, like, have and so on. Let's see some examples:

• I come to English class twice a week and I usually use public transport.
• I think I need a new notebook. This doesn't have enough pages so I want to buy a new one today.
• I like watching TV at night when I have time and I don't feel too tired.

If you want to practise with this tense go to these links:

• grammar explanation: click here or here.
• exercise 1 - exercise 2 - exercise 3   exercise 4

To finish with, have a look and sing this funny song. The singers use past simple a lot so we are going to try to see which is the present tense of each verb. To listen to the song click here: I don't care, I love it 

Use of PLAY, DO or GO + DO-DOES-DID

In this first lesson we are speaking about what you do in your free time. We have here the exercise we did in class; click HERE.
If you want more practice, go to these exercises:

• exercise 1  exercise 2  exercise 3

We also worked with questions and the use of  AUXILIARY and we've seen DO-DOES-DID. We did this exercise to practise; click HERE. If you want to do more exercises you can go HERE or HERE. Once you've finished with grammar, let's go with music. "Eternal Flame" is a good example of how to make questions; click HERE. For further practice with questions you can use these exercises:

• exercise 1     exercise 2      exercise 3     exercise 4    exercise 5

I hope you find this helpful. See you in class.

Present Simple versus Present Continuous

To start with I usually called present simple as habitual present because it shows better when we use this tense. It's referred to habits, routines, general truth or similar statements, while present continuous is referred to a particular moment of an action or something that happens in a particular time or period of time.
Have a look these examples:
   What do you do?  ---  I'm a teacher; I teach English at school
   What are you doing this week? -_- I'm explaining present tenses to my students
In many occasions, habitual present is used with frequency adverbs such as usually, often, hardly ever, sometimes, etc.
If you want to practise with these tenses you can do these exercises:

• exercise 1: a good explanation about both tenses with exercises at the end
• exercise 2: another longer explanation but it's useful for the examples and it includes many special cases such as have, think, want, etc. Very few exercises but interesting.
• exercise 3: short simple explanation and some exercises to practise
• exercise 4: a filling the blanks exercise
• exercise 5: a very complete page with grammar and exercises at the end.

See you in class!