Last week my 6th graders revised present tenses. Grammar is not their idea of having fun, so I had to come up with some activities that will make it more enjoyable.

I have found cute pictures presenting girl's life and I have created a set of 24 picture cards and 12 word cards.

I divided the class into groups of four. Each student got one picture card. I had to make sure that they know the English phrases to describe the pictures. Then I picked up one word card and read it out loud. The students had to decide which tense they sould use and they had to write the correct sentence in their notebooks. Then they read their sentences one by one. They swapped pictures within their groups, I picked up another word card, and they wrote and read another sentence. We repeated this three times.

They said they liked the activity more than workbook grammar exercises. But what is more important, even the weakest students were able to create correct sentences on their own.

If you like this actitivy and you want to do it with your students, you can download it here:

For young Polish learners of English it may be not so obvious when do we use Present Simple Tense and when do we use Present Continuous Tense. 

I hope this picture will help you to remember the difference.

This post is written especially for my 6th-graders. We've recently discussed the difference between Present Simple and Present Continuous, but they still need some help. How to decide which tense should you use in a particular case? Try this simplified "decision tree" (in Polish and English):

Students often complain that there are too many tenses in English. In fact, there are only two different forms of the verb we call tense: Present Tense and Past Tense. Tense expresses the difference between present and past time. Present and Past Tense can combine with Perfect and Progressive forms of the verb.

Here's a Present Simple mind map:

I hope not only my 6th-graders will enjoy it.