Verbos en presente contínuo / Verbs Present Continuous

Lesson Outline:

1. Introduce the actions vocabulary play «Slowly reveal the flashcard»
2. Play «Teacher Says»
3. Introduce the structure – do «Marching Chant»
4. Play «What are you doing?» actions
5. Sing «What are you Doing?»
6. Read classroom reader «What are you Doing?»
7. Do the «What are you Doing 1?» worksheet
8. Teach «I am , He is, She is, They are»
9. Do «Magazine cut and paste activity»

New Learning and Practice:

1. Introduce the actions vocab: play «Slowly reveal the flashcard»

Your students should know some of these actions from previous lessons. This will be a good review and an introduction to some more common verbs.

Before class prepare the following flashcards: run, cook, eat, swim, walk, drink, draw, sleep. You can also add some more action flashcards to this list for more practice.

Start with the «run» flashcard – place it behind the
pack of the other flashcards so your students can’t
see the picture. Slowly push the flashcard up,
revealing a little of the picture. Encourage students
to shout out what they think it is. Keep slowly
revealing the image until someone shouts out the
correct word (or for new words you will have to tell
them the answer). Then chorus the word 3 times. Finally, shout «Ok, everyone run for 5 seconds … 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – Stop!» and have everyone run around as you count five seconds.

Then do the same routine with the other flashcards.

2. Play «Teacher Says»

This is the same as the game «Simon Says» but with the word «teacher» instead of «Simon». Line everyone up in front of you and say «Teacher says drink» and have everyone do the drinking action. Go through a few more verbs with everyone doing the actions. Then say «sleep» without the «Teacher says» part – anyone who does the action is out! First time, you can give a warning but after that any mistakes result in the student sitting out the round.

3. Introduce the structure – do «Marching Chant»

After playing «Teacher says», keep everyone standing in a line facing you. Place the flashcards on the board in the order of the song (or use the song poster). Model marching on the spot and clapping a slow rhythm and get everybody to copy you – marching on the spot and clapping at an easy pace. Then start the chant in time with the clapping: «What are you doing? – What are you doing? – What are you doing?, etc». Make it so that everyone echoes your chant:

Teacher (chanting): What are you doing? Students (echoing): What are you doing? Teacher (chanting): What are you doing? Students (echoing): What are you doing? Next, insert the first action into your chant and have everyone echo as they march and clap along:

Teacher (chanting): I am running. Students (echoing): I am running.

Then add more actions into the chant:

Teacher (chanting): What are you doing? Students (echoing): What are you doing?

Teacher (chanting): I am running. Students (echoing): I am running.

Teacher (chanting): What are you doing? Students (echoing): What are you doing?

Teacher (chanting): I am cooking. Students (echoing): I am cooking.

etc.

You can have some fun by going fast and slow, adjusting the pace of the marching and the chant.

4. Play «What are you doing?» actions

Start by modeling the activity. Get a volunteer to help you. Start running on the spot and have your volunteer say «What are you doing?» and reply «I am running!». Then start doing a cooking action and have the student ask again «What are you doing?». Reply «I am cooking!». Continue this for all of the verbs, in the order of the song, using the flashcards on the board (or the song poster) as prompts.

Next, pair up your students. Have one doing all of the actions and the other asking «What are you doing?». Once finished, students swap roles.

5. Sing the «What are you Doing?» song

By now, you will be ready for the song. Play it through one time and have everyone do the actions and encourage them to sing along (see Gestures for the «What are you doing?» song below). Use the flashcards on the board or the song poster for prompts.

Then play the song once more for fun.

6. Read classroom reader «What are you Doing?»

Let’s follow the song with a reader which uses the structures from the song. Before class, download and print off the reader «Whatare you Doing?» from our website. As you go through each page, point to the pictures and ask your students what they think the people in each picture are doing, for example:

Teacher: (reading from page 1) «What are you doing, Sally?». What do you think Sally is doing?
Student A: Riding a bike?
Student B: Taking a bath?

Teacher: Hmm, well let’s see … (turning the page) … She’s running! (Reading) «I’m running».

Some of the pictures are quite straight forward and your students shouldn’t have any trouble guessing but others are not so obvious. Get lots of predictions before checking the answers.

7. Do the «What are you Doing 1?» worksheet

Give out the worksheets and circulate as your students match the sentences to the pictures.

8. Teach «I am, He is, She is, They are»

Start by teaching the following structures on the board:

•   I am running (draw a stick man / woman running and write your name under the picture)
•   He is running (draw a stick man running)
•   She is running (draw a stick woman running)
•   They are running (draw some stick people running)Chorus the sentences. Then ask students to come up to the board and draw stick men doing other actions (e.g. «She is drawing», «They are sleeping», «He is swimming», etc.).

9. Do «Magazine cut and paste activity»

Before class you will need to prepare some old magazines, catalogues or newspapers. Anything with pictures of people doing things which you can cut out. The more you can get the better. You’ll also need some large sheets of construction paper.

Start by modeling: hold up a magazine and flick though some pages asking questions about what the people are doing E.g. «What is he doing?» and elicit «He is walking», etc. Feel free to choose pictures with other verbs your students might know (e.g. «She is talking»). For each picture you choose, cut it out and stick onto a large piece of construction paper with the following written in marker pen in the middle: «What is he doing? What is she doing? What are they doing?».

After demonstrating with a few pictures, split your class up into groups – the same number of groups as the number of magazines that you have (3-4 students per group is ideal). Give each group a large sheet of construction paper with the same text written in the middle («What is he doing? What is she doing? What are they doing?»). Have the groups go through the magazines to cut out and paste pictures of people doing things onto their construction paper. As they are doing so encourage everybody to use the key structures.

When everyone has finished get one or two students from each group to join a new group. They will then ask questions about the people in the pictures (e.g. «What is she doing?») and the other members need to reply (e.g. «She is riding a bike».).

Finally, end this activity by asking questions to each group about their pictures.

Wrap Up:

1. Assign Homework: «What are you doing? 2» worksheet

Resources:

• actions-pres-cont-materials-jcq
• What are you Donig? READER