The simple present can be a challenging to beginning students, especially that pesky third person s. I like activities that get students talking, but I also like activities where students are writing down the grammar. This gives me a way to assess their progress on a given topic. This activity comes great after introducing or reviewing the simple present tense and morning routine vocabulary. It gives students a chance to prepare for the discussion by writing down their answers in advance, and then it allows students to walk around and talk to their classmates. Below are the directions and the PDF file you can download.

CLICK HERE to download the handout

1. Introduce or review the simple present tense with students.
2. Review the signal phrases never, sometimes, often, and always.
3. Give students the handout. Review the examples, and ask them to write sentences about what they do and don’t do in the morning.
4. Next, review the example for the discussion activity with students, as well as the questions they will ask their classmates.
5. Ask them to walk around and talk to their classmates and write down one thing each person does in the morning and one person each person does not do in the morning.

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