Top 5 Creative Tasks to Practice Verb Tenses

In this article, I would like to share my top 5 non-standard tasks to use in class if the students are bored with traditional grammar drills. They are most appropriate for  A2/B1 level students. However, you can always upgrade them to B2 and even C1. The next step is to create an activity book for the students where you collect all the creative ways to study tenses and improve writing skills simultaneously. I am a big fan of tools like Padlet or Miro, so I would recommend creating an interactive activity book using one of these tools. Now, let us explore the very tasks.

Practicing Present Simple

Present Simple. Habits Analyzer. While talking about “my typical day” or “my schedule” can be useful, there is still some space to get more insightful and analyze student habits. Students are asked to come up with a list of habits and routines they have. It can be something really simple like: “I usually eat oatmeal for breakfast” or “I go jogging every Tuesday and Friday,” and then evaluate how good these habits are for their well-being. Then, the students are required to write a short essay on their habits and share the results of their research. If you want to incorporate AI into the process, students can ask Chat GPT to evaluate their list of habits and make a conclusion on what can be improved.

Practicing Present Continuous

Present Continuous. Create your own picture. With AI coming into play in the world of teaching foreign languages, we, teachers, should definitely keep up with the trend. So, instead of describing pictures, ask the students to create a picture of their own with the help of text prompts. They may do it from scratch or combine pieces of famous pictures (like, for instance, “Mona Lisa holding a can of Campbell’s soup”). Then, the learners are required to describe their picture using the Present Continuous Tense and explain their idea in detail.

Practicing Past Simple

Past Simple. My past life. Students are asked to ponder on who they could be 100, 500, or 1000 years ago. Then, they need to describe their typical day then. You can expand this topic by adding more specific questions when relevant, like: “Did you have any family celebrations or public holidays at that time? If so, how did you celebrate?”. It is essential to note, however, that learners from some religions can have mixed feelings towards the idea of past life, so you should ask some introductory questions to learn about their attitude to the topic first.

Practicing Future Simple + to be going to

Future Simple/be going to. To practice these tenses, I like to refer to numerous randomizers available online, such as a random country, random occupation, random dish, random car generator, etc. We play a small game when a student comes up with a sentence about their future. For instance, “In 25 years I will live in…” and then generates a random item. If the student agrees with the item, we put it into a table. After we have come up with enough sentences, the learner retells the content of the table, and we get a text like: “In 25 years, I will live in Mexico. I will have 3 children, and we will live near the sea. I will drive a Range Rover Sport, and I will often eat salmon. I will go to clubs a lot, and I will go fishing on the weekends.” Then the teacher asks: “What are you going to do to make it happen?"”

Practicing Present Perfect

Present Perfect. Choose a picture. Students are given 3/4 pictures illustrating the same topic. For instance, cities such as Paris, London, and Tokyo were asked to choose the one they could relate to most. Then, they are to explain their choice using the Present Perfect Tense where possible. They are likely to come up with something like: "I have chosen Paris because I have visited Paris before. I have been to the Eiffel Tower and eaten French croissants. The trip was amazing!

Conclusion

So, as you can see, these tasks can help students get a grasp of basic verb tenses in a unique way. They always bring an element of fun and positivity to the learning process, and that is what we, teachers, should strive for.