Topic: ESL
Activities in the Activate Stage
The first example of activities in the activate stage in the teaching of present continuous to new learners would be the use of picture presentation. Here the teacher or instructor will have to make good use of the board. It is important to put into consideration the role of the student during the process of reading. For instance, the teacher could use a snapshot of a person to present continuous with “is” and “shall” without necessarily using the textbook.
The Activity: Take a picture of a group of people from a newspaper and pin it up on the board for all students to see. Ask the students to imagine what they think is happening in the picture. To do this you can ask questions first in the present simple and then present continuous – ask them what the group will be doing in the near future basing on what is happening in the picture at the moment. Questions to this effect could include -what is the group doing, what is it aiming to achieve? Remember the more the engagement of the students the more the fun of the activate stage. Thus the teacher should put in more effort in trying to have the students participates more in the activity.
Write up their responses on the board, paying particular attention to the correct simple construction of sentences in the present continuous (Harmer). For example, what is the group doing? They are demonstrating. Then use the words you have written on the board to draw focus on the tense itself. Get a student to try to make a prediction of the action of the group. For instance, “They shall hand their petitions to the office of the president.” write the sentence on the board and highlight the word “shall” which denotes the present continuous tense for future use. Alternatively if the students are unable to construct such sentences, write it up yourself and highlight the tense. Get the students to come up with more interesting sentences. Such as, “They are shouting against the government,” “They will get the attention of other people.”
The essence of this exercise is to have the students to take an active role in the process. In this respect, therefore, they should be the ones to provide the bulk of the information that the teachers requires to present the topic. Instead of just teaching the students about the present continuous, the teacher has done well to elicit it from the students in an active engaging manner. Good techniques of involving students more in the activity include such actions as asking questions as well as eliciting information by the teacher.
Secondly, the teacher can use realia presentation which involves using an object from the real word to get the students involved in the present continuous class activity. A basic example in this case could be a piece of chalk. The teacher could ask the students about what will eventually happen to the piece of chalk as it is used on the board. Here the teacher is eliciting an answer in the present continuous i.e. The chalk shall get finished. Then the teacher can ask the students to discuss among themselves by constructing random sentences that make use of “are”, “shall”, and “will.” meanwhile, the teacher can be noting on the board examples sentences of his/her own. After sometime the teacher will ask the students to give the sentences they have come up with in their engagement and write them on the board too. The teacher should also engage the students in corrections of wrong sentences that some students may give.
To this end, it is clear that the teacher would have done well to engage the students in a fun and interesting manner in this activate stage of teaching present continuous. he/she employed the lead-in tactic, got students engaged and involved in the lesson through the lead-in tactic and the grammar presentation came out naturally (Harmer).
Reference
Harmer, Jeremy. (1998). How to teach English: an introduction to the practice of English language teaching. London, Longman.
