3 Types of Practice Exercises For Simple Present Tense

Introduction

This post presents 3 types of practice exercises for simple present tense. These exercises range from mechanical oral drills to more meaningful activities. These activities normally come after the presentation stage of the lesson.

First, the practice starts with mechanical oral drills. Then, the students are invited to do some controlled exercises. Finally, you may proceed to introduce your students to more meaningful activities.

Depending on the length of your session, you may be eclectic and opt for just some of these exercises. If you do so, just make sure to always start from easy to more challenging activities.

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Practice Exercises for Simple Present Tense

When teaching and practicing the simple present tense students must understand that the present simple is used to describe routines, habits, daily activities, and general truths. The following practice tips range from mechanical drills to meaningful practice.  Teachers can adapt them to fit their students’ needs.

1. Mechanical Oral drills

One of the practice exercises for simple present tense is oral drilling.

But what are mechanical oral drills?

A mechanical drill is a classroom activity in which the teacher has control over the learners’ responses. Additionally, comprehension is not necessary so that the students can produce a correct response.

Here are examples of the drills as practice exercises for simple present tense:

1. Students practice forming simple present negative statements.

=> The teacher provides a sentence in the affirmative; students change it to the negative.

Example:

• Teacher: My father watches TV in the evening.
• Students: My father doesn’t watch TV

2. You can also use the same type of drill to practice question forms and short answers.

=> The teacher asks a yes or no question; students respond with a short answer.

Example

• Teacher: Does your father watch TV at 4 o’clock in the morning?
• Students: No he doesn’t.

These drills are certainly not meaningful, but they have some advantages:

• Oral Drills help to improve oral proficiency because they may result in developing good pronunciation habits.
• They can have the benefit of building confidence since even low achievers may provide correct answers.
• They are perfect for fixing structures in memory. They help to store material for later retrieval. By doing so, drills help automatize language fluency. 

2. Controlled Exercises

After drilling the simple present tense, affirmative, negative, and interrogative forms, it is now time to start some controlled practice exercises.

Here are a few practice exercises for simple present tense.

We start with the easiest of them (choosing from multiple answers) and then we proceed with more challenging ones (providing the correct form of the tense.)

Circle the correct answer (affirmative)

1.  Sue/I like jogging in the morning.
2. Alan/I usually writes reports in his job.
3. Bill/Sara and Sue always cleans her room.
4. Tony/we visit this museum regularly.
5. I/Leila watches soap operas.

Circle the correct answer

1. Do/does Leila like swimming?
2.  Where do/does Alice and Alan live?
3. What time do/does the sun rise?
4. Do/does the Smiths go to this restaurant?
5.  What do/does you think of the new manager?

Put the words in brackets in the correct form of the simple present.

Example:

John (work)… in a restaurant. => John works in a restaurant.

1.  The sun (rise)… in the east.
2. My parents (like )… slow music very much.
3. I always (drive)… to work.
4. Nancy (do )… Judo.
5. Leila (drink )… four cups of coffee a day.

Put these sentences into the negative form

1. The sun rises in the east.
   It….in the west
2.  They speak Spanish in Spain.
   They… Chinese in Spain.
3. Vegetarians eat fruits and vegetables.
   Vegetarians…meat.
4.  They drive on the left in Britain.
   They… on the right.

3. Meaningful Practice

For a more meaningful way to practice the simple present tense, use less controlled activities where the teacher does not have complete control over the response.

You can practice the simple present in a more meaningful way as follows:

A. Present simple with adverbs of frequency

For example, to practice simple present statements with adverbs of frequency, the teacher calls on students individually to provide sentences with always, usually, often, sometimes, rarely, or never to describe their usual habits.

Example:

Teacher: Nancy, ‘read the newspaper’.
Nancy: I never read the newspaper.

The answer depends on the student’s habits. She may use any of the adverbs of frequency that fits her daily habits

2. Questionnaire with the present simple

1. What’s your name?
2. Where do you live?
3. What do you do?
4. What do you do in your free time?
5. What sport do you like?
6. Do you practice it?
7. When and where do you practice it?

Then, you may proceed as follows:

• Students answer the questions. Help them by providing verbs they will probably need.
• Students work in pairs to ask and answer the questions.
• Students write a paragraph about their partners and read it aloud.

3. Describing jobs with the present simple

Here is another activity to consolidate the use of the simple present:

• On the board, draw a chart with many columns each labeled with a different job.
• Students are put into groups.
• Each group is given individual sentences on slips of paper. Each sentence describes a person’s activity in one of the jobs indicated on the chart. For example: ” a mechanic repairs cars”, “a journalist writes articles”…
• Make sure that groups understand the meaning of the sentences and provide help.
• Students read the sentences and match them with the jobs.
• A representative of each group is asked to write on the board sentences underneath the appropriate job.

3. Guess the job

A variation of the previous activity.

• Ask students to provide a description of jobs.
• Then they take turns reading descriptions.
• The other students try to guess the job.

4. Chain story with simple present tense

You can also use a chain game to practice the simple present for routines and habitual action.

•  Ask students to continue a story. Start the story as follows:
  “My cousin always has a busy day. He gets up early in the morning. At 5:00 o’clock, he goes jogging…”
• This must be written on the board and ask students to continue the story.
• Each student adds a new sentence to continue the story.

All the above activities are meaningful in the sense that the teacher has less control over students’ responses.

Conclusion

This article provides three types of practice exercises for the simple present tense, ranging from mechanical oral drills to more meaningful activities.

• Mechanical drills help improve oral proficiency, build confidence, and automatize language fluency.
• Controlled exercises include filling in blanks, circling the correct answer, and converting affirmative sentences to negative sentences.
• For more meaningful practice, the teacher can use adverbs of frequency, questionnaires, job descriptions, and chain stories.
• It is important to always start with easy activities and then move on to more challenging ones.

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