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Dec 20, 2017 · There are three tenses that make up 98% of the tensed verbs used in academic writing. The most common tense is present simple, followed by past simple and present perfect. These tenses can be used both in passive and active voice.
- ESL Writing Prompts to Learn Tenses
- Tips For Classroom Use
- Present Tense Writing Prompts
- Past Tense Writing Prompts
- Future Tense Writing Prompts
- More For ESL Teachers
- Comments
Many students learning English as a foreign language struggle to use the different verb tenses effectively, appropriately, and consistently. Frankly, I know a few native English speakers who could use a little practice. In any case, over the course of five years of teaching, I have found that writing prompts that focus exclusively on a single tense...
Before we jump in, here are some tips for using these prompts in the classroom. 1. Collect your favorites and tweak them to suit your students' backgrounds. 2. If doing these exercises orally, have your students write down the verbs used. 3. For repeated situations such as, "running into an old friend on the street," compare the way different tense...
The present tense, in these cases, includes the simple present ("She always forgets something") and the present continuous ("I am coming"), as well as the trickier present perfect ("We have seen The Matrix far too many times") and present perfect continuous ("She has been singingsince her second glass of wine"). However, it is of course possible to...
I'll present the past tense writing prompts in much the same way, although I strongly encourage teachers and students to recombine them as they see fit, and to explore the ways each tense supports and is supported by others. More advanced ESL or EFL students will find the recombination process to be an excellent opportunity to clarify their underst...
Future Simple
1. Make a New Year's resolution or a promise. (Have your students make promises—either to themselves or others—using the future simple.) 2. Make a prediction. What will the coming year bring?
Future Continuous
1. What are you doing tomorrow afternoon? 1.1. "I will be playing soccerin the park." 2. What will you be doing at 8 a.m. on Monday morning? (Provide a time in the future and have your students predict what they, their family, or their friends will be doing at that time.)
Future Perfect
1. What will you have done by 3 p.m. on Sunday? (Have your students repeat the previous exercise. This time, have them state or guess what they, their family, or friends will have doneby that time. 1.1. "By 3 p.m. I will have finishedplaying soccer in the park."
Claireon February 09, 2020: I've come back to these a few times now... I find targeted writing exercises enormously useful for my students, and there are some great ideas here. I would love to see a collection of writing exercises for other grammar points \too (for example, countable and uncountable nouns - maybe designing a restaurant menu, descri...
Sep 22, 2014 · In English, each of these tenses can take four main aspects: simple , perfect , continuous (also known as progressive ), and perfect continuous. The perfect aspect is formed using the verb to have, while the continuous aspect is formed using the verb to be. In academic writing, the most commonly used tenses are the present simple, the past ...
May 8, 2023 · There are twelve verb tenses in English, formed by combining the past, present, and future tenses with the simple, progressive, perfect, or perfect progressive aspects. Understanding the structure of English tenses and the signal words associated with them is crucial to using them correctly.
- Switch between tenses with intent. Write a 500-word flash fiction in which a character describes events leading up to a surprising encounter at the grocery store.
- Mix present actions with memories. Often there are two simultaneously narrated time-periods in a scene. Something a character is doing now, and past events they’re remembering.
- Change verbs and persons of verbs. Singular persons (‘I’, ‘you’, ‘she/he/it’) and plural persons (‘we’, ‘they’, ‘you’ plural) take different verbs. For example we say ‘I go’ for present first person, but ‘she goes’ (not ‘she go’, unless perhaps writing a local dialect of English where non-standard grammar gives regional quality).
- Use future perfect tense. Some tenses, such as future perfect (‘I will have lived…’) we see and use less frequently than the simple ones. For this writing exercise, describe a working class character’s grand future plans for when they achieve a major career goal (e.g.
Sep 9, 2021 · The best writing follows the rules of grammar (or breaks those rules only with good reason) and is clear, coherent, and consistent. In my work as a writing coach and as an avid reader, I see a lot of the same mistakes. These mistakes aren’t typos or occasional oversights.
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Aug 17, 2023 · Writing practice is a method of becoming a better writer that usually involves reading lessons about the writing process, using writing prompts, doing creative writing exercises, or finishing writing pieces, like essays, short stories, novels, or books. The best writing practice is deliberate, timed, and involves feedback.
