Esl present and past tense games

Overall, the goal is to ensure that students feel comfortable and confident about speaking up and participating during the game! English is somewhat unique in that it has several present tenses. Students often get confused between the simple present — I walk — and the present continuous — I am walking. Enforce this rule with a game of charades. Prepare slips of paper in advance, using well-understood activities that are easy to act out and using vocabulary that your students know.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:. Have the student act out the activity on their given slip. Students can volunteer ideas as to what the student is doing, but they must be correctly formatted in the following way:. Examples of incorrect sentences are ones using an infinitive or partial infinitive Make the bed! English, like many languages, has several different past tenses. The teacher will need to prepare the story in advance.

Draw or find pictures that create a logical or illogical! Place them in a jumbled order on your whiteboard. Students have to arrange the pictures in order to tell a story, but they can only do it by telling you what happened before and after.

The pictures are on the blackboard in the following order. Learn more: Speech Time Fun. This video will get your students up and moving! As each word dance, jumped, wiggle appears on the screen, they identify the tense or conjugate as prompted. After a few watches, they can move along with the music too. The winner keeps the cards, and the play starts over. Get free printable cards to use for this game at the link.

Learn more: Deceptively Educational. This set helps kids learn irregular verbs, regular past tense, and active and passive verbs. Have kids study a picture and tell a story about what they see. Set the story in the past, present, or future. Get a free printable to get you started at the link. Learn more: iSL Collective. Download the free printable at the link.

Learn more: The Curriculum Corner. Helping verbs are part of verb tenses, and this catchy song helps kids learn them. After you sing it, challenge kids to write their own song! Learn more: I Teach For Kids.

Bury verb cards in a plastic bottle filled with colored rice, then have students find verbs and use them in sentences or provide the different tenses. Learn more: Crazy Speech World. Grab this free printable at the link. A chart like this one for English verbs can be very helpful in learning the concept. Learn more: English Grammar Here. Game to practice the names of vegetables in English. Game to practice the means of transportation in English. Game to practice the names of shapes and descriptions in English.

Game to practice the names of school subjects in English. Game to practice numbers vocabulary in English from one to ten. August 15, Game to practice jobs and occupations vocabulary in English. Game to practice places and jobs vocabulary in English. Practice Countries Vocabulary using this Space Game. Previous Next. Connect with us. OK Learn more. Cookie and Privacy Settings.