A simple activity to practice or review present continuous utilizes students' imaginations and acting skills. In this activity, each student takes a turn to act out some sort of everyday action, using a prop. Since materials were limited, notably due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I instructed students to use either their pencils or a sheet of paper. So then, each student must invent some action that they could act out using one of two of these "props." For example, a pencil can be used like a microphone to act out singing, and a piece of paper can be folded like a hotdog and used to act out eating.
As each student takes his or her turn, the rest of the students must observe and raise their hands to try to name the action using present continuous. For example, if the student doing the action is pretending to sing, then the student who raises his or her hand and is called upon by the teacher should say, "He/She is singing." If the student incorrectly guesses the action using present continuous, another student may try. Furthermore, the teacher may provide guidance to help students successfully guess the action. Finally, the student doing the acting will tell the guesser whether his or her acting was correctly interpreted.
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