Teacher Discussion Forums

As I am new to teaching ESL to Adults I would appreciate some assistance with a lesson plan for teaching Present Continuous.

How long should the lesson plan be?

Thank you.

Yvonne

I am not really sure exactly what you want since "lesson plan" could mean many things.
Be sure to include:
What is PCT and when do we use it.
The spelling rules on how to add _ing to the verb.
The correct use of the "be" verb.
Making statements ie He is walking.
Making yes/no questions ie Is he walking?
How to answer these questions.
Making "wh" questions ie What is he doing? Where is he going? Who is singing?
How to answer these questions
If you divide these topics into the amount of time you have to teach you will have a rough idea of how long you have to teach each one. Leave enough time for review and include paragraph and dialogue reading with questions as well as listening comprehension questions.
I hope this helps and it is what you are looking for.

If you're using pictures or looking out of the window then it's OK to keep the present continuous in the present:

What's he doing? He's walking his dog.

What's going on in this picture? Two people are sitting at a table drinking coffe, one of them is speaking to the waiter and the other one is talking on the mobile.

However, I, and I think most other people, mainly use the present perfect to refer to the future. So you should point this out and practise it a little, too:

What are you doing tonight? Me? Oh, I'm going to the cinema with my friends.

Where are you going on holidays this year? We're going to Wales and are staying at my mother-in-law's house.

I'll be a little late in tomorrow. I'm seeing the doctor at nine.




The problem with most course material is that it starts you off with comparing the present continuous use for present/temporary situations with present simple for routines and permanent situations, which is artificial and silly and leads anyway to an overshot of the usage of the "ing" form by the students; they start using it for anything that isn't "nailed down".

There are very good materials at this site:

http://www.english-4u.com/index.php?mod ... pl=grammar

(home page is http://www.english-4u.com/index.html )

Choose "Grammar Issue" from the menu to the left, and select a topic. There's the topic:
"Grammar Focus present continuous for future
GOING TO
present simple"

with a downloadable lesson plan (for free )

Although I completely agree with Macavity, too many rules and materials cause the opposite, a big confusion! The best thing to do is to expose the students to as much language as possible: songs, jokes, dialogues, stories, listening of all kinds, whatever.. There will come the day when they will produce the structures correctly. Too many rules get them confused... like saying "She is go" or "She going".

Anyway, that site has tons of lesson plans, enjoy!