present continuous
What is happening right now — the easiest tense to demonstrate, because you can act every sentence out.
From age 5Building sentences →
✏️ The pattern
- Saying it
- I am running
- Saying no
- I am not running
- Asking
- Are you running?
- Short answer
- Yes, I am. / No, I'm not.
🗣️ Sentences a child can say
Tap any sentence to hear it. Every one uses words from a topic pack you already have.
🩹 What you will actually hear
The three mistakes that come up in every class, and what is behind each one.
I running.I am running.
The -ing cannot stand alone. Am, is or are has to be there, even when it is squeezed to I'm.
She is run.She is running.
Both halves are needed: the helper and the -ing. Losing either breaks it.
I am liking pizza.I like pizza.
Feelings and thoughts stay simple. Like, want, know and love do not take -ing.
🎯 How to teach it
- 1
Act first, speak second. Mime it, let them guess, then give the sentence — never the other way round.
- 2
"What are you doing?" is worth more than the tense itself. Give it as a fixed question from day one.
- 3
Freeze-and-say: music plays, children move, music stops, everyone says what they were doing.
- 4
Photographs work better than drawings here. A real frozen moment is exactly what this tense describes.
🗂️ Topic packs that pair with this
Same structure, words your class already knows — no new vocabulary needed.
💬 Questions teachers ask
Do I need to teach the spelling changes (run → running)?
Not as a rule for young learners. Give the ten verbs they actually use as whole written words and let the pattern be noticed. Rules about doubling consonants belong to a later, more literate stage.
My pupils drop the am/is/are. How do I fix it?
Say the sentence with a clap on the helper. Making it audible as a beat does more than telling them it is missing — the word is unstressed in natural speech, which is exactly why it vanishes.