The Present Simple of “be” is unique in both having a different form for “I” and in not taking “do/ does” in questions, making it difficult to teach at the same time as more regular forms like “What do you do?” and “My brother works in a petrol station”. It is therefore often worth a lesson or two of class time on its own. This article gives advice on presentation and practice, including Present Simple of “be” games.
What students need to know about the Present Simple of “be”
The first thing that students need to know when you present this grammar point is the pattern “I am/ You are/ He is/ She is/ It is/ We are/ They are” (or possibly a reduced version of that, leaving “We are” and “They are” until later). They will also need some practice of forms that have the same meaning/ form such as “John is”, “This is”, “These are” and “John and Mary are”.
That will need to be closely followed by the contractions and negative forms:
- I’m/ I’m not
- You’re/ You aren’t
- He’s/ He isn’t/ He’s not
- She’s/ She isn’t/ She’s not
- It’s/ It isn’t/ It’s not
- We’re/ We aren’t
- They’re/ They aren’t
With the ones that have two contractions, it’s best to stick to one of them and make sure you avoid the other (but allow it if students use it). “Isn’t” is probably the best choice, as it’s used in short answers like “No, it isn’t”.
It can be useful to point out homophones of some of these contractions, both to help students who are trying to pronounce them like two words and to save confusion with the homophones during listening. These can depend on your accent, but for me include:
- You’re/ Your
- aren’t/ aunt
- They’re/ There/ Their
Rhyming can also help, as in:
- I’m/ dime
- He’s/ She’s/ peas
- It’s/ kits
- We’re/ beer
For students who think contractions aren’t important, you could point out the strong meaning of “He IS my brother” (often used to contradict someone), against the everyday meaning of “He’s my brother”.
While practising the different positive and negative forms, they’ll also need to get used to using things that often come after “be” such as adjectives, singular nouns with “a/an” and plural nouns, as in “He’s handsome”, “I’m a teacher” and “They are fire ants”.
At the same time as making statements, students will need to get accustomed to asking and answering questions with “be” like “Are you a student?”, “Is your brother tall?” and “What’s your name?”, including pronouncing and maybe writing contractions like “What’s”. You might want to start with yes/ no questions like “Are you hungry?”, in which case students will also need practice of the short answers “Yes, I am”, “No, he isn’t”, etc.
Later on, students will also need to be able to use the same verbs in “There is/ are…” and Present Continuous, so a specific lesson or two on Present Simple of “be” is useful preparation for their future studies. Those points will also provide extra useful practice of “be” when you cover them, meaning you don’t have to worry too much about them perfecting everything when you first present this grammar.
Typical student problems with the Present Simple of “be”
Typical issues with the present of “be” include:
- Mixing up different forms (“We is” X, etc, though these are also common in English dialects, suggesting that they have little chance of them confusing the listener)
- Mixing up “He’s” and “She’s”
- Overusing the uncontracted forms “I am”, “You are not”, etc (with the possibility of sounding overemphatic)
- Not recognising and/ or not being able to produce contractions, especially the non-rhotic pronunciation of “aren’t”
- Not being able to distinguish between contractions and similar forms while listening (mixing up “They’re” and “There”, “we’re” and “where”, etc)
- Answer yes/ no questions with “be” like “Are you okay?” with “Yes, I do”/ “No, I don’t”
- Using contractions in positive short answers (“Yes, we’re”, etc)
- Getting confused about which question words are followed by contractions in speaking and writing (not spotting that it’s “What’s…?” and maybe “How’re…?”, but not “Which’s…?” X, etc)
How to present the Present Simple of “be”
You can prepare students for a presentation of the verb “be” by using related questions like “What’s your name?”, “How old are you?” and “Where are you from?” from the first lesson, particularly in young learner situations where such direct personal questions are also normal in real life.
“Be” also comes up in typical classroom language such as presenting the vocabulary on flashcards with “What’s this?” “It’s a…” It would be better for this grammar point to use “What is it?” “It’s a…”, but that question sounds a little unnatural to me. If you quickly move onto “What are these?” “They are…” and students have already done personal questions like “How old are you?”, then they have naturally covered almost every form of “I am/ You are/ He is/…” before you actually present it. The exception is usually “We are…”, which is difficult to link to naturally and so I usually just leave until we drill all the forms of “be” in a whole lesson on the topic.
Perhaps the best way of making the meaning of “We are…” clear when you present it is to mime drawing a big circle around the class with one hand to show that the word can be used to include everyone. Mimes can also be used when drilling the whole set, e.g. pointing at yourself for “I am…”, to individual students for “You are…”, at an imaginary boy drawn on the board for “He is…”, at a girl (but not someone in the class) for “She is”, at a classroom object or a drawing of a robot for “It is…”, making a circle around the class for “We are”, and pointing at both the boy and girl for “They are…”
If you want to present most or all of the forms with a text, perhaps the best one would be someone introducing themselves and their husband/ wife, then comparing themselves with another couple such as their parents, their sister and brother-in-law, or the couple living next door. This will naturally have a mix of “He is…” and “John is…”, which is very useful even if you choose not to present those trickier parts yet.
Other topics which are good for presenting and practising the Present Simple tense of “be” include:
- appearance/ body (“He’s tall”, etc, although it can be difficult to avoid “He has blue eyes”)
- character/ personality (“He’s very intelligent”)
- family members (“This is my mother”)
- feelings now (“Are you hungry?”)
- jobs (“They are fire fighters”)
- nationality (“Are you both German?”)
- other people who you know (“This is my boss”)
- places now (“I’m in New York on holiday”)
- skills (“I am good at DIY”)
How to practise the Present Simple of “be”
Present Simple of “be” drilling games
The mimes described above can also be used to elicit subject and verb while students drill “I am. You are” etc. This can be made more fun by:
- throwing a ball back and forth (either “I am (throw) You are (throw)” etc, or “I” (throw) “am” (throw) etc)
- bouncing a ball as they drill them alone or within their team (like a one-sided volleyball match)
- stacking blocks
Present Simple of “be” stations/ simplest responses game
Another very controlled game is for students to listen to questions, statements, etc, and indicate which Present Simple form of “be” (“am”, “are” or “is”) they hear or think should be in the gap. Young learners can run and touch three places in the classroom (e.g. the whiteboard for “am”, the back of the room for “is”, and one of the sides of the room for “am”) in a game known as Stations. For a less manic class, both children and adults can raise cards saying “are” and “is”, keeping both hands down if the answer is really “am” (with “we’re”, “you’re”, “they’re” and “aren’t” counting as “are”, etc).
Personal questions with “be” activities
A ball, blocks, etc can also be used as students ask each other personal questions with “be” like “What is your father’s name?” and “What colour are your school shoes?” This can be made into more of a challenge by asking students to not repeat previous questions.
Good and taboo questions with “be”
The problem with the simplest questions with “be” like “How old are you?” is that they are mostly taboo in real life. However, this can be made into an advantage by giving students a mix of good questions like “How are you?” and bad questions like “Are you fat?”/ “How heavy are you?”/ “What is your weight?”, and asking them to only ask the good questions.
Yes/ no questions with “be” games
Make me say yes with “be”
Students get one point each time that they can make their partner say “Yes, I am”, “Yes, he is” etc to questions about real people like “Is your mother blond?” They can then switch groups and play the easier and more fun version of trying to get “No” answers with questions like “Are you a billionaire?” You can make sure that they use more of a range of language by giving them words to use in their questions like “we”, “is”, “tall”, “your grandparents” and “a housewife”.
Short answers with “be” answer me
This is similar to the game above, but with cards with “Yes, it is”, “No, we aren’t” etc written on them that students can discard if they get those answers from their partner(s). The first person to get rid of all their cards wins.
Yes/ no questions with “be” coin game
Students flip a coin and try to get a “Yes” answer if heads are up or try to get a “No” answer if tails are up.
“am”, “is” and “are” sentence completion games
Give students parts of typical sentences with the Present Simple of “be” like “My mother isn’t…”, “…an office worker”, “… American” and “My grandparents…” There are a few different possible activities, including:
- filling the sentences with true and false information for a bluffing game
- filling most of the sentences with true information, reading out just the part that was added, then seeing if the other person can guess which sentence that info went into
Present Simple of “be” guessing games
One student thinks of someone such as their neighbour and gives hints like “He is at home now” and “He is old” until their partners guess “He is your neighbour” or “Is he your neighbour?” As it’s quite difficult to think of suitable people and hints with just this verb, students will need a worksheet listing things they can use like “A classmate” and “He/ She is young” and “(S)he is near here”.