Section Ill Awareness activities III.1 Times of day GRAMMAR: Present continuous to express habitual action LEVEL: Intermediate TIME: 30 minutes MATERIALS: One time grid per four students One die per four students In class 1 Give every four students a time grid and a die. Explain that the numbers on the grid are times, starting at the bottom lefthand corner with 6.00 am. Ask each student to find a coin to represent him or herself and to place it on the time he or she gets up on a normal working day. Ask the first player in each foursome to roll the die and move forward the number of squares shown on the die. He or she should then tell the others what he or she is usually doing at this time. Insist that che student starts with the time, eg. ‘At 7.15 1am usually having a shower.” If the action mentioned is very vague like ‘I am starting work’, the other students in the foursome should question the speaker. Then the next student in the foursome rolls the die, etc. 3. Once most people have reached the time when they have got to work and started work it is best to ask the whole class to move their coins forward to around half an hour before they finish work in the afternoon or evening. The periods of transition seem to be the most interesting ones in this game. An incidental aim of the game is to reach Finish. If you are teaching secondary school students ask them to do the whole game not about themselves but about a member of their family who works. Grammar note Many teachers associate the present simple with habitual action. When the above game has been tested with native speakers of English they have always 97Awareness activities used the present continuous. This is because (a) a time is mentioned, and (b) the speaker is visualising and describing a scene. Acknowledgement A similar exercise, focusing on the years in a person’ life, comes in Grammar in action, C. Frank and M, Rinvolucri (Pergamon, 1983). 98Times of day Time grid (You will need 1 per four students.) © Cambridge University Press 1984 99