What's On! Unit One
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 What's On!  Unit One
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Writing for this Unit:

· Filling in Forms: writing personal information
· Personal, informal letter to a pen friend, Headway Workbook, Unit One
· Share Your Paragraph: Unit one: Writing About Yourself.

Writing Tip: When do we use Capital Letters in our paragraphs?


Grammar for this Unit:

Question Words:

Click on question words to find more information on questions in Past and Present tenses, or look in your Headway books on page 120,

Present Continuous:    (subject + am/is/are + verb + ing)

USE ONE:

We use this tense to show that something is happening NOW, at the moment of speaking.

For example: "Mariam is using the Internet to learn English." (at this moment)

Look in the boxes for more examples:

"The man is digging."

(at this moment)



"The arrow is turning."

(at this moment)

 



"The numbers are moving"

(at this moment)

USE TWO:

We can also use this tense to show that something is happening around now but NOT at this moment.

For example: Imagine Moza's friend calls her on a Thursday night. She asks Moza about her life. She asks what new things are in her life.

Moza says: "I am studying CIP in semester 3 at ADWC."  So this is happening around now, but not at this moment.  She started studying in the past, it is still true around now. She is not finished with semester three yet.

USE THREE:

We also use the present continuous to show a PLAN for the future.

For example: "I am meeting my teacher at 12:25 on Wednesday."


NOTE:

There are some verbs that we cannot use in the present continuous tense.
These are called "stative verbs".

For example: We cannot say "I am loving my father".  We use the present simple: "I love my father."

Why?  Because it is always true.  Things that are always true use the present simple.

Which of these two sentences is correct?        "I am loving ice cream." Or   "I love ice cream".

The second sentence is correct. You love it now, you did in the past and will in the future. Will you wake up one morning and decide that you don't love ice cream anymore?    Probably not.

The first sentence means that you love ice cream NOW, but maybe you will not love it tomorrow!

Click on the blue words for more information on the Present Continuous tense, or look in your Headway books on page 120.   Click on the blue words to see a list of   stative verbs.

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