Today we had Ye and B. So I changed the plan. It was a chance to review some basics. A couple of situations came up. Ye phoned G – how to say G did not answer? A question came up with “What do you do”. So I started with those. We eventually went on to the To Be exercises on the computer.
Grammar
The phone:
“She is not answering the phone” when you are calling and waiting for an answer. This is Present Continuous.
“She did not answer the phone.” After the call, after you hang up. This is Simple Past.
“What do you do?”
When someone asks you, “What do you do?” They usually mean – what to you do for a job, your work.
“I teach.” “I clean houses.” Use the Simple Present form meaning “in general”.
“What do you do?” Vs. “What are you doing?”
- “What do you do?” Is usually about your work. “I teach.” It is Simple Present, in general.
- “What are you doing?” This means right now, the present. While you are talking. This is Present Continuous (-ing).
A friend may call you and ask, “What are you doing?” You answer, “I am watching TV.” “I am cooking.”
There can be more words added to “What do you do…?” to be specific:
- “What do you do for fun?” You answer about something that you like to do, “I like to walk in the park.”
- “What do you do on Wednesdays?” Notice that is WednesdayS. More than one. This mean what do you do every Wednesday. “I go to class.” Simple Present Again, something you do in general, regularly – not just one special time.
- To Be
- To Want – to desire something (Went is the Past Tense of To Go)
- Regular with verbs means normal, predictable: they all work the same.
- Regular Verbs add -ed in the Simple Past Tense.
- Irregular Verbs are not normal, not predictable: they change to different words in Simple Past.
Computer Lab
- We started the Simple Present and Simple Past of To Be, plus negative – “not”.
- There are 10 pages to do. It starts simple and gets more difficult with each page.
- We got through Exercise 5. B stayed after class and kept working. I don’t know how far she finished.
Filed under: Class status, Lecture Tagged: Simple past, Simple Present, to Be, to Want
Source:: ESL Class Notes