15 Fun Present Perfect Activities

Here are fifteen fun ways to elicit, present and practise the Present Perfect. 1. Do you know your room? Students try to spot what you have changed in the room since last week, while they were having a break or while their eyes were closed. They can then take turns challenging each other. 2. Can […]

Here are fifteen fun ways to elicit, present and practise the Present Perfect.

1. Do you know your room?
Students try to spot what you have changed in the room since last week, while they were having a break or while their eyes were closed. They can then take turns challenging each other.

2. Can you hear your room?
In this variation on Do You Know Your Room, when students have their eyes closed the teacher or a student changes the room or their position in a way you can hear, e.g. cleans the whiteboard. With their eyes still closed, students have to guess what has changed.

3. Have you been following your teacher?
Students are tested on what has happened since the beginning of the class, e.g. “In today’s class, has anyone’s dictionary fallen on the floor? / How many times has the teacher coughed?”

4. The yes I have game
Students ask each other “Have you ever. ” questions. They must answer all questions with “Yes”. Their partner can then ask them 3 “Wh” questions in the Simple Past and try to spot from their answers and body language if they are lying.

5. Yes yes no
In this variation on The Yes I Have Game, students have a pack of cards with “Yes” or “No” written on them, choose either answer to the questions and are asked additional questions to work out if they are lying or not. If their partners spot their lie, they have to take the cards back. The first person with no cards left is the winner.

6. I’m in the world, find me!
Pairs of students plan an around the world trip on a world map. They then choose one of the places on their itinerary for the other team to guess. The other team ask “Have you been to …?” and are answered with “Yes, we have”, “No, not yet” or “No, we aren’t planning to go there” until they guess exactly where they are now.

7. Who’s been a good boy?
Students try to find things that their partner needs to do but hasn’t done yet, e.g. “Have you taken out the rubbish this week?”

8. Only I have
Students stand up and go round the class asking questions to find one thing they have done and no one else in the class has.

9. Have you feelings?
Students complete a sentence “I feel ______ because I have ______________”. They read out half the sentence only and their partner has to guess the rest with questions like “Has your pet died?” or “Do you feel depressed?”

10. I have lied
Students tell their partners two true and one false “I have…” sentence, e.g. “I have ridden an elephant” etc. Students ask them questions (to which they can lie in response about the false one) and try to spot which one is false.

11. Make me say yes, make me say no
Students try to ask as many questions as they can to which their partner’s answer is “Yes, I have”. They can then switch and do the same thing with “No”

12. Present Perfect sentence substitution
Any of the games above can be played with the students just changing one part of the Present Perfect sentence each time, e.g. “Have you taken out the rubbish?”, “Have you sorted out the rubbish?”, “Have you sorted out the white and coloured washing?”, “Have you ironed the white and coloured washing?” etc.

13. Present Perfect sentence expansion
Any of the games above can be played with the same Present Perfect question getting longer and longer as students add language to it, e.g. “Have you ever flown?”, “Have you ever flown in a balloon?”, “Have you ever flown in a balloon in the desert?”

14. I have been this
Students make a true sentence with “I have … this …” and stop before they say the time, e.g. “I have drunk 6 pints of beer this”. Their partners have to guess what the correct time clause is, e.g. “Have you drunk 6 pints of beer this week/ this month?”

15. I have planned
Students tell their partners things they have and haven’t done in order to prepare for a future plan or arrangement, e.g. “I have made a reservation” and “I haven’t bought the ring yet” for “You are going to propose to your girlfriend”. This can be for real plans, made up ones, or ones on roleplay cards.

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Written by Alex Case for Teflnet March 2008
Alex Case is the author of TEFLtastic and the Teaching. Interactive Classroom Activities series of business and exam skills e-books for teachers. He has been a teacher, teacher trainer, director of studies, and editor in Turkey, Thailand, Spain, Greece, Italy, UK, Korea and now Japan. He has published a book with Macmillan and hundreds of articles, reviews, lesson plans and worksheets with Onestopenglish, Modern English Teacher and many others. In addition to contributing articles and teaching ideas to Teflnet, Alex for many years edited Teflnet Book Reviews.
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"Great ideas! Very refreshing! Will work wonders in our advanced class!!" - Michael Patrick

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