Instructors Page

Present Perfect (Let students know they can replace the

Progressive
City Life
Activity type: Conversation Cards
Level: Low-Intermediate
Purpose: Students practice asking and
answering questions about life in your
community using the present perfect
progressive.
Set-up: Whole class
Time: 5 minutes to prepare / 25 minutes
to do the activity
Materials Preparation:
1. Use scissors to cut out the cards on
the Students Page.
2. If your class has more than 16
students, make a copy of the Students
Page and cut out as many extra cards
as needed (duplicate cards are OK).
word city with town in their question if
needed.)
5. Tell students that after they ask the
question on their card and respond to
the question on their classmates card,
they must trade cards. Then they should
find another classmate and ask their
new question. Ask students to repeat
this process until you call time (allow
about 1520 minutes).
Follow-up
Choose some questions from the
Students Page to ask the whole class.
Allow time for different answers,
discussion, and debate. Encourage the
students to ask their classmates
questions to find out more information
about each item.

Procedure
1. As a warm-up, ask students a few
questions about ongoing problems in
your city or town. Use the present
perfect progressive. For example, Have
housing costs been going up? / Has the
price of gas been increasing?
Encourage students to use the present
perfect progressive in their responses.
2. Tell students that they will use the
present perfect progressive to ask each
other questions about life in your city or
town.
3. Pass out one card to each student.
You may copy step 2 and step 3 from
the Students Page onto the board for
students to refer to.
4. To model the activity, ask a volunteer
to read his or her question to the class.
Encourage a few students to share their
answers. Model an answer if necessary.

Grammar and Beyond Communicative Activities Cambridge University Press 2012 Photocopiable
 Students Page

Present Perfect Progressive | Conversation Cards

City Life

1 Cut out the cards and pass them out. Everyone gets one card.
2 Find a classmate. Ask your question. Your classmate answers. Exchange cards.
3 Find another classmate. Ask your new question. Your classmate answers. Exchange
cards again. Continue until your teacher calls time.

Has the population What major

Have you been Has our city been
of our city been problems has our
living in this city for adding new parks
growing or getting city been
more than 3 years? and green spaces?
smaller? experiencing lately?

Have you been Have you been

Who has been Have businesses
eating at new having trouble
migrating into our been closing in our
restaurants in our finding inexpensive
city? city?
city recently? groceries?

Have you been What has been Have more people

Has the city traffic thinking about changing in your been using public
been getting worse? moving out of the neighborhood this transportation in our
city? year? city?

Have people been

Have the schools in Has our city been What changes have
moving away from
our city been getting safer or you been noticing in
the city to live in the
improving? more dangerous? our city?
suburbs?

Grammar and Beyond Communicative Activities Cambridge University Press 2012 Photocopiable