What are the present progressive and past progressive forms of verbs?

Progressive forms of verbs (sometimes referred to as ‘continuous’ forms) are used to indicate continuation of an action or state of being.

The present progressive shows that the action or state of being is continuing at the present time, e.g. He is running; she is getting stronger.

The past progressive shows that the action or state of being was continuing at the time being referred to, e.g. He was crossing the bridge; she was feeling sad.

Progressive forms are constructed by using a form of the verb ‘be’ + the present participle of a verb, which ends in –ing. 

The present progressive is detailed below, giving some examples of use with proper nouns (names), common nouns (the robot/the children) and pronouns:

• I am writing
• Jack/he is writing
• Amy/she is writing
• The robot/it is writing
• You are writing
• We are writing
• The children/they are writing

You can see that the form of the verb ‘be’ is different for ‘I’ (am), ‘he/she/it’ (is) and ‘you/we/they’ (are) so, when using the present progressive, children need to choose the correct form of ‘be’ to match the person or pronoun.

The past progressive is formed using the past tense of the verb ‘be’:

• I was writing
• Jack/he was writing
• Amy/she was writing
• The robot/it was writing
• You were writing
• We were writing
• The children/they were writing

With this form of the progressive, only ‘was’ and ‘were’ are used.

If we just write the present participle (-ing verb) in a sentence, we cannot tell whether the action is in the past or the present and the sense will not be complete, so it is the verb ‘be’ (am/is/are/was/were) that indicates whether we are writing in the past or present.

The dragon flying.  (doesn’t make full sense; we cannot say present or past tense)

The dragon is flying. (present tense) 

The dragon was flying. (past tense)

To use Standard English, children need to match the correct form of ‘be’ to the pronoun, so it is important to know when to use am, is, are, was, were.  The ‘Happy Families’ game (link below) helps children get used to the different forms of ‘be’ and how they should be used to make the present and past progressive.  The verbs are all used in the context of a sentence.  

Happy Families: present and past progressive card game

What is a verb/verb phrase?

Sentences in English are all about the verb: they are the ‘workhorse’ words of the sentence and tell us not only what is happening, but provide important information about when it happened and what sort of sentence type is being used.  They are so important that, to be called a sentence in English, a verb must be present.

Verbs fill the verb slot in a sentence, which usually follows the subject (although sometimes we change the word order in a sentence to create different effects).

Although in the majority of verbs describe an action, we must be careful not to use 'doing word’ with children to describe the verb, because it could also be a 'being' or 'having' word.  Let’s look at some sentences to consider these differences:

• The dog ran in the park.
• The boy jumps in the puddle.
• Mum drove to the shops.

The verbs in the above sentences all involve some sort of action and, in children’s minds, these are words which describe something being ‘done’.  They will often refer to these verbs as ‘doing’ words.  ‘Doing verbs’ is a better term.

• The princess was happy.
• Dad is in the garden.
• She seems cheerful.
• I feel hungry.

If children are used to using the term ‘doing word’ and you ask them where the verbs are in the sentences above, they will struggle.  They do not see forms of the verb ‘be’ (e.g. am, is, are, was, were) and other verbs such as ‘seem’ or ‘feel’ as an action, or something that is ‘done’.  They will often say that the verb is ‘happy’ or ‘hungry’.

• I have a headache.
• She owns a pony.

These verbs are also difficult to see as ‘doing’ words.  A better term is ‘having verbs’.

So, when starting to talk about verbs with children, it’s better to use the terminology ‘doing verb’ (e.g. jump, run, cook, drive), ‘being verb’ (e.g. am, is, are, was, were, seem, feel) or ‘having verb’ (e.g. has, have, had, own). 

Verbs are used in many different forms and tenses, some of which are listed below against a sentence exemplifying their use.  Children will learn the terminology for these forms at different points in their primary education, but they will already be using many of these in their everyday speech and writing. 

• The dog runs in the park.   (Present simple)
• The dog ran in the park.   (Past simple)
• The dog is running in the park.   (Present progressive)
• The dog was running in the park.   (Past progressive)
• The dog has run in the park.   (Present perfect)
• The dog had run in the park.   (Past perfect)
• Run in the park!   (Imperative form of the verb used in commands)

You will notice that some of these verbs consist of one word and some have two words. When a verb uses more than one word, we can call it a verb phrase.  The words are working together to fill the verb slot in the sentence.