Present Perfect v Present Perfect Continuous

Read an extensive course syllabus that explains what each activity is, how to complete it and how it will help you improve your use and understanding of the present perfect and present perfect continuous tenses.

We set out the key objectives for this course so you can identify what you need to learn. We provide a downloadable checklist that you can print out to check off the points as you go through the course.

A presentation that explains what tenses are, why we need them and how the tense system works in English. As well as a presentation, you can test yourself using our interactive question and answer flashcards.

Before starting the grammar section of this course, we provide you with all the correct materials. This includes the slides used in our grammar presentations with notes lines and an interactive worksheet, which you can answer whilst watching the videos. We provide the correct answers to this interactive worksheet too and point you to our grammar forum, where you can ask any questions about the correct grammar of the present perfect and present perfect continuous tenses.

This video compares the use of the present perfect and present perfect continuous tenses. We provide in-depth explanations alongside numerous example sentences on a timeline so you can visualise the use of each tense.

This video compares the affirmative form of the present perfect and present perfect continuous tenses. You can also download a comparison chart in PDF format.

This video compares the negative form of the present perfect and present perfect continuous tenses. You can also download a comparison chart in PDF format.

This video compares the question forms of the present perfect and present perfect continuous tenses. You can also download a comparison chart in PDF format.

Luckily, the short response forms for the present perfect and present perfect continuous tenses are exactly the same. We explain what these short responses are and why they're needed in English.

Keywords are important words that work very well in one particular tense. This video summarises the keywords for both the present perfect and present perfect continuous tenses and explains how they're each used.

With teaching experience, we have identified the top mistakes made when trying to use the present perfect and present perfect continuous tenses. We present them in this video and explain how you can avoid making these mistakes yourself.

Conversation is normally the reason why we learn grammar. We provide a list of the most typical conversation questions in the present perfect and present perfect continuous tenses and you have access to our conversation forum where you can write answers to these questions. We also provide you with access to our private Flipgrid community where you can upload videos of yourself answering these questions and listen to other learners' answers.

Practise your use of keywords in the present perfect and present perfect continuous. You’ll also get to practise forming sentences in both of these tenses in a way that applies to you and your life, so you’ll be practising relevant vocabulary and phrases.

Error correction is an activity where you identify a mistake and correct it, explaining why you are correcting it in that way. You can easily download our worksheet with various error correction sentences and see the correct answers too. 

Use our flashcards to help you construct sentences in the present perfect and present perfect continuous tenses. This activity requires you to use your grammar understanding as well as vocabulary skills to think quickly and say things correctly in both tenses. 

Using our activity forum, read a list of facts about a celebrity and try to guess which celebrity it is. You can then do the same by writing some key facts about a celebrity whilst the other course participants must guess who it is. Of course, you’ll be using the present perfect and present perfect continuous when creating your sentences.

This review page summarises everything you learnt in this course in three pages, including the form, use, structure, keywords and pronunciation rules of both tenses and a comparison.

This page summarises everything you have learnt in our course, so you can review your achievements.

We always appreciate any feedback from our learners. Here you have the chance to fill in an optional questionnaire telling us what you liked and didn't like so we can keep on improving for our future learners.