The present perfect is a tense that many students have problems with. Most course books provide only controlled grammar sentences where students choose the correct tense.
This activity leads students into writing a short story using the past simple, present perfect simple and continuous, but in a more creative way.
Procedure
Tell the students they are going to write a short story.
Get the students to read the following questions and decide, with a partner, what the missing words are, but not answer the questions now.
Monitor well to check they understand the activity. There are no 'correct' answers, they should use their imagination.
What is his / her name?
What is __________ about them? (e.g. strange / unusual / nice...)
What was their --problem last year?
What happened?
Why have they become so __________ ?
How many __________ have they -__________ ?
Who have they been __________ recently?
What have they been __________ for the last five years?