[Angelynn]

I had a very successful game I played in my class last week.

On separate pieces of paper write little phrases like "eat raw fish", "travel to Europe", "run 5 miles", "teach a class", "listen to American radio", etc.
All the phrases should be using the verb in the present tense. Before you play a game, review the past participle of all the verbs you used. Say "eat" and have the class shout out what they think..."eaten", "travelled", "ran", "taught", "listened", etc. If they are a higher level, give them irregular verbs that are more difficult "ride"/ "ridden", "write"/"written", etc.
The class sits in a circle (in chairs) and one person is in the middle without a chair. They have to pick a card and chose a person to ask the question (present perfect) to. If the card reads "eat raw fish" they have to ask "Have you ever eaten raw fish?"
If the person they are asking says "Yes, I have", everyone has to stand up and switch places. The person who asked will take the opportunity to steal a seat.
If the person says "No, I haven't", only the people on their immediate right and left have to switch places without the questioner taking a seat.

The students LOVE this game. The goal is to not be a questioner. But it is fun to see them using the present perfect while having a good time!

[mteach]

An exercise that almost always clarifies the difference between past simple and present perfect is a simple sentence matching activity. Choose 2 famous actors, authors, and artists that are well known by your students. One person in each category must be alive, and one deceased. For example: actresses - Marilyn Monroe and Julia Roberts. Write a sentence that can be applied to both of them, but obviously with different tenses. I use:

"She was one of the world's most famous actresses for many years."
"She has been one of the world's most famous actresses for many years."

The students usually have no problem matching up the sentences to the correct category, but when they have to pick the difference between Marilyn's sentence and Julia's sentence, they struggle. This is a great opportunity to point out the completed action (Marilyn is dead and can no longer act) and the continued action (Julia is alive and still a famous actress - she was 10 years ago and continues to be today). This is simple to set up and very clear to the students. They always get it.