How should we translate verbs ending in -ing into French?

Unlike in English, French only has one form of the present tense. This means that, no matter how tempting it may be, both 'I do my homework' and 'I am doing my homework' should be translated in exactly the same way: 'je fais mes devoirs'. If you want to emphasize that you are currently in the process of doing something, it is possible to use 'être en train de + infinitive', for example, 'je suis en train de faire mes devoirs', but this should be used rarely because it doesn't sound overly natural in most situations. A simple present tense in French will get across that sense that something is in progress just fine. If your sentence is in the past tense, the imperfect should be used, as it is used to describe actions that took place over a long period of time, habitual actions, and actions in the past which were not completed or interrupted. For example, 'I was doing my homework' becomes 'je faisais mes devoirs'.
There is a direct equivalent to the -ing form or gerund in French, the -ant form. However, it is only used in a very small number of situations. It is used with the preposition 'en', usually meaning 'while'. So, 'I eat a sandwich while doing my homework, ' becomes 'je mange un sandwich en faisant mes devoirs'. The French gerund is created by taking the first person plural (nous) form of a verb, removing the ending, and adding -ant, for example, nous mangeons --> en mangeant; nous jouons --> en jouant.