Past simple and past continuous

28th October 2020 E Up 5 U 2, L 2

Warm Up: A kinetic run ‘n’ write exercise. I will say a simple sentence in the present tense; students have to write the past tense. Class can be split into two or three, depending on size, each with a different colour marker.

You act in a play / I ride an elephant / She win a competition / He read a big book / We learn English /

In English, we often talk about what we were doing at some time in the past.

For example:

Last night I was in a café drinking coffee.

We show past tense by

1 a word or words that show the past e.g. Last night, yesterday, this morning

2 the past tense form of the verb e.g. I am = I was / he is = he was

Then we use a continuous verb to say what someone was doing i.e. verb+ing (playing, reading, working)

Last night he was in his room playing guitar.

Yesterday she was at school writing in her book.

Last week they were at a party singing songs.

How did the children feel ? They felt …

Now we can use past simple and past continuous:

When I came to class, the student was sleeping.

When I called my sister, she was studying insects.

When I found my friends, they were looking at the stars.

Now … Your turn

When I found my friends, they were …

To make your English more interesting, we can change the word order:

When I found my friends, they were collecting leaves

They were collecting leaves when I found my friends

NOTICE: no comma in the second sentence

Change the word order:

When I found my friends, they were identifying trees

When I found my friends, they were picking strawberries

When I found my friends, they were finding animal tracks

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