| LESSON OVERVIEW
In this lesson, students learn the difference between Past Simple and Past Continuous. They also get the chance to practise using the two tenses in a variety of tasks.
PAST SIMPLE AND PAST CONTINUOUS
At the beginning of the lesson students read the definition of the word excuse and think what excuses people often give in different situations (e.g. when they are late). Then, students read six situations and think of an excuse they might give in each of them (e.g. You borrowed a friend’s laptop and broke it.) Next, they look at a list of excuses and match them with the situations they talked about. The excuses contain verbs in Past Simple and Past Continuous forms. After that, students look at some of the excuses again and find the verbs, as well as decide which tense they are. They also work out the rules of using Past Simple and Past Continuous.
PRACTICE
In this part of the lesson students practise using the past tenses. First, they do a controlled activity in which they need to choose the correct verb forms in sentences. Then, they look at four photos of people who might have done something wrong and discuss some questions. For instance, they explain what happened (e.g. someone broke some plates), say whether these situations ever happened to them, and decide if the people should apologize for what happened. Then, students use the four photos to create some excuses for what happened. They need to use Past Simple and Past Continuous, as well as some verbs in brackets. Finally, students play a game in which they get a list of situations (e.g. You promised to cook dinner but you didn’t.). In pairs, they need to create excuses for what happened, and their partner needs to guess what the situation is.
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Really fun, my students love tense revision lessons, happy this was added
Thanks 🙂
Great practice for reviewing past tenses and recycling vocabulary!
That’s really good to hear. Thanks!
What a great lesson! My beginner students loved it and found it extremely useful and clear
Awesome! Thanks for the feedback 🙂
I love it! My students love it! Congrats!
Thank you 🙂 Happy to hear the lesson was a success!
An enjoyable and imaginative lesson for all! Just one little thing, the instructions on slide 10 are not very clear, and it took a while for me and the student to work out what was actually required. Great work Ewa. Highly recommended.
Thanks for the feedback, Pete 🙂 We have redisigned the task a bit to make it clearer.
Thank Ewa. Much better now!
GREAT LESSON! THE STUDENTS LOVE IT!
Fantastic! Thank you 🙂
Lovely lesson. Just a little correction (I think!): slide 16 has “down” from the “walked/walking down the street” example crossed out in the answers – I don’t think it should be as it makes sense with both tenses.
Hi, thanks for spotting that! We’ve fixed it.
This lesson is excellent. The students can practice grammar while discussing a funny topic. I would love similar lesson for the other past tenses.
Thanks for the comment 🙂 We always try to make grammar lessons more than just about grammar. You can browse other (hopefully equally fun) lessons covering past tenses and talking about the past here.