Past Continuous
a2 level
Description
Materials
Main Aims
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To provide practice of Past Continuous tense in the context of everyday activities
Subsidiary Aims
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To provide clarification of Past Continuous tense in the context of everyday activities
Procedure (40-60 minutes)
Small talk in the begining of the lesson via "weather" questions: e.g.what is the weather today? was it slippery on your way to school? what are you going to do during you walk between lessons? etc
Teacher: You know, on Thursday the weather was also very good. Your class teacher and I went to lake Baikal. Do you want to look at some of our photos? Students: yeeees!!! Teacher: I have a small task for your before this. Could you tell me what grammar tenses you've already known? Students: Present Continuous, Present Simple, Past Simple Teacher: ok, you've completed my task. Here are our photos and a small story.
I show children a presentation about my trip to lake Baikal with one of their teachers. All sentences are in past continuous. During the presentation children discribe pictures one by one in Past Simple and I show them the same sentences, but in past continuous. The aim is here that children start using past continuous to the end of the presentation.
Then in the presentation there is a list of all sentences that were used. Student's task is to alanyze them and tell me what links all the sentences.
We make the rule of using Past Continuous. Students help me and put the theory down. I give them the opportunity to make their own sentences.
There are task where students should put words in order to make a sentence in past continuous and put "was" and "were" according to the subject. Pair checking, duscussing problematic places.
Every student pulls out a piece of paper when the begining of a sentence. The task is to continue.
The work in pairs. A pair chooses a day what they are going to talk about. They share their activities using Past Continuous. The task is to find the same activities through a conversation (at least 3). Then students present what they have found.
CCQ questions about Past Continuous: Past Continuous is for short action? (No) for long one Do we use a verb in the 2nd from? (No) Do we use a verb with ing ending? (Yes) Should we use am, is, are? (No) Should we use was and were? (yes) Can I use was for you? (No) Can I use were for he? (no)