Past Simple vs Past Continuous tenses
B1+ level
Description
Materials
Main Aims
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To provide practice of the past continuous tense and the past simple tense in the context of festivities, celebrations and customs
Subsidiary Aims
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To provide intensive reading practice using a text about a visit to Shakespear`s Globe in London in the context of festivities, celebrations and customs
Procedure (45-61 minutes)
T asks questions - What did you do yesterday? What were you donig yesterday at 6 pm?
T shows two pictures (the first - an eaten out packet of biscuits, the second - a child eating biscuits) with the sentenses below the pictures (He ate the biscuits yesterday; He was eating biscuits yesterday at 6 pm). T asks S to answer the questions. - what forms of the verbs are used in the sentences? (Past) - why the past forms of the verbs are different? (PS and PC) - what helps us to differentiate PS and PC? (6 pm, exact time)
T shows a chart (tense column (PS, PC) - use column (mixed)- example column (mixed). S has to match the tenses PS and PC to their uses and find appropriate examples. PS: - past habits (She called her parents every Sunday when she lived abroad). - past actions which happened one immediately after the other (He bought a hat, put it on and joined the parade). - past actions which won`t happen again (She participated in the 2018 London Marathon). PC: - an action which was in progress at a stated time in the past (Sam was watching a fireworks display at 10.00 pm). - a past action which was in progress when another action interrupted it (They were marching in the parade when it started to rain). - two or more actions which were happening at the same time in the past (While Sarah was preparing a special meal, her brother was decorating their house). - to give background information in a story (It was time for the Spring Festival. The sun was shining and people were dancing in the street).
T gives exercises to S to drill the rule. ex 1 p 13 GB (S chooses the correct verb form and gives reasons) ex 2 p 13 GB (S puts the verbs in brackets into the PS or the PC) ex 3 p 13 GB (S forms questions (using the verbs in brackets) in PS or PC and answers them)
S reads the blog entry about a visit to Shakespeare`s Globe in London intensively, finds PS and PC verb forms, underlines them and chooses the reason of their use from the list.
S reads the blog entry about a visit to Shakespeare`s Globe in London intensively to find examples of time expressions used with PS and PC in the blog entry.
T asks questions on the content of the blog entry about a visit to Shakespeare`s Globe in London .
T helps S make a plan on the blog entry about a visit to Shakespeare`s Globe in London , S retells the text. T writes down mistakes while S is speaking. T gives S his list of mistakes. S corrects the mistakes.
T explains the homework - write a blog entry about personal past experience of visiting an entertaining establishment, use the blog entry about a visit to Shakespeare`s Globe in London as an example.