TITC

Past simple vs Past continuous

Exercises

A Choose the correct form of the verb and complete the sentences.
(Past simple or past continuous.)

1. I phoned you last night at 9pm, but you didn’t answer.

What ______________ (you do)?

2. I ______________ (listen) to music and I ______________ (not hear)

the phone ring. Sorry!

3. As I ______________ (walk) down the road I ______________ (see) Ben.

4. He ______________ (break) his leg while he ______________ (play) football.

5. When my wife ______________ (come) in,

everybody in the pub ______________ (stop) talking.

6. What ______________ (you do) before the power went off?

7. What ______________ (you do) on Saturday evening? I went to the cinema.

8. They ______________ (sit) in the garden, when it ______________ (start) to

rain, so they______________ (go) into the house.

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B Complete the text with the verbs in the box.
Put them into the correct tense - past simple or past continuous.

decide meet discover be travel

study go reach work have
live start fall talk

The most romantic story I know is the way my parents ______________ . They

______________ from London to Glasgow by train. It was a long journey, and

after a while they ______________ talking. They ______________ that they

______________ a lot in common – both of them came from Glasgow, but they

both ______________ in London and both ______________ home to see their

families for Christmas. But the biggest coincidence was that both of them

______________ to be journalists on big London newspapers. Mum

______________ for the Times and Dad for the Guardian.

I don’t know exactly what else they ______________ about, but they obviously

got on well and somehow during the journey they ______________ in love and

______________ to get married. By the time they ______________ Glasgow

they ______________ engaged to be married!

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Past simple vs Past continuous
In this lesson you want to focus on the different uses for the past simple and past continuous to
enable students to choose the correct tense.
They will be familiar with the structure of each tense and their general uses, but may not be so
familiar with using them together.

ENGAGE
Ask students questions about what they were doing at a particular time in the recent past, and
ask them to also tell you about some things that followed. A suitable question could be:

What were you doing at 7 o’clock yesterday evening? (Answer…)

And after that? (Answer…)

With each question, get students to ask each other so you are not doing all the talking.

Select a couple of correct responses given by students and write these on the board.

STUDY
Using the examples on the board, elicit that the first sentence is in past continuous and tells you
that the activity was in progress at a particular time. It tells you there was activity before the
particular time but you cannot be sure that it continued after (maybe the next activity stopped it).
Use a time-line to demonstrate this putting a question mark for duration before and a question
mark for action and duration after.
Now look at the second sentence in past simple and elicit that this gives you no information
about activity being in progress, it only expresses the past action as a simple fact and that it was
completed. If a time is given, it will tell you when the action started or finished.
Show this graphically on the time-line, and leave both sentences on the board.

Given this information, ask students if they can think how the tenses can be used together and
elicit:
(1) Past continuous refers to activity before, and at, a given time and past simple refers to
what happened after. It can be used to list things that happened before, but it would be
unusual.
(2) If the past continuous clause refers to a long ‘background’ activity, then past simple can
be used to refer to shorter actions that were completed in the middle of the longer
one.(While I was watching television last night, I ate some crisps and drank some beer).
Past simple ‘I watched TV’ doesn’t enable you to do this.

A Choose the correct form of the verb and complete the sentences.
B Complete the text with the verbs in the box.
Feedback and discussion following both exercises

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ACTIVATE
WHEN DID WE MEET?

Put students in groups of 4 (3 will still work). Each student has a diary describing a day they
spent while on holiday. Tell the students that the four of them met each of the others during the
course of the day and they need to ask and answer questions to find out when and what they
were doing using past simple or past continuous.

What time did you get up?

What were you doing at 9 o’clock?
When did you arrive at the castle?
Etc…

For feedback, each student states where he or she met the others and what they were doing at
the time.

Activity roleplay cards on pages 5 and 6.

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Materials (1)

Student A:

Staying at the Good View Hotel

Get up 9.00
Breakfast in hotel 9.00-9.30
Visit museum 9.30- 11.30
Swim in sea 11.30- 13.30
Back to hotel 13.30-16.00
Lunch, rest at hotel 13.30-16.00
Tea at hotel 16.00-16.30
Walk, Castle Beach 16.30-18.30
Back to hotel 18.30
Shower and change 18.30-19.30
Dinner at hotel 19.30-21.00
Party at hotel 21.00-23.30
Bed 23.30

Student B:

Staying in a tent at the Castle Beach

Campsite
Get up 7.00
Swim in sea 7.00-8.00
Back to camp 8.00
Breakfast 8.00-9.00
Walk to zoo 9.00-13.00
Reach zoo 13.00
Picnic by river 13.00-14.00
Fishing in river 14.00-17.00
Tea at zoo café 17.00
Take bus to Castle beach 17.00-18.00
Walk to camp from beach 18.00-19.00
Dinner at camp 19.00-20.30
Sing songs at camp 20.30-22.00
Bed 22.00


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ACTIVATE
Materials (2)


Student C:

Lives in town
Get up 7.30
Breakfast at home 8.00-8.30
Drive to north coast 8.30-11.00
Work in the area 11.00-14.00
Eat sandwiches in car 14.00
Continue work 14.00-16.00
Drive south, visit zoo 16.00-1800
Arrive castle 18.00
Make phone calls, hotel 18.00-18.30
Dinner at hotel 18.30-20.00
Leave hotel 20.30
Drive home 20.30-21.00
Television. 21.00- 23.30
Bed 23.30

Student D:

Lives on a boat
Reach north coast of island 4.00
Sleep 4.00-10.00
Breakfast 10.00- 10.30
Land 10.30
Walk around coast 10.30- 12.30
Back to boat 12.30
Sail round west coast 12.30- 15.00
Go up river in boat 15.00- 16.30
Go back down river 15.00- 17.30
Sail south to castle 17.30- 20.30
Eat, shower, change clothes 20.30- 22.00
Go to hotel party 22.00-24.00
Back to boat, bed 24.00


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