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online
Past Perfect Time Travel!
Time: 10 minutes
Level: Pre-intermediate (Junior High ESL)
Topic: Past Perfect Simple (Technology in Teens' Lives)

Materials: Whiteboard/Projector, Markers/Pens, Slips of paper with pre-written

actions related to technology (e.g., download an app, watch a video online, get a
smartphone)

Procedure:

1. Warm-up (2 minutes):
● Ask students a few questions about technology use:
○ "Do you have a smartphone?"
○ "How often do you use the internet?"
○ “What if the Internet hadn’t been invented, what would you do then?”
○ Briefly discuss their answers.
2. Introducing the Time Machine (1 minute):
● Tell students we're going on a time travel adventure! But there's a twist - our
time machine can only travel to moments before a specific event.
● Show them an example sentence: "I couldn't download the app because I
hadn't gotten a smartphone yet." (Write it on the board or project it)
● Explain that the bolded sentence uses the Past Perfect (had + past participle)
to show something that happened before another past event (couldn't
download).
Subject + had + V3 / Subject + had not (hadn’t) + V3 / Had + subject + V3?
Time expressions: ever, never, already, just, yet, before, after, since, for, by the time

3. Time Travel Challenge (5 minutes):

● Divide students into pairs/small-groups.
● Distribute slips of paper with technology-related actions (download an app,
watch a video online, get a social media account, etc.).
● Instruct them to imagine they traveled back in time to before they did the
action on their slip.
● Each pair creates a short sentence using the Past Perfect to explain why
they couldn't do the action (e.g., "I couldn't download an app because I
hadn't gotten a smartphone yet").
● Encourage them to be creative and use different verbs.
4. Sharing & Wrap-up (2 minutes):
● Invite pairs to share their sentences with the class.
● Briefly review the Past Perfect structure (had + past participle) and its use for
talking about past events that happened before another past event.
Mindset plus: SB p 172-173; WB p 160