TEACHER’S NOTES

WORKSHEETS, ACTIVITIE S & GA ME S Act out my Story

Activity Type Introduction

Grammar and Writing In this narrative tenses activity, students practice using narrative
Activity: writing tenses to tell a story for other students to act out.
sentences from prompts,
story writing, acting (pair Procedure
work)
Tell the students that they are going to create stories for their
classmates to act out.
Focus
Divide the students into pairs.
Narrative tenses
Invite one pair to come to the front of the class and act out the
following story as a demonstration.
Aim
To practice using Read the example story below. The pair then listens and acts out
narrative tenses to tell a the story.
story.
"Always Carry a Banana"

Preparation Jamie Wilson was downtown on Sunday afternoon. It was a

warm, sunny day. Jamie had been playing tennis. He was eating
Make one copy of the
a banana as a snack. Suddenly, a monkey jumped on his back!
worksheet for each
Someone was shouting for him to watch out. You see, the
student.
monkey had been watching the zookeeper and waiting for its
chance. It had taken the key from the zookeeper, unlocked its
Level cage and escaped!

Intermediate (B1) Jamie took a deep breath and slowly gave the monkey the rest
of the banana. Just then, the zookeeper ran up and took the
satisfied monkey from Jamie's back.
Time
30 minutes Jamie learned that it's always useful to have a banana on hand.
But since then, he has always looked out for monkeys before
eating it!

Next, give each student a copy of the worksheet.

In their pairs, students then write a short story for another pair
to act out.

Pairs begin by thinking of a title for their story and the name of
the main character.

The pairs then create their story by answering a set of questions

in sentence form using the narrative tenses in brackets.

When the pairs have finished, they take turns reading their story
to another pair, with each student reading alternate sentences,
while the other pair listens and acts out the story.

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 NARRATIVE TENSES

WORKSHEETS, ACTIVITIE S & GA ME S Act out my Story

A. You are going to write a short story for your classmates to act out. Answer the
following two questions about your story.

1. What is the title of your story? ....................................................................................

2. What is the main character's name? .............................................................................

B. Now, create your story by answering the questions in sentence form using the
narrative tenses in brackets.

1. Where and when did your story happen? (past simple)

..................................................................................................................................

2. What was the weather like? (past simple)

..................................................................................................................................

3. What was your character doing before the start of the story? (past perfect continuous)

..................................................................................................................................

4. What was your character doing at the start of the story? (past continuous)

..................................................................................................................................

5. Suddenly, something happened! What? (past simple)

..................................................................................................................................

6. How did people react after the event? (past continuous)

..................................................................................................................................

7. What action led to the event? (past perfect continuous)

..................................................................................................................................

8. What single action actually caused the event? (past perfect)

..................................................................................................................................

9. What action did the character take to deal with the situation? (past simple)

..................................................................................................................................

10. What was the final result? (past simple)

..................................................................................................................................

11. What lesson did the character learn? (past simple)

..................................................................................................................................

12. How has the character's life changed since the event? (present perfect)

..................................................................................................................................

Teach-This.com © 2021 Permission granted to reproduce for classroom use.