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Students will understand and use the past continuous tense to describe actions or events that were ongoing in the past.

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Have students consider: When do we describe actions as ongoing in the past?

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The past continuous is made from the past tense of the verb and the -ing form of a verb:

We use the past continuous to talk about the past:

Compare: The children did their homework when (= after) I got home.

This use of the past continuous is very common at the beginning of a story:

The other day I was waiting for a bus when ...
Last week, asI was driving to work, ...

for something that happened before and after a specific time:

Compare: At eight o'clock I wrote (= started writing) some letters.

to show that something continued for some time:

for something that happened again and again:

I was practising every day, three times a day.
Theywere meeting secretly after school.
Theywere always quarrelling.

with verbs which show change or growth:

The children were growing up quickly.
Her Englishwas improving.
My hairwas going grey.
The townwas changing quickly.

We do not normally use the past continuous with stative verbs.We use the past simple instead:
Level: intermediate
Past continuous and hypotheses

We can also use the past continuous to refer to the present or future in hypotheses (when we imagine something). See these pages:

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Learn how to use the past continuous to talk about the past, and do the exercises to practise using it.

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Introduce the past continuous tense structure: Subject + was/were + verb(-ing). Explain its use in describing actions that were happening at a specific time in the past.

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PAST CONTINUOUS Tense 🤔  | Easy Explanation

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Students will work in pairs to create sentences using the past continuous tense. Encourage them to think of real-life scenarios or events. Use Padlet for collaborative sharing of sentences.

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Past continuous exercises - past progressive

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Past continuous exercises. Past simple and past progressive tenses - grammar exercises online for esl.

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Provide a worksheet with sentences to be converted into the past continuous tense.

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1,537 Past continuous English ESL worksheets pdf & doc

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A selection of English ESL past continuous printables

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Challenge students to write a short paragraph describing a day when several things were happening simultaneously in the past.

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13 Past simple vs continuous tense, Creative writing prompt,…

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A selection of English ESL past simple vs continuous tense printables with creative writing prompt, writing practice

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Observe student participation during guided practice and review their sentences on Padlet.

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Conduct a short quiz where students convert simple past sentences into the past continuous tense.

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Past Continuous Quiz | Grammar | EnglishClub

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Online quiz to test your understanding of the Past Continuous tense in English. This is a free multiple-choice quiz that you can do online or print out. For ESL learners.

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Ask students to write one sentence in the past continuous tense about their previous weekend.

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In groups, have students share their exit ticket responses and discuss the use of past continuous in storytelling.

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Answer the following questions with answers in the past continuous tense. Elaborate on your answers with different tenses where appropriate.

Discussion Questions:

1. What were you doing before this?

2. What were you eating at lunchtime yesterday?

3. What were you chatting about with your friends when you last talked to them?

4. What were you thinking about two minutes ago?

5. What were you wearing when you last went out at night?

6. Have you ever seen a celebrity in public? What were they doing?

7. Focus on a person that you can see. What were they doing before coming here? Can you guess?

8. What were you studying when you last felt confused?

9. What were you watching at the last cinema that you went to?

10. What were you trying to make when you last tried to bake or cook?

11. What was your father doing when he met your mother?

12. What were you lying on when you went to sleep last night?

13. How was the weather this morning?

14. What were you doing when you most recently exercised?

15. What was your mother doing when you saw her last?

1. Think about the last dream that you remember. What were you dreaming about?

2. When you started studying English, what were you hoping to do with your language skills?

3. Think about the last time that you did housework. What were you doing?

4. What were you doing at 8pm last night?

5. What weren't you doing at 8pm last night?

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Questions for practicing the past continuous (progressive) tense such as 'what were you trying to make when you last tried to bake or cook?'

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Complete the provided worksheet on past continuous tense for further practice.

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Play an online game focused on practicing the past continuous tense.

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Simple past and past Continuous - WTE3 U1 EP2 ex4 Write sentences using the words given. Use the Past Continuous. - Past continuous - Past continuous.