Past Continuous Tense

S.P.Choi

Topic: / The Past Continuous Tense
Aims: / Students learn the past continuous tense in affirmative, negative and interrogative forms and are able to make use of it in real life situation.
Targets: / S.2 class
Background knowledge: / Students have not learnt the past continuous tense so far but they have learnt the past tense in S.1.
Language focused: / · the past continuous tense is used to express an event which was in progress (going on) around a particular past time.
e.g. Tom was having dinner at 8 o'clock last night.
· the forms of the past continuous tense.
Affirmative: / Subject + was/were + verb-ing.
Negative: / Subject + was/were + not +verb-ing.
Interrogative: / Was/Were + subject + verb-ing?
· use 'while' to link two events happening at the same time in the past.

Power point Presentation Source:
http://www.english-at-home.com
http://www.englishpage.co
http://www.telenex.hku.hk
Oxford English CD-Rom2, Longman English Express 1A

Procedure

Time / Steps / Functions / Aids
4 mins / · teacher asks students what they were doing at that time on Sunday morning.
· invite Ss to introduce the forms of the past continuous tense.
· a time line is drawn to help clarify the concept. / · introduce the topic.
· encourage engagement / · blackboard
· computer, projector, screen
· power point presentation (Slide 1, 2 & 3)
6 mins / · Ss imagine they went for an outing yesterday.
· Activity 1: Ss point out the 5 differences between Picture A and B. (things they saw when they were traveling on the coach)
· choral repetition / · help to build up confidence to speak up.
· practise using the past continuous tense / · computer, projector, screen
· power point presentation(Slide 4, 5 & 6)
5 mins / · introduce the use of 'while' to link two events happening at the same time in the past.
· Activity 2 (pair work): What were your friends and family doing while you went for an outing?
· make sentences by referring to the pictures.
· read out the sentences to your partner. / · consolidate their use of the past continuous tense. / · computer, projector, screen
· power point presentation (Slide 7, 8, 9 & 10)
(Pictures downloaded from Longman English Express Power Point Presentation 1A)
10 mins / · Ss are paired off.
· Activity 3(pair work) : Ss A and Ss b get a different schedule of activities done for yesterday's outing.
· Ss ask each other questions to fill in the table.
· after getting the answer, Ss are encouraged to give own response to end the conversation.
· invite students to report their answers. / · consolidate their use of different forms of the past continuous tense in a contextualized situation.
· reinforce Ss to make natural conversation in daily life.
· encourage interaction / · computer, projector, screen
· power point presentation (Slide 11, 12 &13)
· a worksheet with a table about the outing for Ss A and Ss B.
3 mins / · Ss choose their favourite activity and make a sentence by using 'while I ..., my classmates ....'.
· invite Ss to read out their work. / · practise linking 2 events happening at the same time in the past by using 'while' in a contextualized situation.
12 mins / · Access to resources in the Internet / · encourage self-learning / · power point presentation (Slide 14)

Web links

· ask students to do a revision exercise by linking to:
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/exercises/exercise3.htm

· recommend useful websites and softwares:
http:// www.english-at-home.com/tenses_and_verbs/past_tenses.html
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/past continuous.html

· Tense Buster at MMLC

Past Continuous Tense