Tense - Past Continuous

A: We were looking for my sister’s hair clip when the alien craft materialised in the front garden.

B: My God! So, what did you do?

A: Well, in the end, we found it down the back of the sofa.
B: Oh.



Statement of Form

subject + was/were + verb_ing

Students need to know

This describes a longer or repeated action in progress at or during a time in the past. It is commonly found in combination with the Past Simple:

“I was having a bath when the phone rang.”

“Did you get out and answer it?”

“I tried, but I was so startled, I slipped and shattered my tibia.”

In this case it can be thought of as "setting the scene" or providing the background to the "main" events. We often think of this sort of construction as the ‘interrupted past’ – though of course, the same structure would apply even if the bather in the example had decided simply to carry on and ignore the phone.

Students struggle with

Choosing between, and switching between, past simple and continuous. In the students' language "I went" and "I was going" may be the same. Even if they are different, "simple" and "continuous" are often used very differently. It is therefore rare to find a student who can use this accurately.

Generative situations

Power cut

Interrupted past. Describe a house with several rooms and a large family. Establish that you’re talking about yesterday evening. Show pictures for what each person was doing. Say there was a sudden power cut. Then elicit sentences: “When the power cut happened, Mary was painting her nails, Marvin was playing the guitar…”

Practice

Murder mystery

Provide (or get students to draw) a plan of a large house, including 6 rooms and places: living room, kitchen, dining room, bedroom, bathroom and garden. SS list in note form six activities for each room or garden: make bread, clean dishes, watch TV, water plants etc. Each list is placed in the room to which it relates. Tell students there has been a murder. Tell them when the murder took place. You need a dice. Number the rooms 1 to 6. Players throw the dice and do a mini detective and suspect role-play, the alibi being chosen from the list for the corresponding room.

Player throws a 3 and 3= kitchen, so

Detective: What were you doing at 8 o’clock?

Player: I was making bread in the kitchen.

‘Make bread’ is then crossed off so that particular alibi cannot be used again. If the next player lands in the Kitchen, they must make a different alibi, and that activity is then crossed off. The game proceeds until a player lands in a room with no remaining activities. They have no alibi, and are therefore the ‘murderer’. That is the end of the game.

Note: The role of Detective moves with each turn to ensure everyone has the opportunity to form the question. Optionally, the detective can recap all the previous alibis given by that player:

Detective: I don’t believe you. You told me you were watering flowers in the garden, then you were working in the study, then you were cleaning dishes in the kitchen.

Player: No, I remember now. I was definitely making bread in the kitchen.