I Was Doing This

Pre-intermediate (A2) 30 minutes
Past continuous worksheet for A2: students match, identify, fill gaps, correct errors, and write sentences

ESL Past Continuous Worksheet - Grammar Exercises: Matching, Identifying, Gap-fill, Error Correction, Writing Sentences

In this free past continuous worksheet, students practice the past continuous and past simple in short narratives, focusing on form and on how the past continuous sets the scene while the past...

ESL Past Continuous Worksheet - Grammar Exercises: Matching, Identifying, Gap-fill, Error Correction, Writing Sentences from Prompts In this free past continuous worksheet, students practice the past continuous and past simple in short narratives, focusing on form and on how the past continuous sets the scene while the past simple describes completed actions and interruptions. First, students match sentence halves together to complete a story about a very bad day. Students then underline the verbs in the sentences and label each verb as past simple or past continuous. Next, students complete sentences by writing verbs in brackets in the past simple or past continuous. After that, students correct past continuous and past simple errors in a story. Finally, students use the past continuous to write excuses using information in brackets.
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It was a cold dark night...

Pre-intermediate (A2) 30 minutes
Past continuous ghost story activity for A2: order and dictate sentences to reconstruct the story

ESL Past Continuous Activity - Grammar, Reading and Listening: Memorising and Reciting Sentences, Ordering, Dictation

In this challenging past continuous activity, students order a short ghost story, then reconstruct it in writing using the past continuous and past simple. First, students read and memorize...

ESL Past Continuous Activity - Grammar, Reading and Listening: Memorising and Reciting Sentences, Ordering, Dictation In this challenging past continuous activity, students order a short ghost story, then reconstruct it in writing using the past continuous and past simple. First, students read and memorize sentences on cards. Working together, students then form a circle in the order of the story by saying their sentences aloud. Students repeat their sentences several times and listen to the other students' sentences carefully in order to achieve the correct order. When the story is in order, students number their cards (1 to 10). Next, students sit in their groups and write the story. Each student in turn dictates their sentence to the rest of the group who write it down, starting with the student who has the first part of the story. When the groups have finished, they read their stories to the class.
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Park Life

Pre-intermediate (A2) 25 minutes
Past continuous memory game for A2: students remember picture details and write sentences about them

ESL Past Continuous Game - Grammar: Memorising, Writing Sentences

In this fun past continuous memory game, students look at a park scene for three minutes and then write sentences in the past continuous to describe what people were doing in the picture. First, students have three minutes to look at the picture...

ESL Past Continuous Game - Grammar: Memorising, Writing Sentences From Prompts In this fun past continuous memory game, students look at a park scene for three minutes and then write sentences in the past continuous to describe what people were doing in the picture. First, students have three minutes to look at the picture showing what was happening in the park yesterday afternoon and try to remember what the people were doing. When the time limit has been reached, students write past continuous sentences about what the people were doing in the park using words from a box. Students score one point for each sentence that is both factually and grammatically correct. The student with the highest score wins the game. As an extension, students test each other's memory of the picture by asking and answering questions in the past continuous.
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Past Continuous Chat

Pre-intermediate (A2) 25 minutes
Past continuous chat activity for A2: students form, ask, and answer conversation questions in pairs

ESL Past Continuous Activity - Grammar and Speaking: Forming, Asking and Answering Questions - Group and Pair Work

In this insightful past continuous speaking activity, students form conversation questions in the past continuous from prompts, interview a partner, and then share what they learned about their partner with...

ESL Past Continuous Activity - Grammar and Speaking: Forming, Asking and Answering Questions from Prompts, Controlled and Freer Practice - Group and Pair Work In this insightful past continuous speaking activity, students form conversation questions in the past continuous from prompts, interview a partner, and then share what they learned about their partner with the class. First, in two groups, students complete each conversation question using the verb in brackets in the past continuous and the pronoun 'you.' Next, students pair up with someone from the other group and take turns asking and answering the past continuous conversation questions with their partner. Afterwards, students share what they found out about their partner with the class.
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The Time Machine Challenge

Pre-intermediate (A2) 30 minutes
Past continuous challenge game for A2: students guess what classmates were doing and ask questions

ESL Past Continuous Game - Grammar and Speaking: Sentence Completion, Guessing, Asking and Answering Questions

In this productive past continuous game, students predict what classmates were doing at specific times in the recent past, write sentences using the past continuous, and then ask questions to check...

ESL Past Continuous Game - Grammar and Speaking: Sentence Completion, Guessing, Asking and Answering Questions from Prompts, Controlled and Freer Practice In this productive past continuous game, students predict what classmates were doing at specific times in the recent past, write sentences using the past continuous, and then ask questions to check their guesses. First, students read each past continuous prompt and think about how they can complete it to be true for a classmate. Students then complete each past continuous sentence with a classmate's name and their own idea using the verb in brackets in the past continuous, e.g. 'Jamie was eating cereal this morning.' Next, students go around the class asking past continuous questions to the people on their worksheet to see if their guesses are right or wrong, e.g. 'Were you eating cereal this morning?' For each correct guess, students put a tick in the last column. For each incorrect guess, students put a cross. The student with the most correct guesses at the end of the game wins.
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What Was Everybody Doing?

Pre-intermediate (A2) 30 minutes
Past continuous miming game for A2: students mime activities and others make sentences about them

ESL Past Continuous Game - Grammar: Miming, Forming and Writing Sentences - Group Work

In this entertaining past continuous game, students mime simple actions while one student is out of the room, then the student returns and describes what classmates were doing using the past continuous...

ESL Past Continuous Game - Grammar: Miming, Forming and Writing Sentences - Group Work In this entertaining past continuous game, students mime simple actions while one student is out of the room, then the student returns and describes what classmates were doing using the past continuous. One student from the first team waits outside the classroom. Everyone starts miming or doing the action on their card and then the student comes in. Students continue for a few more seconds and then stop. The student who went outside then has one minute to say what the other students were doing when they came in, using the past continuous. The student scores one point for their team for each correct past continuous sentence. A student from the second team goes out and the process is repeated. This continues until each team has sent two students outside. For the final round, everyone does the actions on their cards again without anyone leaving the room. This time teams try to remember and write down what the students in the other teams were doing. Teams score one point for each correct sentence. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.
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Convince Me

Intermediate (B1) 25 minutes
Past continuous game for B1: students ask and answer about past activities and give explanations

ESL Past Continuous Game - Speaking: Asking and Answering Questions, Freer Practice - Group Work

In this free past continuous game, students ask and answer questions about what they were doing at specific times yesterday and practice giving reasons with 'because', 'in order to', and 'so that'...

ESL Past Continuous Game - Speaking: Asking and Answering Questions from Prompts, Freer Practice - Group Work In this free past continuous game, students ask and answer questions about what they were doing at specific times yesterday and practice giving reasons with 'because', 'in order to', and 'so that'. The first student picks up a time card and asks the player on their right what they were doing at that time yesterday, e.g. 'What were you doing at 6:30 a.m. yesterday?' The player then chooses one of their picture cards, shows the card to the other students, and tries to give a convincing answer that matches the time on the card using the past continuous, e.g. 'I was drinking coffee.' If the answer is appropriate for that time of day, the player discards their picture card. If the answer is doubtful, e.g. 'I was studying English', the other students ask a 'Why were you...?' question to the player, who tries to provide a convincing explanation as to why they were doing that activity at that time of day using 'because', 'in order to' or 'so that', e.g. 'I was studying English because...' If the group agrees that the explanation is reasonable, the picture card is discarded. If not, the player keeps the picture card. The next student then picks up a time card and asks the player on their right what they were doing at that time yesterday, and so on. The first player to get rid of all their picture cards wins the game.
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Dream World

Intermediate (B1) 40 minutes
Past continuous dream activity for B1: students use picture cards and write a collaborative dream story

ESL Past Continuous Activity - Grammar and Writing: Forming Sentences, Collaborative Story Writing - Group Work

In this imaginative past continuous activity, students practice making sentences from picture prompts and then collaboratively write a dream story, using the past continuous for background actions and...

ESL Past Continuous Activity - Grammar and Writing: Forming Sentences from Prompts, Collaborative Story Writing - Group Work In this imaginative past continuous activity, students practice making sentences from picture prompts and then collaboratively write a dream story, using the past continuous for background actions and the past simple for main events. The first student in each group starts by asking the second student what they were doing last night. The second student picks up a picture card and responds by making a past continuous sentence using the card as a prompt. The student does this by thinking of an activity associated with the picture. The second student then asks the third student the same question, and so on, until all the cards have been used. When the groups have finished, they choose picture cards at random and write a story, incorporating all the items shown in the pictures using the past continuous for background actions and the past simple for the main events. Afterwards, groups read their stories to the class, who vote for the strangest or funniest one.
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Past Continuous Practice

Intermediate (B1) 25 minutes
Past continuous worksheet for B1: gap-fill, changing word forms, categorising, matching sentences

ESL Past Continuous Worksheet - Grammar Exercises: Gap-fill, Categorising, Matching

In this useful past continuous worksheet, students review three common uses of the tense (ongoing background actions, interrupted actions, and repeated or annoying actions) and contrast it with the past simple. First, students complete...

ESL Past Continuous Worksheet - Grammar Exercises: Gap-fill, Categorising, Matching In this useful past continuous worksheet, students review three common uses of the tense (ongoing background actions, interrupted actions, and repeated or annoying actions) and contrast it with the past simple. First, students complete sentences with the past continuous form of the verbs in brackets. Next, students sort the sentences, according to how the tense is used in each one. Students then complete sentences with the past simple or past continuous form of the verbs in brackets. Lastly, students match sentence beginnings and endings to complete the sentences.
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When, While and As

Intermediate (B1) 25 minutes
Past continuous and past simple game for B1: making sentences with when, while, as using prompts

ESL Past Continuous Game - Speaking: Forming Sentences, Freer Practice - Group Work

In this creative past simple and past continuous game, students combine an ongoing action with a shorter past event to form sentences using 'when', 'while', or 'as'. In groups, students take turns...

ESL Past Continuous Game - Speaking: Forming Sentences from Prompts, Freer Practice - Group Work In this creative past simple and past continuous game, students combine an ongoing action with a shorter past event to form sentences using 'when', 'while', or 'as'. In groups, students take turns turning over an activity card and a picture card and making a sentence in the past continuous and past simple with when, while or as, using the two cards as prompts, e.g. 'I was riding my bicycle when a fly flew into my mouth.' If the group members agree that a sentence is correct, the student keeps the two cards. If a student is unable to make a sentence or the sentence is incorrect, the two cards are turned back over. The student with the most pairs of cards at the end of the game wins.
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Understanding the Past Continuous

The past continuous describes an action that was in progress at a specific moment in the past, as in 'She was reading when the phone rang.' It works alongside the past simple: the past continuous sets the background scene and the past simple delivers the completed action or interruption. Students who use only the past simple to tell stories produce writing that feels flat and abrupt, because every action carries equal weight with no sense of what was already happening in the background.

This page covers the past continuous at A2 and B1 levels, with eleven resources including grammar worksheets, speaking games, a miming game, and a collaborative writing activity, with two resources available as free downloads.

The table below maps the four main uses of the past continuous, showing the structure, typical signal words, and a short example for each use.

UseStructureKey Signal WordsExample
Background scene-setting subject + was/were + verb-ing at [time], when 'It was raining when we arrived.'
Interrupted action subject + was/were + verb-ing + when + past simple when 'She was cooking when the fire alarm went off.'
Two simultaneous actions subject + was/were + verb-ing + while/as + subject + was/were + verb-ing while, as 'He was reading while she was watching TV.'
Repeated or annoying action subject + was/were + always + verb-ing always, constantly, forever 'He was always leaving his keys at home.'

When to Use the Past Continuous

Polite and Indirect Requests: Speakers use the past continuous to soften requests and make them sound less direct, which is common in formal or professional situations where the present simple would sound too blunt, as in 'I was wondering if you could send me the report.'

Recounting Personal Memories: When people tell stories about their own past experiences, they use the past continuous to pull the listener into the moment and make the memory feel vivid and present, as in 'We were sitting on the beach watching the sun go down when we heard the news.'

Building Atmosphere in Fiction: Writers use the past continuous to slow the pace of a scene and create a sense of mood by describing multiple things happening at once, drawing the reader into a moment before the action shifts, as in 'The rain was drumming on the roof, the fire was dying, and somewhere outside a dog was barking.'

3-Step Framework for Teaching the Past Continuous

1. Ground the Form in Contrasting Uses: Before students start speaking or playing, they need to feel the difference between what the past continuous does and what the past simple does. A structured worksheet that works through short narratives is ideal here, because students see both tenses operating together in context. The key insight to draw out is that the past continuous sets the scene while the past simple describes completed actions and interruptions. Finishing with an exercise where students write excuses using the past continuous gives them an immediate, real-world reason to reach for the form.

2. Build Fluency Through a Memory Chain: Once students can form the tense accurately, a speaking chain game pushes them to produce it quickly while also holding everyone else's sentences in their heads. One student tells the class what they were doing at a chosen time in the past, and the next student repeats that sentence using 'while' before adding their own, for example 'While Tom was watching a movie, I was playing a game on my phone.' Each new student must repeat every previous sentence before adding theirs. A grammar mistake or a forgotten sentence puts that student out of the round.

3. Consolidate With Collaborative Story Writing: Once students can use the past continuous fluently in speech, push them into extended writing by giving each group a set of picture cards to draw from at random. Students build a story together, using the past continuous for background actions and the past simple for the main events. The payoff comes at the end: groups read their stories to the class, who vote for the strangest or funniest one, which gives every group a genuine reason to make their language as vivid as possible.

Common Mistakes with the Past Continuous

Past Continuous for Completed Actions: Students often use the past continuous for actions that clearly finished at a specific point, when the past simple is needed because the action was completed, not ongoing. Wrong: 'I was finishing my report before lunch.' Correct: 'I finished my report before lunch.'

Missing 'Was' or 'Were': Students often write the -ing form of the verb without 'was' or 'were' in front of it, producing a sentence with no past tense verb at all. Wrong: 'She cooking dinner when I arrived.' Correct: 'She was cooking dinner when I arrived.'

Common Questions About Teaching the Past Continuous

What is a good speaking game for practicing the past continuous?

The game Convince Me is a free download and works well for past continuous practice. Students pick a time card and ask a classmate what they were doing at that time. If the group finds the answer doubtful, they ask a 'Why were you...?' question and the player must explain convincingly or keep the card.

What is a useful worksheet for teaching the past continuous?

The worksheet Past Continuous Practice reviews three common uses of the tense: ongoing background actions, interrupted actions, and repeated or annoying actions. It contrasts each use with the past simple through gap-fill, categorizing, and matching exercises, giving students a clear map of when and why to reach for the tense.

What is a fun speaking activity for practicing the past continuous?

Students practice forming questions from prompts and then put them to use immediately in the activity Past Continuous Chat. Each student completes a question using a verb in brackets, then interviews a partner using the past continuous. Afterwards, they share what they found out about their partner with the class, giving the conversation a real communicative purpose.

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