Past Continuous ESL Games, Activities & Worksheets

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. show less

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. show less

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. show less

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. show less

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. show less

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. show less

ESL Past Continuous Game - Grammar and Speaking: Memorising, Forming Sentences In this engaging past continuous game, students use the word 'while' and the past continuous to make sentences about what they and other students were doing at certain times in the past. Choose a time in the past and tell the students to think about what they were doing at that time, e.g. 8 o'clock last night. One student begins by telling the class what they were doing at that time, e.g. 'I was watching a movie at 8 o'clock last night.' The next student then repeats the previous student's sentence using 'while' and adds what they were doing, e.g. 'While Tom was watching a movie, I was playing a game on my phone.' Then, each student in turn repeats the previous students' sentences with 'while' and adds their own sentence. If a student can't remember another student's sentence or makes a grammar mistake, they are out of that round. The round finishes when the turn comes back around to the first student. Students score one point if they manage to stay in the game. Play several rounds using different times in the past. The student with the most points at the end of the game wins. show less

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. show less

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. show less

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. show less

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. show less