Past Simple vs. Past Continuous ESL Activities, Games & Worksheets

ESL Past Simple and Past Continuous Activity - Grammar and Speaking: Writing, Asking and Answering Questions, Controlled and Freer Practice - Group and Pair Work In this past simple vs. past continuous speaking activity, students complete conversation questions and then interview a partner using the past simple and past continuous. First, in two groups, students complete each conversation question in the past simple or past continuous using the verb 'to be' or 'do', the verb in brackets and the pronoun 'you'. Next, students pair up with someone from the other group and take turns asking and answering the conversation questions with their partner, responding in the past simple or past continuous, according to the tense of each question. Afterwards, students share what they found out about their partner with the class. show less

ESL Past Simple and Past Continuous Activity - Grammar and Speaking: Gap-fill, Asking and Answering Questions from Prompts, Freer Practice - Group Work In this engaging past simple and past continuous activity, students take on the role of famous inventors and discover how several inventions happened by accident, using the two tenses accurately as they complete prompts and exchange information. First, in groups, students complete their inventor card with the past simple or past continuous form of the verbs in brackets to explain what happened. Students then find out how the other inventors in their group accidentally created their inventions by asking questions to each inventor to find out what happened, noting down the answers in a chart. Finally, students use the information in the chart and inventions from a box to complete past simple and past continuous sentences, indicating what each invention was, who invented it, and how. show less

ESL Past Simple and Past Continuous Activity - Speaking: Role-Play, Asking and Answering Questions - Group Work In this intriguing past simple and past continuous activity, students try to solve a murder by interviewing classmates about what they were doing between 4 and 5 p.m., listening for contradictions, and using the two tenses accurately to discuss timelines. Tell the students that between 4 and 5 p.m. on Saturday, Mr Smith was murdered and that everyone is a suspect. Each student then takes on the role of a murder suspect and is given a card showing their alibi at the time of the murder. Next, students complete verbs in brackets on their card using the past simple or past continuous. Next, students read their alibi and memorise it. Students then walk around asking other suspects for their alibis and noting down the information to identify the murderer by finding the alibi that does not match the others. The first student to identify the murderer by detecting the inconsistent alibi wins. show less

ESL Past Simple vs. Past Continuous Worksheet - Grammar Exercises: Categorising, Gap-fill, Matching, Writing Sentences from Prompts This free past simple or past continuous worksheet helps students practice how and when to use the past simple and the past continuous to describe completed events, ongoing actions, repeated actions, and changes over time. First, students read situations and categorize them based on whether the past simple or past continuous is used. Next, students complete sentences with verbs in brackets in the past simple or past continuous. Students then match the answers in Exercise B with the situations in Exercise A. After that, students match timelines with one or two situations in Exercise A. Finally, students write past simple or past continuous sentences corresponding to the timelines using prompts, adding time adverbs, and other information where appropriate. show less

ESL Past Simple vs. Past Continuous Game - Grammar and Speaking: Gap-fill, Guessing, Asking and Answering Questions from Prompts - Group and Pair Work This fun past simple vs. past continuous game helps students practice forming, asking and answering questions with the past simple and past continuous. First, in two groups, students complete questions in the past simple or past continuous using verbs in brackets. Next, students pair up with someone from the other group. Students then guess what their partner's answer will be for each question and write their guesses in a chart. After that, students take turns asking the questions to their partner, who answers in the past simple or past continuous, according to the tense of each question. Students write their partner's answers in the chart and put a tick next to each correct guess. The student with the most correct guesses wins the game. show less

ESL When and While Worksheet - Grammar Exercises: Gap-fill, Binary Choice, Changing Word Forms, Identifying, Sentence Completion In this useful when and while worksheet, students practice three rules associated with using 'when' and 'while' with the past simple and past continuous. Students begin by completing two grammar rules and examples for using the past simple and past continuous with 'when' and 'while'. Students then underline the correct past tenses in a set of sentences using the two rules. Next, students complete a short story with verbs in brackets in their past simple or past continuous forms. After that, students are introduced to another rule for using 'when' and 'while'. Students then indicate whether they can use 'when', 'while' or both as the missing word in each sentence. Finally, students complete sentences by adding a second clause using 'when' or 'while'. show less

ESL Past Simple and Past Continuous Game - Grammar: Matching, Gap-fill - Pair Work This enjoyable past simple and past continuous game helps students review sentences containing past simple and past continuous clauses. In pairs, students take turns turning over one sentence beginning card and one ending card. If the two parts match to make a suitable sentence containing a past simple and past continuous clause, the student writes the verbs in brackets in their past simple and past continuous forms. The student then keeps the two cards and has another turn. If not, the cards are turned back over, keeping them in the same place. The student with the most pairs of cards at the end of the game wins. Afterwards, elicit the correct answers from the class. show less