This lesson plan focuses on narrative tenses: Past Simple, Past Continuous, and Past Perfect. It can serve as a great revision of these three tenses and a good start before our other worksheet on storytelling “Be a better storyteller”. Students will have a variety of exercises to revise and practise using past tenses.

First, the worksheet starts with one task on the uses of Past Continuous. Of course, it is also shown how Past Simple works in comparison with Past Continuous. Students have to match the sentences with the correct uses of Past Continuous. Then, to put it into practice, they have to come up with 5 sentences using both tenses. To do that, they need to choose some verbs from the box given. Therefore, each sentence should include two verbs from the box.

Next, students move to Past Perfect. Now, they need to study some sentences and decide which action happened first. After that, on the basis of the sentences from the previous task, students have to choose correct options in the rules about Past Simple and Past Perfect. Then, they get a list of a few words and again need to come up with sentences using correct tenses. To practise all three tenses together, students have a short story which they have to complete with the correct forms of the verbs given.

Finally, students work in pairs or groups and have to come up with a story using narrative tenses and the images we provided. The first person builds a few sentences connected with first two images. The next person should continue the story by building more sentences based on another set of two images. Remind them to use a variety of tenses if possible and let them have fun creating a jigsaw story together! However, if your students need some writing practice, you could also ask them to come up with a story individually and write it down.

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