Count your own
Both listeners’ pages, side by side. Count the broken tenses on each and write the two numbers at the top of your notes.
Then find where on the page they cluster. Almost nobody breaks a tense in the first thirty seconds.
Six forms. Match each to the single job it does in a narrative.
Two minutes of a real transcript
Transcribed exactly, errors and all
So this was maybe four years ago. I was living in Braga at the time and I was working in a call centre, which I could not support for very long.
And one Friday I am walking to the bus and this woman stops me and she asks me for directions. And I am explaining, and while I explain she is looking at me really strangely.
And she said, are you Marco’s sister. And I was not remembering her at all but she was in my class for four years.
Anyway. Eventually we go for a coffee and now she is my closest friend. It was very exquisite, how it happened.
Four questions about the transcript. It is a good story told with four specific problems.
1. The first paragraph is entirely past. The second switches to the present. What happened?
2. The third paragraph has she said next to I am explaining. Why is that a problem?
3. I was not remembering her at all. What is wrong?
4. The last sentence says very exquisite. What did the speaker mean?
The present tense is not the problem
An honest finding. Telling a past story in the present tense is real English. Storytellers do it deliberately: So I’m walking home, and this guy comes up to me… It makes the story feel like it is happening now.
So the error in that transcript is not the present tense. It is the switching. The speaker starts in the past, slides into the present without deciding to, and then slides back. The listener loses which events are which.
You may tell your story in either system. You may not use both. And at this level the past is the one worth practising, because it is the one your written portfolio piece has to be in.
The four failures, and what fixes each
| Failure | Looks like | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| The slide | Past for thirty seconds, then present | Choose one and mark the choice in your notes |
| The reversed join | Ask which action is longer. Longer takes the continuous | |
| State verbs in the continuous | The interruption test from Unit 6 | |
did plus a past verb | Once did is there, the main verb goes bare |
One to three words per gap. Put the whole paragraph into the past and keep it there.
One Friday I to the bus when a woman me for directions. I the way to the station, and while I , she at me very strangely. Then she whether I was Marco’s sister. I her at all, but it turned out she had been in my class for four years.
Eight sentences, two of each failure. Fix each, then write which of the four it was.
1. I was living there and then one day I meet him in the street.
2. We are sitting in the kitchen and my mother came in.
3. She read the letter while the phone was ringing and she was answering it.
4. I dropped the glass while everybody was turning round.
5. I was wanting to say something but I did not.
6. He was not understanding a word of it.
7. We didn’t knew what to do.
8. She didn’t came back for three years.
Both problems at once
Ten sentences from real four-minute narratives. One error each — a tense, a state verb, or a word that lies.
1. I was knowing her since school.
2. So I am standing there and I did not know what to say.
3. We assisted the ceremony from the back.
4. While the train stopped, everybody was looking up.
5. My father could not support the waiting.
6. She didn’t told anybody for years.
7. It was a very exquisite thing to say.
8. I was believing him completely at the time.
9. Nobody attended the door for ten minutes.
10. Eventually she came. I am still not sure she will.
All twelve false friends from both rounds. Match each to the English word you actually wanted.
The transcript from the input phase, repaired. One to three words per gap.
I was living in Braga at the time and working in a call centre, which I for very long. One Friday I to the bus and a woman me for directions. While I was explaining, she at me very strangely. Then she asked whether I was Marco’s sister, and I her at all — but she had been in my class for four years. we went for a coffee, and now she is my closest friend. It was a way to meet somebody.
Edit somebody else’s four minutes
Task card · Pairs · Editing then speaking
Your partner’s listener page from Lesson 5 — the one with the broken tenses on it. You are their editor.
Take three of the broken sentences, repair them out loud, and say which of the four failures each one was.
- Name the failure before you give the correction. That is the slide. That is a state verb.
- One of your three must be a join, and you have to say which action was longer.
- Then have your partner say the repaired sentence back, twice, at speed.
- If your partner can defend the original, they win and you move on.
The four, one more time
Four sentences, one per failure. Fix each and name it.
1. I was walking home and this guy comes up to me.
2. I read the paper when the door was opening.
3. She was seeming very tired that evening.
4. We didn’t understood a single word.
Your own two
Three questions.
1. Telling a past story entirely in the present tense is —
2. Where in a four-minute story do broken tenses cluster?
3. Which of these refuses the continuous?
Before next lesson. Write your story out in full, in the past, and underline every verb. Bring it on paper.
Next lesson you cut it to 180 words, which is much shorter than four minutes of speech and is the harder job.