Did you finish?
Read out your forty-second opening. Your partner counts the continuous verbs and says the number back. Nothing else.
Then the sorting task below, which is about something the tense does that nobody teaches at A2.
Six pairs of sentences. Match each to what it actually tells you about whether the thing got done.
Three uses you have not been taught
Read these aloud. All three groups are past continuous, and none of them is scene-setting.
Group one: He was always losing his keys. She was constantly telling me I looked tired. They were forever changing the rota.
Group two: I was writing an email to her when the news came through. I never sent it. — I was reading that book you lent me. I got about halfway.
Group three: I was about to leave when the phone rang. I was going to say something and then I did not. We were meeting at eight, but she cancelled.
Four questions about the three groups. Each group does something different.
1. He was always losing his keys. Is that a neutral description?
2. Compare He always lost his keys with He was always losing his keys. What changes?
3. I was writing an email to her when the news came through. Did the email get sent?
4. I was about to leave when the phone rang. What is was about to doing?
Four jobs, one tense
What the past continuous is doing
| Job | Signal | Example | What the simple would say instead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Background | Sits under an event | It was raining when we left. | It rained. — a finished, foregrounded event |
| Two things at once | while, as | While she cooked, I was setting the table. | Two sequential events instead of two overlapping ones |
| Complaint | always · constantly · forever | He was always losing his keys. | He always lost his keys. — a neutral habit |
| Unfinished | No stated end | I was reading your report. | I read your report. — all of it |
| A plan the story ruins | was about to · was going to · were meeting | I was about to leave when… | Nothing — the simple cannot express an intention |
The one that changes what you can say. was going to and was about to describe a future that never arrived. A story is very often exactly that.
I was going to tell her that night. — I did not.
We were meeting at eight. — and something stopped it.
He was about to say something. — and then he did not.
The past simple has no way of saying this. It can only tell you what happened, and half of what a story is about is what nearly did.
One to four words per gap. Each of the four jobs appears at least once.
My old flatmate the heating off, every single day, in January. I to say something about it for about a month and I never did. Then one Sunday I out and I found him sitting in the kitchen in a coat. He a form of some kind and he did not look up. It outside. Neither of us said anything about the heating, then or ever.
Where the stress falls, and why it matters over five minutes. English puts new information at the end of a sentence and stresses it there. Say these aloud:
She was crying in the KITCHEN. — the news is where.
SHE was crying in the kitchen. — the news is who, and somebody else was expected.
She WAS crying. — you said she was not, and I am correcting you.
In a long narrative this is how a listener knows what to hold on to. Put the new thing last and let your voice land on it.
Seven sentences. Fix each and say which job the continuous should have been doing.
1. He always was losing his keys.
2. I was going to tell her and then I was not doing it.
3. I read your report but I only got halfway.
4. While she was cooking, I was setting the table and then I was sitting down.
5. I was about to leaving when the phone rang.
6. It rained the whole afternoon and we were staying inside.
7. She was constantly to tell me I looked tired.
Choosing the job
One to four words per gap. Background, complaint, unfinished, and a plan that fails — all four are in here.
We at seven outside the cinema, and by ten past she still had not come. It and I had no umbrella. A man near the door on the phone very loudly about a delivery. I her a message when she appeared round the corner, out of breath. She late in those days — every single time, for about two years — and I to say something about it that evening. I did not say anything for another eight months.
Seven lines of a narrative, out of order. Put them in the order that runs background → plan → interruption → outcome.
- He was holding a plastic bag and he would not come in.
- I was going to finish by six and be out of the building before the cleaners came.
- I did not leave the building until nearly nine, and I have never regretted an evening less.
- It was the last Friday of term and half the staff had already gone home.
- It was a boy I had taught two years earlier and had not seen since.
- I was marking the last of the papers with the radio on.
- Just as I was packing up, somebody knocked on the classroom door.
The plan that failed
Task card · Speaking · Pairs · 3 minutes each
Four short stories each, ninety seconds in total. All four must be about something that nearly happened.
Four uses of was going to or was about to, each one interrupted.
- Set up the plan: I was about to… · I was going to… · We were meeting…
- Break it: …when…
- Say what happened instead, in the past simple.
- One of the four must also contain a complaint: he was always…
Listener’s job. After each one, say the plan back: so you were going to ___ , and instead ___ . If you cannot fill both halves, the story was missing one.
From the plans
Four sentences from the task. Fix each.
1. I was about to going when she called.
2. We were going to met at eight.
3. He was always late and it was annoying me.
4. I was reading the whole book in one evening.
Four jobs
Three questions.
1. I was reading your report. What does a colleague hear?
2. She was always telling me I looked tired. What does the continuous add?
3. Which can express a plan that never happened?
Before next lesson. Take your story and write it as a numbered list of events — no connecting words at all, just 1. 2. 3.
Bring the list. Next lesson is about the words that join them, and a numbered list is exactly what a story sounds like without them.