Unit 6

WORKSHEET - UNIT 6

Task 1 – Identify the following tenses, giving your reason for the identification:

a) Peter went to the cinema yesterday evening.

Past Simple – The sentence talks about an action that happened in the past at a definite time. The action here is “went”, which is the past tense of “go” and “yesterday evening” is the given time.

b) He had been living there for most of his life.

Past Perfect Continuous – This sentence follows the affirmative form for past perfect continuous which is ‘subject + had + been + verb+ing.

c) I was sleeping at 2.00AM.

Past Continuous – It talks about an action that started before 2AM and probably continued after that. It also contains the past tense of ‘be’ (was) and the verb (sleep) +ing.

d) John and Mary hadn’t been there before.

Past Perfect – This sentence follows the negative form for past perfect which is ‘subject + had + not + past participle’.

Task 2 – State as many usages as possible of the past tenses below, with an example sentence for each usage (not a sentence from the unit!).

a) Past simple

1. Past action with a given time – I went home to the Philippines last September.

2. When the time is asked about – When did you lose your phone?

3. For an action that took place at a definite time even if the specific time is not mentioned – They came to China a long time ago.

4. Past habits – He drank a lot when he was younger.

5. Past facts or generalizations – India was a poor country in the past.

6. Series of completed actions – I woke up at 6am, took a shower around 6:30, had my breakfast at 7, then left for work at around 7:30.

b) Past continuous

1. Interrupted past actions - I was chatting with my friend when the power went out.

2. Used to indicate gradual development of past events – The smoke was getting thicker.

3. Specific time as an interruption – I was still studying at 4 this morning.

4. Parallel actions – I was preparing dinner while my son was playing computer games.

5. Descriptions – When the teacher arrived, some students were singing loudly and others were playing with their phones.

c) Past perfect

1. Completed action before another action in the past – She had cooked dinner for her kids before she went to the gym.

2. Third conditional sentences – If I hadn’t brought my umbrella, I would have been drenched in the rain.

3. Reported Speech – The director asked if we had eaten dinner.

4. Dissatisfaction with the past – I wish I had taken my phone charger. My battery is dead.

d) Past perfect continuous

1. Duration of a past action – They had been living in China for 8 years before they settled in Australia.

2. Showing cause of an action or situation in the past – I went for a massage because I had been working all day long.

3. Third conditional – If the kids hadn’t been misbehaving, the teacher would have taken them out to the playground.

4. Reported speech – The girls said they had been swimming with their friends the whole morning.

Task 3 – State how the tenses below are formed grammatically.  Explain positive, negative and question forms:

a) Past simple

Form:         To make the simple past tense, we use the past form only or the auxiliary ‘did’ + base form. We form the past tense of regular verbs by adding –ed or –d to the base form of the verb while irregular verbs have different rules to follow.

Positive:      Subject + past form of the verb

                   She travelled

                   She ate

Negative:    Subject + aux. verb ‘did’ + not + base form of the verb

                   She did not travel.  She didn’t travel.

                   She did not eat. She didn’t eat.

Question:    Aux. verb ‘did’ + subject + base form of the verb

                   Did she travel?

                   Did she eat?

b) Past continuous

Form:         To form a sentence in the past continuous, we use the past tense of the aux. verb ‘be’ (was/were) + the present participle (verb + ing).

Positive:      Subject + was/were + verb + ing

                   She was travelling

                   She was eating

Negative:    Subject + was/were + not + verb + ing

                   She wasn’t travelling

                   She wasn’t eating

Question:    Was/were + subject + verb + ing

                   Was she travelling?

                   Was she eating?

c) Past perfect

Form:         To form a sentence in the past perfect, we use the past form of the aux. verb ‘to have’ and the past participle.

Positive:      Subject + had + past participle

                   She had travelled

                   She had eaten

Negative:    Subject + had + not + past participle

                   She hadn’t travelled

                   She hadn’t eaten

Question:    Had + subject + past participle

                   Had she travelled?

                   Had she eaten?

d) Past perfect continuous

Form:                   To make the past perfect continuous, we use the past form of the aux. verb ‘to have’ + been + the present participle (verb + ing)

Positive:      Subject + had + been + verb + ing

                   She had been eating

Negative:    Subject + had + not + been + verb + ing

                   She hadn’t been eating

Question:    Had + subject + been + verb + ing

                   Had she been eating?

Task 4 – Give at least 2 teaching ideas (suitable for the Activate stage of a lesson) for the tenses below and give examples of sentences that you would expect your students to produce:

a) Past simple

1. Biography of a famous person

Ex: John Lennon died on December 8^th, 1980.

2. Talking about past holidays

Ex: I went to Hong Kong last summer.

b) Past continuous

1. Alibi Game

Ex: I was watching a movie at 11 PM last night.

2. Telling a story with picture prompts

Ex: The man was having dinner when he heard a loud explosion.

c) Past perfect

1. Who asked what question – Students are given one or two question each to memorize. Once they are ready, they go around the class, ask their questions, and answer other students’ questions as well. In the end, students have to report to class what questions the other students asked them.

Ex: Lisa asked if I had seen the principal.

2. Picture prompts - Explaining a situation

Ex: It’s possible that the man had forgotten to lock his front door.

d) Past perfect continuous

1. What’s your alibi?

Ex: I had been working on my homework for about an hour when the incident happened.

2. Freeze Game – The class is divided into 2 teams. One team is ordered to close their eyes while the other team is ordered to quietly perform an action. The teacher will then say “FREEZE” and the performing team has to literally freeze in their current action. The other team then tries to guess what the other team had been doing before they opened their eyes.

Ex: Before I opened my eyes, you had been playing basketball.

Task 5 – Complete the past simple form of these irregular verbs:

VERB	PAST SIMPLE	VERB	PAST SIMPLE
tell	told	hide	hid
be	was/were	eat	ate
bring	brought	find	found
do	did	buy	bought
see	saw	go	went

Task 6 - Complete the past participle form of the same irregular verbs:

VERB	PAST PARTICIPLE	VERB	PAST PARTICIPLE
tell	told	hide	hidden
be	been	eat	eaten
bring	brought	find	found
do	done	buy	bought
see	seen	go	gone

Task 7 – How would you explain the difference in structure and usage between these tenses to a low-level student? Illustrate your explanations with example sentences of your own:

a) Past simple and past continuous

i) Explanation of differences in structure:

We form the past simple by adding –ed or –d to the base form of regular verbs (irregular verbs have different rules so it’s best for students to memorize them) while to form a sentence in the past continuous, we use was/were + the verb + ing.

ii) Differences in usage:

We use the past simple to talk about actions completed at a definite time in the past while we use the past continuous to say what we were in the middle of doing at a particular moment in the past.

iii) Example sentences:

1. Past simple - I drank beer last night.
2. Past continuous - I was drinking beer when my mother showed up.

b) Past simple and present perfect

i) Explanation of differences in structure:

The simple past tense is formed by adding –ed or –d to the base form of the verb (regular verbs) while the present perfect tense is formed by adding ‘have/has’ + past participle of the verb.

ii) Differences in usage:

The past simple is used for actions that happened at a definite time in the past while the present perfect is used for actions or states that happened at an indefinite time in the past or something that started in the past and still true at the time of speaking.

iii) Example sentences:

1. Past simple – They travelled to Thailand last year.
2. Present perfect – They have travelled to Thailand before.

c) Present perfect and past perfect

i) Explanation of differences in structure:

For present perfect, we use ‘have/has’ plus the past participle and for the past perfect, we use ‘had’ plus past participle.

ii) Differences in usage:

Present perfect is used for actions or states that happened at an indefinite time in the past or something that started in the past and still true at the time of speaking. We use the past perfect tense to emphasize that an action in the past finished before another action in the past started.

iii) Example sentences:

1. Present perfect – I have read the book several times.
2. Past perfect – I asked the professor a lot of questions because I had read his book.