Lesson Plan

School: Școala Gimnazială Nr. 1 Lunca Banului

Name: Ionașcu Ema-Cristina

No. of Students:

Grade/Level: 8th grade

Time: 45 min.

Topic: Past Simple vs. Past Continuous

Teaching aids/ Materials: board, PPT presentation, Wordwall.net;

Aim: to be able to use the Past Simple and Past Continuous correctly in everyday speaking;

Lesson Objectives:

1) to be able to describe/talk about past actions and activities past actions;

2) to be able to use Past Simple and Past Continuous in real-life situations of communication;
3) to stimulate students’ imagination and creativity;

Anticipating student’s problems:

⮚ some students might need further help and extra indications in solving the tasks and they may also need some
of these indications to be given in Romanian;
⮚ some students might feel nervous and reluctant to participate in the activity, so they may need assistance;
Aspects I particularly need to be aware of: the students to understand everything the teacher says and asks;

Stages of the
Teacher and student activity Materials Interaction Timing
Lesson

Greetings.

1.Organising The teacher greets the class. The teacher asks

the students how are they feeling that day and - T - Ss 2 min.
the class
marks the missing people. The class prepares for
the lesson.

The teacher open the PowerPoint Presentation

prepared for the lesson.

The lesson starts with the activity Two truths and a

Lie. The teacher has written three sentences about
2.Warm-up herself. Two are true and one is false; students take PowerPoint
1 minute to think which one is false and which is Ss - T 7 min.
activity Presentation
true. After the students have made their guesses,
they will be given a few minutes to think of three
sentences about themselves: one false and two true
about themselves. They can write them or they can
tell them. The colleagues have to guess.

3. Lead-in In order to set up the background for the lesson PowerPoint S-T 10 min.

1
 the teacher asks the students the following
question: “What did you do last weekend?” The
question is written on the presentation. While the
students answer the question, the teacher makes
sure they use the Past Simple correctly. For
example: “What did you do last weekend,
Emanuel?” “I made my homework.” The question
will be answered by other students as well and will
be written on the presentation, underlining the
verbs in the past form.

Then the teacher will ask another question,

using the Past Continuous: “What were you doing
yesterday at four o’clock in the evening?” Some
students will be able to answer the question using
the tense correctly. (e.g. “I was sleeping.”). But it
is likely that many of them fail to do so; some use
activity the simple past (e.g., “I watched TV.”), while Presentation T - Ss
others attempt to use the past continuous but omit
the auxiliary BE (e.g., “I watching TV.”). The
teacher writes the correct examples on the
presentation underlining the verb in the past
continuous tense.

Thus, example sentences of the simple past and

the past continuous are elicited from the students
and presented for comparison on the board.

The teacher asks the students to remember the

use of Past Simple and Past Continuous.

The teacher has emphasized on the PowerPoint

Presentation the differences between Past Simple
and Past Continuous in order for the students to
remember and correctly use them.

4.Presentation The teacher adds the following example PowerPoint T-T 7 min.
sentences for further emphasis of the distinction Presentation
between Past Simple and Continuous
S-T

The letters burnt in the fireplace.

The letters were burning in the fireplace.

Teacher shows the students a picture. Example

of conversation:

T: Look at this picture. Poor boy. This picture

was taken yesterday. Which sentence do you think
describes this picture better? Here the letters burnt

2
 in the fireplace? Or here the letters were burning
in the fireplace? In which sentences the action is
complete? Also, to which sentence do you think
you can add “but he managed to save some of the
letters”? The possible answers would be:

S: Ah, probably …“The letters were burning in

the fireplace”

T: Yes, exactly. When the letters burnt in the

fireplace can you save any?

S: No.

T: Why?

S: The letters are burnt, they are gone.

T: Yes, when the letters are burnt, the action is

complete. That is, the letters are gone now. But
when the letters were burning, the action was not
yet complete at least at that time. So, what is the
meaning of the simple past and the past
continuous? What’s the main difference?

S: Ah…finished or not?

T: Yes, exactly. When you describe a complete

action, you should use the simple past. But when
you describe an incomplete action at a certain time
in the past, you should use the past continuous.

The teacher will show the students the lyrics to

a song they are going to listen. Some verbs are put
in brackets. The students have to put the verbs in
Past Simple or Past Continuous. The students write
their answers in their notebooks. PowerPoint
5.Practice Presentation STT 7 min.
After some time the teacher will play the song
twice for the students to check their answers. Video

After the song is played two times the teacher

gives the correct answers and the students check
their answers.

Using the WORDWALL website with the Missing

Word method they have to put the correct word in
6.Production the blank spaces from the story: Wordwall Ss-T 5 min.
https://wordwall.net/ro/resource/7751687/winter-
story

7.Assigning The teacher forms 4 groups of 6 students. Each - T-Ss 1 min.

homework group is assigned a different story beginning. As
homework, they have to continue the story in their
own way using the Past Simple and Past
3
 Continuous.

Team A: “It rained all day yesterday and

everything and wet and ugly. My friends and I
decided to go shopping anyway. We took my dad’s
car without permission. I was driving to the mall
when a man suddenly jumped in front of my car…”

Team B: “It was a hot day of July. I decided to

go for a walk in the park. There were few people
there. I felt as someone was following me when I
heard someone fall behind me…”

Team C: “Last Friday, Tom and his friends

decided to play football. It was a cold day of
autumn but the weather didn’t bother them. The
children were having fun when Tom suddenly fell
and broke his glasses…”

Team D: “On the morning I left for London it

was raining. I felt sad but I had to go. When I
arrived to the airport I heard someone calling my
name. When I turned back …”

The teacher gives feedback by congratulating

8. Feedback the students and encouraging the less talkative ones - T 1 min.
to speak more.