Mastering Past Tenses: Simple, Continuous, and Perfect

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 2

Mastering Past Tenses: Simple, Continuous, and Perfect

Learning Objective

At the end of the lesson, you will be able to understand and correctly use the past simple, past continuous, and present perfect tenses.

What do you already know about past simple, past continuous, and present perfect?

Past Simple

Describes completed actions in the past. Often used with time expressions like yesterday, last week, ago.

Past Continuous

Expresses actions that were ongoing or in progress at a specific time in the past.

Present Perfect

Shows that an action happened at an unspecified time before now. Often used with 'just', 'already', 'yet'.

Past Simple vs. Past Continuous

Highlight the difference between completed actions (past simple) and actions in progress (past continuous) in the past.

Past Simple vs. Present Perfect

Distinguish between actions completed at a specific time in the past (past simple) and actions with relevance to the present (present perfect).

Past Continuous vs. Present Perfect

Differentiate between actions in progress at a specific time in the past (past continuous) and actions with present relevance (present perfect).

Practice: Identifying Tenses

Provide sentences and ask students to identify the correct tense (past simple, past continuous, or present perfect).

Application in Writing

Instruct students to write short paragraphs using all three tenses to describe past events and experiences.

Review and Recap

Summarize the key points and differences between the past simple, past continuous, and present perfect tenses.

Write down 3 things you learned in this lesson.

Have students enter three things they learned in this lesson. With this they can indicate their own learning efficiency of this lesson.

Write down 2 things you want to know more about.

Here, students enter two things they would like to know more about. This not only increases involvement, but also gives them more ownership.

Ask 1 question about something you haven't quite understood yet.

The students indicate here (in question form) with which part of the material they still have difficulty. For the teacher, this not only provides insight into the extent to which the students understand/master the material, but also a good starting point for the next lesson.