Unit 6
Past continuous tense
The past continuous tense tells us what was happening in the past. To form this tense we use the helping verb was / were with the present participle of the main verb:
helping verb
main verb
helping verb
main verb
A dog was barking .
People were getting up.
6 Complete these sentences with verbs in the past continuous tense. Example: We were waiting (wait) for the bus.
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1 By the time I got home I ________ (feel) hungry. 2 Mom ________ (prepare) lunch for the family. 3 My brothers and sisters ________ (do) the washing up. 4 The dog ________ (run) around in the garden. 5 We ________ (plan) to go shopping in the afternoon. 6 It ________ (rain) so we stayed inside.
7 Everyone ________ (look) forward to the weekend. 8 My friends and I ________ (hope) to go to the beach. 7 Picture the scene in the playground of your school at break time. Write five sentences describing what you saw. Use the past continuous tense. Example: Some of the boys were playing football. Word work: prefixes
The following prefixes mean ‘not’: ‘dis-’ ‘il-’ ‘in-’ ‘ir-’ ‘un-’ dis used è not used ir responsible è not responsible
1 Add prefixes to the words below. Copy and complete the table.
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legal
perfect
obedient complete
friendly regular
active logical
possible
responsible
grateful
appear
dis-
il-
im-
in-
ir-
un-
dishonest
illegible
impatient
incorrect
irrelevant
unusual
2 Choose one word from each column in the table. Write it in a sentence of your own.
• Past continuous tense: Practise by asking individual and pairs of students to mime different actions, e.g. eat an apple, sing a song. Ask questions such as What was Jack doing? What were Kim and Anna doing? Students answer: He was eating an apple. They were singing a song. • Exercise 7: Students should write sentences about what they saw ‘in their mind’s eye’.
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