Past Continuous Prompts: What were you doing…?

The downloadable resource comes with an online and offline version. Let’s start with the offline version. Print and cut out the cards from the PDF below:

There are two types of cards: “MOMENT” cards which indicate a moment in the past and “TENSE” cards which indicate which tense(s) to use. Here are two ways to use these cards:

Simple version:

For this variant, do not use the “TENSE” cards. Shuffle the “MOMENT” cards and place them in the center of the table face down so everyone can reach. Choose a student to start the game. They draw the first card and read it out loud.

For example: “on your summer holidays, five years ago”

Then, they ask a question to the other students based on the content of the card. “What do you think I was doing on my summer holidays, five years ago?” You can leave the choice of response completely open or limit them to past simple or past continuous responses depending on their level or what you are studying.

In turns, the other students make some guesses or propose some ideas to respond orally to the question posed by the first student. I recommend that you be strict with your students with the tense they use in their responses. If it is a past simple question, it should have a past simple response, etc.

Examples of possible responses for:
“What do you think I was doing on my summer holidays, five years ago?”

I think you went surfing in Hawaii.

You probably got stuck at the airport in London and found love.

I think you were staying with your aunt in Indiana visiting family.

Etc.

Then, the student who asked the question in the first place chooses their favorite response (based on their choice: the closest to the truth, the funniest, the weirdest, etc.) and this person earns two points (keep track of the score on the board). The question asker also chooses their least favorite response and that person loses a point. Finally, they can say (if they want) what they were really doing during that time or at that moment.

Go clockwise around the table and have the next student draw a card and read it out loud, etc… Play as many rounds as you’d like. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

For online classes:

We have created another PDF and set of JPGs that regroup the game into landscape format so you can play the game more easily with your online lessons. There is less freedom because the choice of tense is already constrained, but it’s much easier to share with your students.

Advanced version:

The game is exactly like the simple version except for this time, shuffle the “TENSE” cards and put them in a pile face down next to the “MOMENT” cards.

Each turn, a student draws a “MOMENT” and a “TENSE” card. This card will constrain the other students’ responses to the drawn tense(s).

There you go, simple, but with a large potential for laughter and creativity if your students let themselves open up a bit.