These past continuous activities are designed to help students practise describing actions in progress at a specific time in the past, or setting the scene for another event. The past continuous is especially useful when talking about interrupted actions, background information, and time-specific routines.
What were you doing at … ?
Start with a simple contrast:
At 7.15 pm I had dinner.
At 7.15 pm I was having dinner.
Ask students to explain the difference. Then prompt them to ask each other:
What were you doing yesterday at 7 am?
What were you doing last Saturday evening?
This is a great warm-up to introduce the form and meaning of the tense.
Background information
Explain that the past continuous is often used to give background information before introducing a main event in the past simple. It’s also commonly used when a long action is interrupted by a shorter one.
I was making breakfast when the phone rang.
She was walking to work when she saw the accident.
Give students a few open-ended sentence stems to complete:
- I was driving to work when …
- I was shopping when …
- I was talking to my friend when …
Encourage them to share their sentences in pairs or groups.
What Were You Doing When…?
This works well as a speaking activity around big cultural or historical events.
Ask:
Do you remember where you were when…?
What were you doing when you heard the news?
Examples:
- 9/11
- When the Berlin Wall came down
- A major crime story
- A sporting victory
Students can describe:
- What they were doing
- How they found out
- What happened next
This personalises the past continuous and links it to memory and emotion.
Alibi
Alibi is a classic ESL activity for practising the past continuous in a fun, roleplay-style format. See the Alibi post.
Past Continuous in a Tense Review Board Game
The past continuous is included in the tense review board game that also covers present simple, past simple, present perfect, and future forms.
Players land on squares that prompt them to form sentences or answer questions in a specific tense. This helps reinforce how the past continuous contrasts with other tenses. You can find out more about printable ESL board games here.
Teaching Online
You can find online past continuous activities and more at our online-teaching focused site LearnHip.com.