ELT365 · Day 205 — Narrative Writing: Past Tenses in Context

Idea — Narrative writing requires coordinating past simple (sequence), past continuous (background), and past perfect (earlier events). Teaching these forms through narrative gives context isolated exercises cannot.

Example — “I was walking home (past cont.) when I saw (past simple) a wallet. Someone had dropped it (past perfect).” The three forms earn their place in the story.

Try — Give learners a four-panel picture sequence. Ask them to write the story using all three past forms. Collect: which form causes most errors?

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