ESL Worksheets
Locked out! - Cut up story - narrative tenses practice
Worksheet description
Story about a woman getting locked out of her flat. Uses past simple, past continuous and past perfect simple tenses. Includes ordering and gap-fill tasks, and event sequencing with cards to highlight the difference between the chronological order of events and the order in which they are mentioned in the story.
Four sheets including complete text for reference.
Instructions
There are 16 strips, which can be reduced to 13 by removing those marked *, or increased by splitting longer sentences.
Cut up the strips.
Each student gets one strip.
Students sit or stand in a circle.
They then read and discuss their strips and agree on the order of the story.
They should find the first strip first.
Students who hold subsequent strips should then move and stand or sit to the left of the first student so that they are sitting in the same order as the story.
For this activity to work, note the following:
* They should use English only for all parts of the task.
* They should not show each other their strips. (There is a strong temptation to do this!)
* They should not split into smaller groups.
* Avoid giving 'key' strips to weak or quiet students.
* The ordering part can usually be done in 10 - 15 minutes.
The gap-fill activity can be done afterwards, allowing students to reflect on the use of tenses.
The events cards on page 3 can be used to show how the chronological order of events differs from the order in which the events are mentioned in the text.
Download locked out! - cut up story - narrative tenses practice (PDF)
