Past Continuous — What Were You Doing?

Hook

Picture this: while you were sleeping last night, something happened outside your window. How would you tell someone about it in English?

Notice

“I was walking home when it started to rain.” — “What were you doing at 8pm last night?” — “They weren’t listening to the announcement.”

Rule

Past continuous (was/were + verb-ing) describes an action in progress at a specific past moment. Affirmative: I was working. Negative: I wasn’t working. Question: Were you working? It’s the tense we use to set the scene of a story — what was happening — before the main event.

Practice

  1. At 7am, I ______ (get) ready for work. Answer: was getting
  2. They ______ (not/watch) TV — they were asleep. Answer: weren’t watching
  3. ______ you ______ (study) when I called? Answer: Were, studying
  4. She ______ (cook) dinner at 6pm yesterday. Answer: was cooking
  5. What ______ you ______ (do) this time last year? Answer: were, doing

Connect

Build a few past continuous sentences of your own with our Sentence Builder.

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This lesson supports: I can use a series of phrases and sentences to describe past events in simple terms.

Azizul Hakim
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