1B Past Perfect Simple and Past Perfect Continuous
1B Past Perfect Simple and Past Perfect Continuous
1B Past Perfect Simple and Past Perfect Continuous
Janine loved learning new languages and she 1had always dreamed / had always been dreaming of being an
interpreter. After she 2had finished / had been finishing her Russian degree at university, she got a job as an
interpreter for a local travel company, TravelFast. But after a few years, she began to get a little bored. She
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had worked / had been working for TravelFast for five years when she saw an advertisement for a film
company. They were looking for Russian interpreters. By five o’clock that afternoon she 4had made / had been
making a video of herself speaking Russian and English and the next morning she sent it to the company.
She 5had almost forgotten / had almost been forgetting about the whole thing when, three months later,
she got a call from the director. He 6had looked / had been looking for an actress to play the part of a spy in
his latest movie, and he thought that Janine would be perfect. Janine got the part and within three years she
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had become / had been becoming one of the most highly paid actresses in Hollywood.
2 Complete the sentences with the past perfect simple or past perfect continuous form of the verbs below.
already start always know love never have not study play talk watch
3 SPEAKING Complete these sentences with your own ideas. Put all the pieces of paper into a bag. Then take
turns to pick out one piece of paper and read out the sentence. Can the class guess who wrote them?
Exercise 1
• Give each student a handout and ask them to work
individually or in pairs to do the exercise.
• Remind them to think about whether the activity
being described was completed before a specific time
in the past or took a long time before a specific time in
the past. If necessary, revise state verbs with the class
first.
• Check answers with the class.
KEY
1 had always dreamed
2 had finished
3 had been working
4 had made
5 had almost forgotten
6 had been looking
7 had become
Exercise 2
• Students choose the correct verb and then put it into
the past perfect simple or continuous to complete the
sentences.
• Check answers with the class.
KEY
1 had already started
2 had been talking
3 had been playing
4 had always known
5 had loved
6 had watched
7 had never had
8 hadn’t been studying
Exercise 3
• Students work individually to complete the sentences
with their own ideas. Tell them that they don’t have to
write factual sentences about their own lives – they
can make up interesting facts as long as they are
logical and grammatically correct.
• Students then tear off each sentence strip, fold it up
and place it in a bag or container at the front of the
class. Invite individual students to come up to the bag,
pick out a strip of paper and read it out to the class.
The class guesses who wrote the sentence. If you have
a large class, you could also put students into groups to
play this game.