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Lesson planB265 minsNew. New: checked automatically for level, grammar, facts and originality; a teacher's review is still to come. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
Stranded! Past perfect continuous
Students practise the past perfect continuous to explain delays and travel problems, then write about a journey that went wrong.
Past perfect continuous · Travel · Transport
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Plan at a glance
Aims
- Use past perfect continuous accurately
- Learn and use 8 words and phrases in one set: Travel problems
- Read for detail: twenty-three hours at the airport
- Writing task: a journey that went wrong
Stages · 65 min
- 5 minLead-in: Pairs talk about travel and share ideas with the class.
- 10 minVocabulary: Ex. 1
- 5 minLanguage focus: Go through the grammar notes together and check understanding.
- 5 minControlled practice: Ex. 2
- 10 minAccuracy practice: Ex. 3–4
- 15 minReading: Ex. 5
- 15 minWriting: Ex. 6
Printables
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Download all (ZIP, 2 PDFs)Grammar notes
Past perfect continuous: had been + -ing
- Use it for an activity that continued up to a moment in the past: By the time the flight was called, we had been waiting for five hours.
- Use it to explain a past situation or result: She was exhausted because she had been driving all night.
- Questions and negatives: How long had you been queuing? We hadn't been travelling for long when the car broke down.
Continuous or simple?
- Past perfect continuous = the activity and how long it lasted: I had been writing emails all morning.
- Past perfect simple = a completed action or a number: I had written twelve emails by lunchtime.
- State verbs (know, believe, own, like) don't usually take the continuous: We had known each other for years (not had been knowing).
Study tips
- When you tell a story about a bad day, explain why things happened: I was hungry because I hadn't eaten since breakfast; my feet hurt because I'd been standing for hours.
- Notice for and since with the past perfect continuous: had been waiting for three hours, had been raining since the morning.
Glossary
- Travel problems8 items
Complete the exercises, then check your answers.
1
Travel trouble: vocabulary
Match each word with its meaning. There is one extra meaning.
Tap an item…
…then its match
2
What had been happening?
Complete each sentence with the verb in brackets. Use the past perfect continuous or the past perfect simple.
- a
By the time our flight was finally called, we (wait) at the gate for over five hours.
- b
The roads were flooded because it (rain) all night.
- c
Tom was exhausted when he arrived. He (drive) since six in the morning.
- d
By midnight, the airline (cancel) every remaining flight.
- e
We (know) each other for years before we went travelling together.
- f
How long had you (stand) in the queue when the desk finally opened?
- g
Maya's phone was dead because she (use) it all day to check the train times.
3
Key-word transformations
Complete the second sentence so that it means the same as the first. Use the word given. Use between two and five words, including the word given.
- a
We started waiting at nine, and the bus finally arrived at midday.
BEEN
When the bus finally arrived, we three hours.
Use 2–5 words, including the word given.
- b
Sara was tired because she spent the whole night on a train.
TRAVELLING
Sara was tired because she all night.
Use 2–5 words, including the word given.
- c
I had a headache because I was looking at a screen for hours.
HAD
I had a headache because I at a screen for hours.
Use 2–5 words, including the word given.
- d
It started raining in the morning, and it was still raining when we landed that evening.
ALL
When we landed, it day.
Use 2–5 words, including the word given.
- e
They queued for two hours, and then the desk closed.
FOR
They two hours when the desk closed.
Use 2–5 words, including the word given.
4
Find and correct the mistake
Each sentence has one mistake. Write the correction.
- a
We had been waited for hours when the gate finally opened.
- b
She had been knowing the pilot for years before they worked together.
- c
By the time we arrived, the plane has been sitting on the runway for an hour.
- d
How long you had been waiting when the announcement came?
- e
The airline made an announce that all flights were cancelled.
- f
He was out of breath because he had been ran to catch the bus.
5
Read: twenty-three hours at the airport
Read the text. Are the sentences true, false or not given?
Lena Marsh had been looking forward to her sister's wedding in Lisbon for months. Her flight from Harwick was due to leave at 7.15 on a Friday evening, so she arrived early, checked in her luggage and found a seat near the gate. At first the screens showed a short delay. By ten o'clock, the passengers had been waiting for almost three hours, and the airline staff still couldn't say why. Then came the announcement that nobody wanted to hear: the flight had been cancelled because of a technical problem, and there were no more flights to Lisbon that night. Lena was one of about two hundred passengers stranded at the airport. A long queue formed at the service desk, and she had been standing in it for over an hour when she realised that her phone was almost dead. She had been using it all evening to send updates to her family. Some passengers shouted at the staff. Lena felt frustrated, but she tried to stay calm. In the end, the airline put everyone on a flight at six the next evening. Lena spent the night on a row of plastic seats, exhausted but unable to sleep. She landed in Lisbon two hours before the ceremony, still wearing the clothes she had been travelling in.
- a
Lena's flight was planned for a Friday morning.
- b
By ten o'clock, the staff had explained the reason for the delay.
- c
Lena's phone battery was low because she had been using it a lot.
- d
Lena shouted at the airline staff.
- e
Lena's sister was worried that Lena would miss the wedding.
- f
Lena arrived in Lisbon in time for the wedding.
- g
Lena had flown with this airline before.
6
Write: a journey that went wrong
Write a short story.
Write about a journey that went wrong, for you or for someone you know (120–150 words). What happened? How long had you been travelling or waiting? How did you feel, and why? Use the past perfect continuous at least three times. Word box: delay · cancel · stranded · exhausted · queue · announcement · passenger · frustrated Example: By the time the train finally left, we had been sitting on the platform for two hours. Everyone was frustrated, because nobody had made an announcement.
Suggested minimum: 120 words
0 words · aim for at least 120
Spotted a mistake in this lesson?· tell us the exercise and item
Revise with a game
This lesson's own words and questions. Play on your own, or in teams on the classroom screen.
- Step UpAnswer the lesson's questions to climb to the top.
- Pair UpMatch the lesson's words to their meanings against the clock.
- SnapA word and a meaning: do they go together? Answer fast.
- Fix ItFind the mistake in each sentence, then correct it.
- Quiz BoardTeams choose questions worth 100 to 500 points.
- Retro arcadeWord Invaders, Word Snake, Word Maze and Word Crossing: classic arcade games with the lesson's words.
Glossary
The 8 words and phrases this lesson teaches, in one set.
Travel problems
- delay
- a time when something happens later than planned
- cancel
- to decide that a planned event or journey will not happen
- stranded
- unable to leave a place, for example because there is no transport
- exhausted
- extremely tired
- queue
- a line of people waiting for something
- announcement
- a public statement that gives people information
- passenger
- a person who is travelling in a vehicle but is not driving it
- frustrated
- annoyed because you cannot do or change something
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