[Manuela]

Schools were closed in Athens for five days due to snowfall so I couldn't try outyour game sooner. Anyway it worked OK. I started by sticking 16 flashcards with actions (read, argue, play the piano, fish etc) on the board. I quickly went through them and asked them what each of the persons in the card was doing, using the present continuous tense. Then I collected the cards and asked students to remember what the person in the first card was doing, what the person in the second card was doing and so on. I encouraged them to use the past continuous, after quickly explaining how it is formed. I only had 2 cards exemplifying the plural form of the tense: "They were arguing" "They were eating".

Then I played the FREEZE game. I followed your instructions but instead of showing students the actions I showed them a flashcard. So there was no peeking problem since only one group could see the flashcard the others could only see its backside even if they peeked. It worked fine.

The following class I brought to class a broken plastic spoon, a soft rubberball
and the flashcards. I wrote on the board
"Who broke the spoon? You broke it!"
"It wasn't me. I was cooking."
I gave each of the students a flashcard(I used Mesmarks wonderful cards and they enjoyed holding one) and told them to prepare defending themselves. Then I threw the rubberball to one of them and said accusingly:
You broke it" The student answered giving as an alibi the action on the card.
I collected the flashcard that had been used so it was easy for the students to pick out a person who hadn't had a turn, to whom they should throw the ball. They enjoyed the drill and started acting out their roles as accuser and blameless accused. THey also wanted to know who had broken the spoon. So when they had all given their excuses I let them accuse me and I admitted I had done it. I really enjoyed my lesson, some of the students sounded so convincing.


Couldn't we maybe collect in this thread other games and activities used to practise past continuous/progressive?