Instructors Page
Simple Past
Life Stories
Activity type: Chain Story
Level: High-Beginning / Low-
Intermediate
Purpose: Students practice using past
verb forms by telling a story about a
persons life. One student begins the
story, and others continue in a logical
fashion. To tell the story, students
randomly select words and phrases that
encourage them to use simple past
forms of regular and irregular verbs.
Set-up: Small groups or pairs
Time: 5 minutes to prepare / 15 minutes
to do the activity
Materials Preparation:
1. Make one copy of the Students Page
for each group (or pair).
2. Be sure each group (or pair) has
scissors for cutting out the cards.
Alternatively, you may cut out the cards
ahead of time. Be sure to keep the set of
cards for each group separate.
Procedure
1. As a warm-up, have students think
about important events in their life and
then write down a few verbs they would
need to tell their life story. Put some of
these verbs on the board (you may also
include verbs such as grew up,
attended, moved, learned, and married).
Ask volunteers to make sentences using
these verbs. (I grew up in Colombia. My
family moved to California.)
2. Pass out one Students Page to each
group, or a set of cards if you have
already cut them out. Have them cut out
the word cards if necessary. Ask groups
to put the cards face up in a pile that all
group members can reach.
Grammar and Beyond Communicative Activities
3. Tell students that they are going to
tell the story of a persons life. They can
use events from their own lives for
ideas. To begin, one student in each
group picks up a card and uses the
word to start a story. The next student
picks up a card and uses that word to
continue the story in a logical way, and
so on. Tell students to use the simple
past when possible.
4. Model the activity by picking a card
from one groups pile and using the
word in a sentence. Have a volunteer
choose the next card and continue the
story. Make sure that the student has
used your first sentence as the basis for
his or her sentence and has used a
correct simple past verb form.
5. Have students continue until all the
cards are used up. Ask students to save
their cards for a follow-up activity. Walk
around and make sure students are
using correct simple past verb forms in
their sentences.
6. When everyone has finished, have
volunteer groups try to remember their
story and retell it to the class using the
cards they have saved.
Answers:
Correct verb forms:
go went
come came
enjoy enjoyed
move moved
grow up grew up
study studied
work worked
get got
be was
Follow-up
Have students write a paragraph about
their own lives or the life of a person
they know using the word cards and
simple past verb forms.
Cambridge University Press 2012 Photocopiable
 Students Page

Simple Past | Chain Story

Life Stories
1 Work with a group. Cut out the cards. Put the cards face up in the center of the group.
2 One person chooses a card and uses the word or words to start a story about
someones life. Keep the card.
3 The next person chooses a card and continues the story. Keep the card.
4 Continue until all cards have been used and the story is over.
Example:
Student A: In 2009, Anne Roberts got a job.
Student B: She worked for a landscaping company with her friend Michael.
Student C: They really enjoyed their jobs.

go come enjoy

school English job

move grow up study

work get be

Grammar and Beyond Communicative Activities Cambridge University Press 2012 Photocopiable