To Catch a Thief

Narrative tenses practice

Activity information

 Objective: Practice past simple and

progressive/continuous

 Level: Pre-intermediate students

 ACTIVITY: Write a short newspaper article about a

robbery
Procedure
 Tell students they are going to write
a newspaper article about a robbery
in a public place

 Elicit the kind of information the

students think they would need to
write the article and write questions
up on the board as they give you
ideas.

 Focus: students creating the content

of the story and not an exercise in
grammar.
 Write these questions on one side of the board and leave
them there as students will need them again in stage 5 of
this activity. Typical questions could be:

 Where was the robbery?

 When did it take place?
 How many robbers were there?
 Were they wearing disguises?
 Were they armed?
 What did the workers and customers do?
 Was anybody injured?
 What did the robbers take?
 How did they get away?
 Who called the police?
 When did the police arrive?
 Have the robbers been caught yet?
 Help students out with your
own ideas if they are not very
inspired at this point.

 In pairs or small groups ask

students to answer each
question using their
imagination.

 Make bilingual dictionaries

available and move round the
class assisting with vocabulary.
 Once the groups have the basic information for their
story, you can discuss the organization of the text.

 As this is a newspaper article, talk about how the first

paragraph would contain a summary about the incident,
and the rest of the article would tell the story in full.

 Of course, the most important facts may vary from story

to story but would most likely be what the robbers took,
whether anyone was injured and whether the robbers
have been caught.

 Get students to show their plan by drawing a box for

each paragraph and putting key words in.
 Ask students to write their texts and tell them that they
should focus on communicating their story clearly and on
using the past simple and past progressive/continuous
correctly.

 At pre-intermediate level students can’t be expected to

write a perfect newspaper article but by giving them
achievable aims within the task the teacher needs only
mark the text against the criteria given and will not need to
correct every mistake as this could be very demotivating.

 Give students a time limit of about 15 to 20 minutes for

this task.

 Students now swap round their finished texts with other

groups. The new group reads the article and answers the
questions on the board that were produced in stage 1 of
this activity.
Follow-up activity
 In open class ask students to
- Talk about events that have been happening recently in the
news.

• You may want to ask them to choose a current event to talk

about briefly in the next class individually.

• Depending on your curriculum and the interest of the students,

you could get students to plan an article on a real news event in
a future lesson. Take in the finished articles. You can correct the
use of the past simple and progressive/continuous and give them
a grade or comment as to how clearly they told their story.
 CATEGORY 4 3 2 1
ORGANIZATION Information is very Information is Information is The information
organized with organized with organized, but appears to be
well-constructed well-constructed paragraphs are disorganized
paragraphs and paragraphs. not well-
subheadings. constructed.

QUALITY OF Information clearly Information clearly Information clearly Information has little
INFORMATION relates to the relates to the relates to the or nothing to do
main topic. It main topic. It main topic. No with the main
includes several provides 1-2 details and/or topic.
supporting supporting examples are
details and/or details and/or given.
examples. examples.
PARAGRAPH All paragraphs include Most paragraphs Paragraphs included Paragraphing
CONSTRUCTION introductory include related structure was not
sentence, introductory information but clear and
explanations or sentence, were typically sentences were
details, and explanations or not constructed not typically
concluding details, and well. related within the
sentence. concluding paragraphs.
sentence.

AMOUNT OF All topics are All topics are All topics are One or more topics
INFORMATION addressed and addressed and addressed, and were not
all questions most questions most questions addressed.
answered with at answered with at answered with 1
least 2 sentences least 2 sentences sentence about
about each. about each. each.

USE OF NARRATIVE Uses clearly and in Uses narrative tenses Uses just a few Do not make use of
TENSES the right in some sentences in narrative tenses.
moments the moments but which narrative
correct tenses. forgets to do it tenses are
sometimes. included.
Links

 http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/activitie
s/catch-a-thief-past-simple-past-continuous-
practice

 http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?ts=12
90410602