Listening and Speaking

Narrative Tenses

Warm-up:
Read the following paragraph and try to name the tenses underlined. What job do
these tenses do in a narrative?

One day I was lying on the beach, the sun was shining and people were just having a
good time when suddenly I heard a scream. The body of a man had drifted ashore. A
shark had eaten half his leg. Everyone got out of the water as quickly as they could
and Ive never swum on that beach again.



I was lying / the sun was shining / people were just having

! Tense name _______________________________

! Use of tense _____________________________________

I heard / Everyone got out / they could

! Tense name _______________________________

! Use of tense ______________________________________

had drifted / had eaten

! Tense name _______________________________

! Use of tense ______________________________________

Ive never swum

! Tense name _______________________________

! Use of tense ______________________________________

Instructor: Joe Milan Jr.

Listening and Speaking

Narrative Tenses

2
Uses of Narrative Tenses

Complete the following paragraphs with the correct tense name.


We use the _____________________ tense to talk about background actions or actions that
went on for a long time in the past. An example of this tense is:



We us the ______________________ tense to talk about the main actions of a story in the past.
We can continue to use this tense as long as the actions in the story are told in the same
order as they happened in real life. An example of this tense is:



We use the _____________________ tense for actions that happened before the main story
started or that are told out of sequence compared to the order of the actions in real life.
An example of this tense is:





We use the ____________________ tense to talk about the results or consequences of the story.
An example of this tense is:



3 Use the rules in the paragraphs above to fill the gaps in the following text.

The Story of my Scar

This story happened while I __________________ (live) in France. One day I
_______________(walk) down the street, the sun ____________ (shine) and the birds
___________________ (sing) and everyone____________________ (feel) very happy. Anyway,
suddenly I _______________(meet) my friend Max. I _________(be) very surprised because
Max _______________(be) Italian, in fact I _______________(meet) him two years earlier in
Italy. We __________________(decide) ____________ (have) a coffee so we ________________ (go) to
a coffee shop. We both ___________ (order) a drink and while we
____________________(wait) for the coffee Max ______________________(show) me his new knife
which he _____________________(buy) earlier that day. Unfortunately, while he
____________________(show) me the knife his hand ____________________(slip) and he
__________________ (cut) my finger. I ____________________ (have) a scar on my finger ever
since.

Instructor: Joe Milan Jr.

Listening and Speaking

Narrative Tenses

4 Talk to a partner about three important events in your life to date.

Make some notes in the chart below. Use the Past Simple for the event. For the
background notes, you can use the narrative tenses we have looked at.

Date & Important event
Background notes

Instructor: Joe Milan Jr.