Be a Volunteer!

Complete the text with the words in the box.

by
by while
while after
after before
before
when
when in in
(1)
_________________ January last year, schoolchildren in the UK raised money for cancer.
The organizers called the campaign “The Big Hush”. The children’s friends and families
sponsored them to be silent for one week. The children didn’t speak (2)
_______________ they
were working in class. They were also silent (3)
________________ they were playing in the
playground! (4)
_______________ the week, they collected the money that their friends and
families had sponsored. They counted the money (5)
_____________ handing it in to the charity. (6)

____________ February, they had managed to collect thousands of pounds – without saying a
word.

Read Helen’s story. Complete the text with the Past Simple or Past Continuous form
of the verbs
in brackets.

Make a difference... Be a
volunteer!
I (1)
_______________________________ (work) as a
teacher in Edinburgh when I (2)

____________________________ (decide) to do voluntary

work.
I (3)
_________________________________ (like) my job in Scotland, but I (4)
_________________________
(look) for a new challenge. So I got some information about a charity organization for English
teachers abroad.
After my training in Britain, I (5)
_____________________________________ (go) to Vietnam. On the plane I
(6)
_______________________ (meet) another volunteer teacher called Max, and we (7)

____________________ (become) good friends. We (8)

together at the weekends while we
The work wasn’t easy, but I
_____________________________ (visit) a lot of places
(9)
______________________________ (live) in Hanoi.
(10)
________________________ (have) a great time while I (11)

__________________________________(teach) at Hanoi high school. My students (12)

______________________________ (prepare) for their university entrance exam, so they were very
studious. Their English was better than my Vietnamese!