KS3 · Spanish · Year 9
Extended reading (Don Quijote): imperfect continuous
Past routines and past events: imperfect tense
Learn it. Recall it. Make it stick.
IllumED Slides
IllumED · 1/10
Your learning goal
I can use the imperfect continuous to talk about what I and other people were doing in the past.
1 of 10
Extended reading (Don Quijote): imperfect continuous: slides adapted from the imported teaching text; recall questions created from its keywords, learning points and common mistakes. Self-check practice, with no automatic grading or XP. Answers stay on this page and are cleared when you leave.
Original teaching resources
The original illustrated PowerPoint is available as well as the IllumED text slides. It retains the publisher’s design and credits.
Download original PowerPoint ↓What you’ll learn
I can use the imperfect continuous to talk about what I and other people were doing in the past.
Key learning points
- Words stressed on the penultimate syllable don’t have an accent if they end in a vowel, -n or -s.
- The imperfect continuous describes what someone was doing, e.g. 'estaba(s) caminando por la montaña.'
- The preterite tense is used for completed actions in the past.
- We can give extra information about when something happened using the relative pronoun 'cuando'.
- We use 'cuando' + preterite to show a short action interrupts a longer, ongoing action.
Words to know
- imperfect continuous
- verb tense used to talk about ongoing actions in the past, what was happening
- preterite
- a tense used for events completed in the past
- cuando
- relative pronoun meaning 'when'
Common mistakes
When I talk about a past action I must always use the preterite.
The preterite is used for actions that are completed and finished in the past. The imperfect is used for ongoing, habitual, or background actions in the past - things that were happening or used to happen.
For parents, carers and teachers
- The teacher can show students a short clip of the section with the windmills, e.g. an animated story, or a clip or images of the windmills themselves.