KS4 · Spanish · Year 10
¿Qué estaba pasando? Imperfect continuous, preterite interruptions
My neighbourhood: conflictos
Learn it. Recall it. Make it stick.
IllumED Slides
IllumED · 1/10
Your learning goal
I can use the imperfect continuous and preterite tenses in the context of a conflict.
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¿Qué estaba pasando? Imperfect continuous, preterite interruptions: 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 and preterite tenses in the context of a conflict.
Key learning points
- The Spanish Civil War happened between 1936 and 1939. Franco became a dictator and ruled Spain until his death in 1975.
- The imperfect continuous is for ongoing past actions; form it with the imperfect of ‘estar’ and the present participle.
- In the imperfect continuous, reflexive pronouns can go before the 1st verb or be attached after the present participle.
- The preterite tense is used to talk about events completed in the past.
- When 'cuando' indicates an interruption to ongoing past actions, the preterite tense is generally used afterwards.
Words to know
- imperfect continuous
- verb tense used to talk about ongoing actions in the past, what 'was happening'
- reflexive pronoun
- used to indicate doing something to yourself, words like 'myself' and 'yourself'
- preterite
- verb tense used for events completed in the past
Common mistakes
'Estaba' only means 'I was' in the imperfect.
'Estaba' means 'I was' but also 'she, he, it was' in the imperfect.
For parents, carers and teachers
- Students can create their own testimony inspired by the real children's drawings from the exhibition. They can use both tenses to describe what they were doing when the war started or ended, just like María Magdalena, offering a powerful way to reflect on how conflict affects children.