“Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)“: Past Continuous lesson plan

Many textbooks use strangely sad or even frightening text fragments to introduce the Past Continuous tense: for example, Headway has bank robbery stories from newspapers, and English File writes about a girl who loses her fortune.

I believe that grammar can and should be introduced through positive examples. One of them is Jerome K. Jerome’s “Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)”.

Lesson plan:

1. Warm-up
2. Lead in
3. Grammar presentation
4. Grammar practice
5. Freer practice

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1. Warm-up

Have you ever travelled by boat? Imagine we are going on a boat trip. Let’s play the Snowball game.

2. Lead in

Today we are going to read an amazing and humorous book by Jerome K. Jerome “Three men in a boat (to say nothing of the dog)”.

This book is very popular in the UK and has a lot of video versions in different languages. We are going to watch a video about the book but first, read the word and say what it can mean:

Watch the video (00:32–1:13) about the book and choose the correct options:

1. Jerome K. Jerome wrote «The three men in a boat (to say nothing of the dog)» in ____.
a) 1888
b) 1898
c) 1889

2. Jerome and his friends made a journey along _____ river.
a) The Nile
b) the Thames
c) the Mississippi

3. The only illness the friends had was a severe case of a benign _______.
а) headache
b) stomachache
c) hypochondria

4. The journey was _____ miles from Kingston to Oxford.
а) 16
b) 96
c) 19

Answer the questions:

See also:

Speaking activities to practice Past Simple, Past Continuous, Past Perfect

Past Simple/Past Continuous (Test)

3. Grammar presentation

Look at the photo. What are the men doing? What do you think they are talking about?

Read the extract from the first chapter of “Three men in a boat (to say nothing of the dog)” by Jerome K. Jerome and answer the questions.

Glossary for the text you might need: 

• seedy — slightly unwell
• giddiness — a state when a person feels dizzy
• liver — a large organ in the body that cleans the blood

Look at the italic verbs in the highlighted sentence of the text and answer the questions:

1. Are the italic verbs describing actions that happened …?
a) after Mrs. Poppets knocked at the door
b) at the same time as she knocked at the door

2. Are they describing actions that …
a) have finished before the knock
b) are not finished but are interrupted by the knock

This is Past Continuous Tense.

A. Fill in gaps with the words from the box:

We use Past Continuous Tense to describe an action in progress at a specific [moment] in the past. This moment can be shown by…

1. the [time] expression (We were having dinner at 7 o’clock yesterday),
2. another [interrupting] action (Mrs. Poppets knocked at the door exactly at the moment when George was telling and showing us how terribly he felt at night),
3. the [beginning moment] of a story (We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were).

We use Past Continuous Tense to describe a not-finished action.

B. Write the correct forms:

We form Past Continuous Tense:

4. Grammar practice

Write the verbs in Past Continuous Tense.

1. The friends __________ (have dinner) when Jerome suggested a boat trip.
2. While George, Harris and Jerome __________ (discuss)  their trip, Mrs Poppets brought a newspaper.
3. They __________ (pack) their baggage when it started to rain.
4. George __________ (sleep) in the bank, as usual, when they woke him up and told him to go home.
5. When George and Jerome __________ (sit) and __________ (look)  at the beautiful Moon, they heard a strange sound.
6. At 3 p.m. on Saturday Harris and Jerome __________ (wait) for George to join them.
7. While Uncle Podger __________ (lift) the picture, he dropped it.
8. When he __________ (look) for his handkerchief, it was in his pocket.
9. When Uncle Podger __________ (try) to hammer a nail into the wall, he hit his thumb.

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5. Freer practice

What about you? Read and answer the questions.

This and other fun stories from Jerome K. Jerome will help students understand the rule of Past Continuous. Have fun lessons!