ELT Network Lesson Plans

Used to - TBL
Speaking, Listening
Created by: BCHK ELT Network Team
Class Type

Secondary

Aim(s)

To introduce used to to talk about past habits/routines

Students tell a partner about their own childhood using used to.

Time

50 minutes

Assumed Knowledge

Daily routine/activity vocab

Past simple

Materials/Preparation

A prepared text for your to read to the class (see example below)
A picture of you as a young child
Some overhead transparencies and pens enough for two per group
An overhead projector

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Used to - PPP

We are registered in England as a charity.

British Council

Procedure
1. Generate interest in the topic by asking students if they were naughty when they were

younger, and asking them to say whether they think teachers in the school were naughty as
children.
2. Put students into small groups (maximum of four in a group). Ask students to think of
something naughty they did when they were younger and tell each other the story.
3. Students then decide whose story was the naughtiest and write it down on an OHT.
4. Monitor the groups as they are writing and help with any language questions.
5. Groups choose one/two people to present the naughtiest story from their group to the class.
6. If youve got some, show students some pictures of you as a young child. Ask students
what they think you were like as a child, what naughty things did you do?
7. Read your pre-prepared text twice. Ask students to make notes about the bad things you
did.
8. In their groups get students to compare their notes about how bad you were.
9. Displays tape-script (either on OHT or as handouts) and ask students to pick out examples
of how they know youre speaking about the past.
10. As students pick out examples sentences and either underline them on the OHT or write
them on the board.
11. If students only picked out past simple sentences so far encourage them to look for other
ways of talking about the past and elicit used to or didnt use to. Underline them on the
OHT or write them on the board.
12. Get students to think about why you used used to in some sentences and past simple in
others. Ask some concept questions about the use of used to to check their understanding.
For example,
a. is she talking about something that happened once or several times? (several
times) [past simple can be used for something that happened once or several times,
but used to can only be used for habits and repeated actions in the past]
b. do you (the teacher) still have this habit? (no) [so its a habit she had when she was
young, but now she doesnt have it]
c. can we use used to to talk about habits we have now? (no)
d. what happens to used to when we make it negative? (we use didnt + bare
infinitive use + to)
13. Do some drills to ensure correct pronunciation of the language.
14. Show students that the past simple and used to are interchangeable when talking about
habits using your OHT text as an example.
15. Redistribute the OHTs with the groups naughty stories on so that groups all have a different
groups story. Ask the groups to edit the story on the OHT so it has more of a variety of
language using a mixture of used to, didnt use to and past simple. Check carefully that
they dont over-generalise used to and use it for single events, which is when we used past
simple.
16. Give OHTs back to the group who wrote it originally for proof-reading ask them to check
the accuracy of the language and make sure that used to is used appropriately.
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PPP
We are registered in England as a charity.

Used to British Council

17. Re-organise the groups so that each group has four members from four different groups in
it. Each student presents their own groups naughty story to their new group members.

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PPP
We are registered in England as a charity.

Used to British Council

ELT Network Lesson Plans

Used to TBL Example Text
When I was five years old I lived in North Point. I lived with my mum, dad and brother.
When I was five my brother was 7.
I went to the local primary school and I wasnt a very good pupil. Every day I used to fall
asleep in class. This was because I used to stay up late reading every night after my mum
had told me to go to bed. I would hide under my covers and read with a torch until very
late at night.
I used to hate doing homework. It was always so boring. I wanted to play more and work
less so instead of doing my homework I used to hide my comic books inside my textbooks
and read the comics instead.
I didnt like sport either. So, when I had PE lessons, I used to take a long time to get
changed into my sports clothes so that the lesson was nearly over. When the head teacher
taught the PE class one time I got into trouble for being so slow.
I wasnt allowed to eat chocolate during the week, only on Saturday afternoons, and my
mum used to hide the chocolate in the highest cupboard so that I couldnt get it. So, one
time, when I really, really, really wanted some chocolate, I got a chair and stood on it and
tried to reach the chocolate. My mum came into the kitchen and it made me jump so much
that I fell off the chair and broke my arm! It hurt so much - I never tried to steal chocolate
again!

Page 4
PPP
We are registered in England as a charity.

Used to British Council