Telling a Travel Story

Level

B1 · Intermediate — 60–75 minutes.

Learning objectives

By the end of the lesson, students can:

• Narrate a past experience in a connected way.
• Contrast completed actions with background description.
• Use sequencing words to organise a story.

Can-do statement (CEFR B1)

"Can connect phrases in a simple way in order to describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes and ambitions."

Target language

• Grammar: past simple vs. past continuous ("I was walking when it started to rain.")
• Sequencers: first, then, after that, suddenly, in the end
• Vocabulary: journey, get lost, sightseeing, breathtaking, run out of

Warm-up (10 min)

Show a photo of a famous destination. Students brainstorm vocabulary and predict a story.

Presentation (15 min)

1. Read a short model anecdote about a trip that went wrong.
2. Elicit why each verb is simple (completed) or continuous (in progress).
3. Highlight the sequencers and how they signal the story's shape.

Practice (20 min)

• Controlled: choose the correct tense in a gapped narrative.
• Guided: reorder a jumbled story and add sequencers.
• Error focus: common confusion between was doing and did.

Production (20 min)

Students tell a partner about a memorable trip — real or invented — using at least three sequencers and one past-continuous background sentence. Listener asks two follow-up questions.

Homework

Write your travel story (120–150 words). Underline every past-continuous verb.

Teacher notes

Encourage "wide" storytelling — reactions and feelings, not just a list of events.