B1 Threshold (Intermediate)
At the B1 level on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), students are able to maintain interaction and get across what they want to express in a range of contexts and follow the main points of extended discussion around them, provided that speech is clearly articulated in standard dialect. They can express the main point they want to make comprehensibly and keep going comprehensibly, even though they may have to pause for grammatical and lexical planning and repair, especially in longer stretches of free production. The second feature is the ability to cope flexibly with problems in everyday life, for example coping with less routine situations on public transport; dealing with most situations likely to arise when making travel arrangements through an agent or when actually travelling; entering unprepared into conversations on familiar topics.
Students can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. They can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken and can produce a simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest. They can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes and ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.
Here are 12 grammar points you might find yourself teaching at this level.
This list of grammar points is a sample for this level and by no means a complete list.
1. Present Simple & Present Continuous
2. Past Simple & Past Continuous
3. Present Perfect & Past Simple
4. The Future
5. Modal Verbs
6. Question Formation
7. First Conditionals
8. Second Conditionals
9. Active & Passive Forms
10. Reported & Direct Speech
11. Relative Clauses
12. Gerunds & Infinitives
Choose from the drop-down menus the grammar point which each example illustrates:
We have chosen one of these grammar points to focus on: Past Simple or Past Continuous
Presentation
Read about the past continuous and past simple tenses and then do the exercise.
1. The most common use of the past continuous tense is to talk about something that was happening around a particular time in the past.
What were you doing at 8 o’clock last night? I was watching television.
I started watching television before 8 o’clock and I continued watching it after 8 o’clock.
In 1994 he was working in a small town in Poland.
At 6 o’clock on Saturday morning we were travelling to the airport.
2. We often use the past continuous and the past simple tense together. When this happens, the past continuous describes a longer, ‘background’ action or situation and the past simple describes the action or events.
When I woke up this morning it was raining and my father was singing in the kitchen.
I was walking home, whistling happily, when I saw two masked men run out of the bank.
Often, the ‘action’ described by the past simple tense interrupts the ‘situation’ described by the past continuous tense.
I broke my leg when I was skiing.
I was playing a computer game when the doorbell rang.
Notice that the past continuous describes ‘situations’ that go on for some time – ‘skiing’ and ‘playing’ but the past simple describes ‘actions’ that happen quickly – ‘broke’ and ‘rang’.
Notice too the important difference between these two sentences:
When they arrived, Jeff was cooking dinner.
(Jeff started cooking before they arrived)
When they arrived, Jeff cooked dinner.
(Jeff started cooking dinner after they arrived)
Practice
Complete the sentences below using the correct form of the verb in brackets:
