Used to

This is a lesson from the Build-up level, but as it only focuses on one grammar point and offers a lot of practice, I sometimes use it with pre-intermediate or intermediate level students. Mr T at 7pm tonight usually shares his class with 2 girls who are slightly lower than his level, but he was by himself this time and I decided to give him something that required a bit of extra effort.

After I checked his previous one-point, I introduced him to today's topic by writing down "Used to" on the board. Mr T nodded as if he knew exactly what it meant, so I asked him to give me an example. It was then that I realised that he had got it confused with "be used to". I then explained the difference to him, and gave him an example sentence using a pair of haircut cards, "she used to have short hair in high school, but now she has long hair". He understood the difference quickly and I moved on to let him match up the picture cards in pairs and make sentences out of them following my example. Mr T had to stop from time to time to ask me for help regarding new words and expressions, but other than that he had no problem finishing the task.

I then decided to make the lesson more personal and conversational, so I turned to page 122 of the build-up activity book and started asking Mr T "Did you used to..." questions. It was interesting to find out that he used to work part-time in college at a fish market which he absolutely hated because of the horrible smell and early hours, that he used to go diving a few times a year but had to cut back to once a year now because his wife was tightening the purse string, and that he used to work overtime a lot but since the new governor cut the city employees' salary, he was out of his office once the clock hit 5:30pm.

Our lesson finished with a one-point example from Mr T, " I am looking forward to diving in Okinawa next year".