Written example of narrative tenses in use

Bond opened the door very slowly, looked carefully around the room and walked in. The window was open and the curtains were blowing in the wind.

Clearly someone had left in a hurry.

Past simple
opened, looked, walked, was

Past continuous
was

Past Perfect

had left

Spoken example of narrative tenses in use

A: I saw a UFO once. Well, I think it was one.
B: Oh yeah?
A: Yeah, really. I was in the country - in Yorkshire - on the moors...
B: What were you doing up there?
A: Oh, I was visiting some friends. They'd rented a cottage and we'd gone up to stay with them.

Past simple
saw, was
Past continuous
(What) were (you) doing? was visiting
Past perfect
they'd rented, we'd gone

EXERCISES

Read the text and underline narrative tenses

Dolphins saving a surfer from a great white shark

Dolphins are known to be some of the most compassionate and intelligent animals in the world. The evidence of the animals helping human beings dates back to the Ancient Greece. The friendly relationship between dolphins and human beings has been there since the old days.

In 2007, Todd Endris, a surfer was attacked by a white shark off the California's Marine State Park coast. It was dolphins that came to his rescue. The shark, believed to be 12-15 foot long, chopped off flesh from his leg to the bone, but the dolphins formed a protective ring around him and helped him to get to the shore safely.

Write an article of animals saving humans by using narrative tenses

Article writing tips:

Structure

1. Heading: think of an interesting title.

2. Introductory paragraph linked to the title: to make the reader interested in the topic, try to use a question.

3. One or two more paragraphs: develop your main points.

4. A final paragraph: summarize the main points and give your concluding opinion or express your feelings.

Useful phrases

 

Rhetorical phrases:

Have you ever........?

What do you think about........?

Are you one of those people who thinks that......?

Are you one of those people who.....?

What would life be like if......?

Will the future bring us.....?

Introducing your first point:

Firstly

In the first place

First of all

The first thing to consider is

One thing to consider is

To begin with

 

Introducing more points:

Secondly

Another consideration

Yet another consideration

Another thing to consider is

Added to that

Apart from that

In addition to this

 

Introducing your final points:

In conclusion

To conclude

To sum up

So

Introducing your opinion:

I think

In my opinion

Personally I believe that

In my view

If you ask me

To my mind

My personal opinion is

 

 

Pre-listening activity

Read and translate the following words

· Tech

· Challenges

· Innovative

· Projects

· Transform

· Landscape

· Giant

· Renewable energy

· Sustainability

· Power

· Necessity

· Business sense

· Operations meet a target

While-listening activity

Listen and fill in the gap

Tech giant Google is investing $1billion in ____________to make its operations totally green. The company hopes to exploit solar energy, wind farms and other forms of ________to power its data centres around the world. Rick Needham, Google's Director of Energy and Sustainability, told reporters: "We've invested over a billion dollars in 15 projects that have the capacity to produce ________around the world." Mr Needham added it was an economic necessity for Google to invest in energy. He said: "Procuring power for ourselves and investing in…renewable power plants…all make business sense. They make sense for us as a company to do. We rely on _________our business."

Mr Needham said Google still has a long way to go before all of its operations are fuelled by__________. He said about 34 per cent of Google's power requirements are sourced from renewables. Needham told reporters it wasn't always easy to meet this target in some parts of the world, saying: "Our goal is to be __________renewable powered. There are lots of challenges in getting there, not the least of which is operating in many _________that are in different parts of the world." He added: "At Google we invest in _____________that have the potential to transform the energy landscape and help provide more clean power to businesses and homes around the world."

Post-listening activity