🎬 Grammar B1-5: Past continuous: consolidation

B1 learners already own the was/were + -ing machinery from A2; this consolidation teaches them to use it as writers. The whole topic is reframed around one question — is this verb scenery or plot? — and built on the three patterns every past story runs on: the interrupted action, two parallel backgrounds joined by while, and the scene-setting opener that paints the stage before the event strikes. The heart of the material is the meaning flip: When Ana arrived, we were eating reports a meal already running, while When Ana arrived, we ate makes her arrival the trigger — two comparisons with verdicts make the difference land, six reveal cards drill it, and an eyewitness statement about a delivery drone crashing into the market fountain lets learners tap all sixteen tense choices to read the reasoning. Along the way it settles while versus when, the state verbs that refuse -ing even in the past, and the all-continuous narrative in which nothing ever happens. Practice is heavy: thirty-one multiple-choice items across four sets, a ten-way scenery-or-plot sort, six realistic errors to repair and three trap boxes, every answer explaining its reason. Teacher notes add a 45-minute sequence, the two-evenings board move, a camera-shot rescue for stuck learners and the Cambridge B1 Preliminary story-writing relevance.