Past Perfect Continuous tense lesson plans for ESL students should include verb conjugation, verb form and verb functions, although not necessarily all in the same lesson. For a thorough discussion on how to teach verb tenses, see Teaching ESL Verb Tenses.
Past Perfect Continuous Conjugation
The Past Perfect Continuous/Past Perfect Progressive is formed this way:
subject + had been + -ing.
The conjugation is fairly simple because only the subject changes. However, there are more parts for the ESL student to keep in order.
Here are some examples with I, you, he/she/it, they and we.
1. I had been talking. I had been walking. I had been dancing. I had been eating.
2. You had been talking. You had been walking. You had been dancing. You had been eating.
3. She/He/It had been talking. She/He/It had been walking. She/He/It had been dancing. She/He/It had been eating.
4. They had been talking. They had been walking. They had been dancing. They had been eating.
5. We had been talking. We had been walking. We had been dancing. We had been eating.
Past Perfect Continuous Forms (five forms the ESL student must learn)
1. Affirmative Usage (e.g., She had been studying English grammar for a year before she started speaking English.)
2. Negative Usage (e.g., She had not been sleeping for more than a few minutes before the baby woke her up.)
3. Yes/No Questions (e.g., Had she been playing tennis for a while?)
4. Short Answers (e.g., Yes, she had been. No, she hadn't been. Or, Yes, she had. No, she hadn't.)
5. WH- Questions (e.g., When had she been studying the Past Perfect Progressive?)
Past Perfect Continuous Tense Function
The Past Perfect Continuous has two main functions.
(1) To emphasize the duration of an activity that was in progress before another activity or time in the past.
For example, I had been waiting for them for thirty minutes before they finally showed up.
(2) To express an activity that was in progress close in time to another activity or time in the past.
For example, She was all wet because she had been jogging in the rain.
ESL Student Challenges
ESL and EFL students often have trouble with this verb tense because it is usually one of the last tenses taught to students, so they often don't get enough practice with the tense.The other problem is that it takes a while to get used to the long construction of the verb tense ("subject + had been + present participle").
As with most English grammar verb tenses, practice and drills will help to reinforce the structure of the Past Perfect Continuous tense.
