Crime Investigation
ESL Lesson PlansCrime Investigation

Crime Investigation

This ESL lesson plan focuses on past perfect and past simple tenses through crime investigation scenarios. In this one-hour lesson, students will practice describing events using these tenses with reading, grammar exercises, and a creative writing task. The lesson includes analyzing a crime scene story and identifying tense usage. Learners will also connect words into sentences and create their own narratives based on the lesson's context.

Skills

  • Shows a relatively high degree of grammatical control. Does not make mistakes which lead to misunderstanding.
  • Can give clear, detailed descriptions of real or imaginary events and experiences marking the relationship between ideas in clear connected text, and following established conventions of the genre concerned.
Online Interactive
Based on CEFR
Fully Customizable
1

Warm Up: At the Crime Scene

Give students a short scenario of a crime (e.g., “A valuable painting has been stolen from a museum”). Ask them to write down three questions they would ask during an investigation to find the thief. After a few minutes, encourage students to share their questions with a partner and discuss their reasoning.
2

Read the text and answer the questions.

3

Look at the sentences from the text and explain the use of the tenses.

4

Connect the words into sentences. Use the past simple and the past perfect in each sentence.

5

Choose one of the tasks below. Write a text using the past simple and the past perfect, as well as the suggested verbs.

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