Street Food Stories — Lesson Plan

Lesson plan Classy Tutoring

Week	Level	Theme	Grammar focus	Duration
3	B1 Intermediate	Food	Present Perfect + ever/never	60 minutes

Learning objectives

By the end of this lesson, learners can:

distinguish between Present Perfect (life experience, no specific time) and Past Simple (specific finished time) in spoken and written sentences.
form questions and statements with have/has + past participle using ever and never correctly.
answer Have you ever…? questions with complete short answers and, where appropriate, a Past Simple detail.
write five Have you ever…? questions about food and experiences and answer them truthfully.

The core idea

Present Perfect connects the past to now. We use it for life experiences — things that have happened (or not happened) at some point in our lives, when the exact time does not matter. Ever asks whether something has happened at any time; never says it has not happened at any time. When a specific time is mentioned (yesterday, last summer, last weekend), switch to Past Simple.

Prior knowledge

Learners already know Past Simple from Week 2 and can form regular and common irregular past forms. They know how to form questions and negatives with do/did. What they do not yet control is the choice between Present Perfect and Past Simple based on whether a specific time is mentioned, and they often use Present Perfect with a specific time marker — the most common error in this lesson.

Materials

Chalkboard and chalk. Divide the board into two columns: Life experience (Present Perfect) and Specific time (Past Simple).
Exercise books and pencils for every learner.
Handout (supplied separately) — one per learner.
If available, three street food pictures (tacos, market stall, hawker centre) to set the scene; if not, describe them aloud.

Lesson outline

Reading (10 min)

Teacher reads the passage aloud once while learners follow on the handout.
Learners read it a second time silently and underline every Present Perfect verb they find.
Teacher asks: which verbs describe life experiences, and which one verb is not Present Perfect? (The cook sells — Present Simple, a fact.) Note answers on the board.

Comprehension (5 min)

Learners answer the five questions in pairs, in their books.
Teacher takes answers from four different pairs, one question each.
Correct answers are confirmed on the board; wrong answers are noted, not judged.

Speaking (15 min)

Pairs work through the four discussion questions.
Teacher circulates and listens for correct Have you ever…? questions and short answers.
Whole-class share-back: two or three pairs report, teacher feeds back on one good exchange per pair.

Grammar (20 min)

Teacher elicits the Present Perfect forms from the reading passage before naming the rule.
Board work: the form table, then the ever/never usage, then the Present Perfect vs Past Simple contrast.
Exercise 1 (six sentences) written in books, then checked as a class with reasons.
Exercise 2 (question-and-answer) completed in pairs, then shared aloud.

Writing (10 min)

Learners write five Have you ever…? questions about food and experiences, with true answers.
Teacher circulates and checks the question form and the answer form.
Two volunteers read one question-and-answer each if time allows.

Grammar focus

	Present Perfect	Past Simple
What it does	Life experiences — time not important	Specific finished actions — time matters
Form	I/You/We/They have eaten · He/She/It has eaten	I ate, He/She/It ate
Common signal words	ever, never, before, many times, already, yet	yesterday, last week, last summer, in 2019, … ago
Question	Have you ever eaten…?	Did you eat…?
Negative	I have never eaten…	I didn't eat…

Signal words that tell you which to use: ever / never / before → Present Perfect. yesterday / last … / … ago / in 2017 → Past Simple.

Assessment

During the lesson: after the board work, ask each learner one Have you ever…? question and listen for the short answer form; during Exercise 1 circulation, spot the Present Perfect vs Past Simple choice errors at source.
Exit task: on a slip of paper, learners write one Have you ever…? question and answer it truthfully — hand it in at the door. Check before the next lesson for form errors.

Differentiation

Stretch: ask stronger learners to write a sentence that uses both forms correctly in the same line — I have eaten street food in three countries, but last summer I had the best tacos in Mexico City. Ask them to explain why each form is used.
Support: give weaker learners a table of common past participles (eat → eaten, try → tried, make → made, hear → heard, be → been, have → had, go → gone, see → seen) and let them use it during exercises. Accept a correct short answer (Yes, I have. / No, I haven't.) where a full answer was asked.

Homework

Ask three people (family or friends): What is the most unusual food you have ever eaten? Write down their answers in full sentences using Present Perfect.

Example:

My mum has eaten frog legs in France.
My friend has never tried anything unusual.

Bring the answers to the next lesson.

Links

Builds on: Week 2 (Past Simple) — learners now add Present Perfect and the choice between the two tenses based on whether a specific time is mentioned.

Feeds into: Week 4, where learners move to comparatives and superlatives while describing unusual cities.