A classic Past Continuous activity with variations for Present Continuous, vocab, young learners, etc. If you like anything here and want more, please support TEFLtastic. 

I’m not claiming any particular originality for the ideas I’m including in this series (hence the word “classics”), and even less so with this one. However, I have come up with some nice little variations, including:

– Using it for Present Continuous

– Using it for Business English and ESP

– Adding loads of vocabulary revision

– Extending the discussion into personality words via what your reaction really would be to those crazy actions, what actions might stimulate creativity at work, etc

– Using it with young learners

The rules of the game are incredibly simple. One student accuses another with “When I saw you, you were + verb + ing” (or “Why are you + verb + ing?” with the Present Continuous variation) and their partner must find a good reason for painting their teacher’s back, making rude faces at the Queen, etc. This is a great activity for my URA approach, because the responses don’t necessarily need the more complex grammar, so this means that they can respond to the question and then think about why that target language was in the questions in the next stage.

Here are some I prepared earlier:

Subject and object questions accusations game (described here) – NEW LINK

Present Continuous accusations game

Business Past Continuous accusations game

Business Past Continuous and personality accusations game

EAP and study abroad past continuous accusations game

Creativity at work past cont accusations game – LINK UPDATED

Market Leader Intermediate Unit 11 past continuous accusations game

Cutting Edge Intermediate Modules 1 and 2 vocabulary revision accusations game

Landmark Advanced Past Continuous accusations game

More Past Continuous activities here.

And 41 more TEFLtastic classics here.

Updated 13 October 2026