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For some reason, I found past tenses harder than the present tenses although the structures are pretty much the same. The only thing that saved me was remembering how each past tenses are formed: For past simple it's S+V+ed/d for affirmative, S+didn't+V in base form for negative and Did+S+V in base form for question. For past continuous, it's S+was/were+V+ing for affirmative, S+wasn't/weren't+V+ing for negative and Was/were+S+V+ing for question. As for past perfect its structure is S+had+V in past participle for affirmative, S+hadn't+V(past participle) for negative and Had+S+V(past participle) for question. And as for past perfect continuous the form is S+had+been+V+ing for affirmative, S+had+not+been+verb+ing for negative and Had+S+been+V+ing for question. Knowing how the tenses are formed is important in knowing their usages as well (as it follows), Past simple is a completed action, past continuous almost always requires some form of time reference and in few occasions, without the specific time expression, it can be used to indicate gradual development that took place in the past, for interrupted actions and when there's a combination of description in past continuous with narrative in past simple. Past perfect instead is used when there are actions that occured before other actions in the past, it's like \"the past in the past\". Past perfect continuous usage is to talk about an action in the past that had been going on continuously up to the past moment and we don't know whether or not that action continued after. It's also important to note that there's no way to know how irregular verbs are formed and therefore should be memorized. Example activate teaching idea for past simple is to discuss about past holidays or major events, for past continuous playing the detective game can be fun in asking questions and answering in past continuous for the former and the latter. An example activate activity for past perfect is giving students a final situation and ask them to think of reasons why that situation happened (Like from a book that they have just read and giving them the ending). And for past perfect continuous? An idea that came to mind is reporting past speech, where students work in pairs and have one make a statement in past continuous and the partner must change the statement into past perfect continuous. I hope this suffice.
