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B2CEFRGrammar12 min

Dates and Periods: History and Change

Worker cooperatives and member-owned business

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B2 Grammar • 12 Minutes

Dates and Periods

Master expressing decades, historical periods, time spans, and deadlines in English.

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📌 How to use this lesson

👨‍🏫 For Teachers

Lead students through the rule cards in 5 minutes using pair reading and quick spot-checks. Have students complete the 12 practice questions individually, then project the answers to check as a class.

🎓 For Learners

First, read the four grammar rules below and look carefully at the highlighted words and examples. Next, complete the 12 practice items step by step and use the clue words in brackets to help you choose the right answer.

Sentence Pattern

"The shop began in the late 1800s and grew steadily over the next fifty years."

Notice how we show the starting part of a century and a continuing stretch of time without complex terms.

Grammar Rules

Rule 1

Decades: in the + 1980s

Add an s at the end of a year number to talk about a ten-year period. Always put in the before the year, and never add an apostrophe.

• "My grandparents' village shop closed in the 1970s."

• "The local artisan collective expanded its trade in the 1980s."

Rule 2

Parts of periods: early / mid / late

Put early, mid, or late after the to name one part of a decade or century. Use a hyphen with mid when writing numbers like mid-1960s.

• "The new rules came into force in the late 1990s."

• "The weaver union formed its first committee in the mid-nineteenth century."

Rule 3

Periods with two ends: between ... and

Use between with two years to show when something started and ended. Put and between the two years, not to.

• "The old mill was busiest between 1960 and 1975."

• "The democratic firm operated under a shared vision between 1910 and 1930."

Rule 4

Deadlines and lengths: by vs over

Use by for a deadline point that means not later than a date. Use over the next + a number + years for a stretch of time that starts at a past point.

• "By the early 2000s, most of our members lived in the city."

• "The mutual benefit society built strong management over the next twenty years."

Practice Exercises

12 items from easy to hard. Pay attention to the clue in brackets.

12 Questions

Part 1 Choose the Correct Sentence

1. Select the correct sentence showing a decade: (apostrophe)

____ a. The artisan group opened its first workshop at the 1980s. ____ b. The artisan group opened its first workshop in the 1980s. ____ c. The artisan group opened its first workshop in the 1980's.

2. Select the sentence that names the last part of a decade: (order)

____ a. The weaver guild adopted democratic rules in the late 1960s. ____ b. The weaver guild adopted democratic rules in late 1960s. ____ c. The weaver guild adopted democratic rules in the late of 1960s.

3. Select the correct sentence showing a period with two ends: (ends)

____ a. The collective operated between 1920 to 1940. ____ b. The collective operated between 1920 and 1940. ____ c. The collective operated between 1920.

Part 2 Fill in the Gaps

4. (deadline) Fill in the blank for "not later than the early 1900s":

____ , the labour union had organised over ten thousand workers.

5. (stretch) Fill in the blank for a length of ten years starting from a past point:

The mutual benefit society developed transparent management ____ .

6. (part) Fill in the blank for the first part of the 1950s:

The artisan workshop introduced new cooperative machinery ____ .

Part 3 Sentence Rewrite

7. Rewrite the sentence using between ... and: (range)

"The democratic workshop ran from 1915 until 1930."

"The democratic workshop ran ____ ."

8. Rewrite the sentence using by: (point)

"The mutual bank completed its new charter no later than the late 1980s."

"The mutual bank completed its new charter ____ ."

9. Rewrite the sentence using in the + a decade: (decade)

"The weaver collective grew steadily from 1930 to 1939."

"The weaver collective grew steadily ____ ."

Part 4 Error Correction in Short Messages

10. Correct the single time error in this message: (preposition)

"Hi Sam! Did you know our local artisan bakery opened at the 1990s?"
Type the corrected time phrase: ____

11. Correct the single time error in this message: (connective)

"Our member-owned clinic expanded between 1985 to 1995."
Type the corrected time phrase: ____

12. Correct the single time error in this message: (hyphen)

"The labour collective changed its principle in the mid 1970s."
Type the corrected time phrase: ____
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