Some practical exercises that can help learners distinguish between the past simple and past continuous tenses include:

1. Gap-filling exercises: Provide sentences with gaps that students have to fill with the correct form of the past simple or past continuous tense. This can help them understand the differences in usage between the two tenses.

2. Sentence transformations: Ask students to rewrite sentences from one tense to the other. For example, changing a sentence in the past simple to past continuous and vice versa. This can help students practice converting between the two tenses.

3. Storytelling activities: Have students narrate a story or a series of events using both past simple and past continuous tenses. This will require them to decide when to use each tense based on whether an action was completed or in progress in the past.

4. Time markers exercise: Provide sentences with time markers (e.g., yesterday, while, when) that signal the use of either past simple or past continuous tense. This will help students associate specific time expressions with the correct tense usage.

5. Error correction: Give students sentences with errors in the use of past simple and past continuous tenses and ask them to identify and correct the mistakes. This exercise can help students pinpoint common errors and improve their understanding of the tenses.

Implementing a variety of these exercises in English language lessons can enhance students’ ability to distinguish between the past simple and past continuous tenses effectively.