Dexter Dexter

Copy of Talking about the past.
Elementary Level level


In this leson students will learn about the simple past, positive regular and irregular verbs through personal examples. The lesson will start off with the teacher giving some examples of things that have happened to him yesterday. This will be a spring board to the lesson as he/she has just read the text that will be given out. The students will fill in the gaps connecting receptive to productive skills. There will be a brief grammar session on verb endings and pronunciation. This will be followed by boardrace and running dictation.


Main Aims

  • To provide students practice with past simple, positive regular and irregular verb forms.

Subsidiary Aims

  • To provide fluency in speaking with some controlled monitoring.


Lead In (3 minutes) • To provide context through personal examples for past simple.

I will tell them about a semi-true story that happened to me yesterday. There will be plenty of regular and irregular verbs. CCQs: Did I watch the match today? When did I watch the match? So this happened in the ....

Activity #1 (2 minutes) • Introduce regular and irregular verbs in context.

Make sure everyone has the handout from previous lesson. Chest HO #2. Take a copy from one of the students. "Find the past forms of these words from this article." Have them work in pairs. ICQ: Are these words in past tense already? Where can you find the past tense of these words? Where do I write them? Give them the answers Track 45

Introduce some more verbs, before activity #2 (2 minutes) • To provide class with new regular and irregular verbs, which will be in next activity

Chest half closed paper. Ask them to look at the other side. Ask class if anyone knows the past tense of .... Have them work in groups

Activity #2 (6 minutes) • To provide written practice of regular and irregular verbs. Sub-aim: To provide listening for detail.

Students will work in pairs. Teacher will tell his story again, but a bit slower. Pause after each sentence. Give them a chance to write answers. Give answer key for them to look at

Boardrace (7 minutes) • To provide students with some drilling using receptive and productive skills through a kinesthetic activity.

Explain the activity. Split class into 3 groups. Give each group a marker. " I will give a verb and you will write the past tense on the board." " The group who writes it first gets a point." " If the group can say a sentence with the word, they will get another point."

Introduce Running Dictation (5 minutes) • To give some examples to help start next activity

Give personal examples from my personal life. When I was a child ... Give some things that are true, some false Ask students to create 5 sentences, 3 true, 2 false.

Running Dictation (12 minutes) • To provide students with productive skill (speaking,writing) exercises so they actually use the grammar tought today.

Put them in pairs. If odd number join activity and have someone dictate to you their sentence. The team that finishes first wins. Have teams switch sides and do it again. After activity have students ask each other if the sentence about their friend is true or false.

If time is left? (2 minutes) • To practice pronunciation of regular and irregular verbs.

Drill some of the verbs students have learned today

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