Mastering the Past Simple: Journey into the Past

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• havo
• Leerjaar 2

Mastering the Past Simple: Journey into the Past

Learning Objective

At the end of the lesson, you will be able to confidently understand and use the past simple tense in English.

What do you already know about the past simple?

What is the Past Simple?

The past simple is a tense used to express actions or states that occurred and were completed in the past.

Forming the Past Simple

To form the past simple, regular verbs add '-ed' to the base form of the verb. However, irregular verbs have unique past simple forms.

Regular Verbs in Past Simple

Regular verbs follow a consistent pattern in forming the past simple tense by adding '-ed' to the base form. Example: 'walk' becomes 'walked'.

Irregular Verbs in Past Simple

Irregular verbs have unique past simple forms that do not follow a set pattern. Example: 'go' becomes 'went'.

Usage of the Past Simple

The past simple is used to talk about completed actions or states in the past. It is often used with time expressions like 'yesterday' or 'last week'.

Negative and Interrogative Forms

To create negative sentences in the past simple, use 'did not' or 'didn't' before the base form of the verb. For interrogative sentences, use 'did' before the subject.

Follow the instructions on classroom 

Write a paragraph about your last holiday. What did you do? Where did you go? Write at least 50 words and 5 sentences. Include one negative sentence and one question. 

Practice Exercise

Complete the sentences with the correct form of the verbs in parentheses using the past simple tense.

Write down 3 things you learned in this lesson.

Have students enter three things they learned in this lesson. With this they can indicate their own learning efficiency of this lesson.

Write down 2 things you want to know more about.

Here, students enter two things they would like to know more about. This not only increases involvement, but also gives them more ownership.

Ask 1 question about something you haven't quite understood yet.

The students indicate here (in question form) with which part of the material they still have difficulty. For the teacher, this not only provides insight into the extent to which the students understand/master the material, but also a good starting point for the next lesson.