Easy ESOL Grammar: October 2016

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Simple Past

Use past tense to talk about an action any time after you finished that action.

If you don't need an explanation or more examples, you can scroll down and try the links* to practice and quizzes.

J.J. English' Overview with examples:

For the verb, "to be," use was or were.

was for 1 I was we were
were for 2+ = you were you were
always were for you he,she,it was they were

Practice was vs. were

For regular verbs, add _ed to show past in a positive sentence. They listened to me.
Use Did and the base form to show past in a question. Did you listen to me?
Use didn't and the base form to show past in a negative sentence. He didn't listen to me.

When do you use simple past?

English Page Explanation

Children's Video: Great pronunciation of What did you do? uses childish imagery.
Real English -- What did you do yesterday?

Regular verbs end in ed. How do you pronounce -ed?

*My English Pages Online Grammar Practice

Press the little down arrow if you want to change the verb

Practice Making Questions

SXS Video Examples past tense

Ventures Online goes with our textbook, but I can't give you direct links to the exercises on past tense.

Note where to go before you click on the link.

Ventures Online -- Go to Level 1 (red) Unit 8 -- Lessons B -- Verb "to be"

Go to Level 1 (red) Unit 9-- Lessons B and C Past Tense

Go to Level 1 (red) Unit 10--Lessons B Past tense

Go to Level 2 (blue) Unit 3 Lessons B and C Past Tense

Go to Level 2 (blue) Unit 6 Lessons B and C Past Tense

Go to Level 2 (blue) Unit 8 Lessons B

Fill in the blank with past tense verbs

Verbs that don't use __ed to show past tense are called irregular verbs. There are many irregular verbs. ESOL students usually have to memorize them.

EASY ESOL IRREGULAR VERBS

Easy Fill in the Blank with irregular verbs

Mark's English School basketball game with regular and irregular verbs

Many Things Memory Game with irregular vebs

Jeapardy Style Memory Game

The ELF chants are easy, but at a good speed to practice listening and speaking.

ELF Past Chant 1

ELF Past Chant 2

ELF Past Chant 3

Since this next video -- with tons of clear examples of past tense -- is long, you may want to start at minute 1:50. I really want my students to make similar videos.

Just a song with some past tense verbs -- "Summer Nights" from Grease

Simple Past

For the verb, "to be," use was or were.

was for 1 I was we were
were for 2+ = you were you were
always were for you he,she,it was they were

Practice was vs. were

Another explanation and quiz from grammarbank.com

J.J. English' Overview with examples:

Most verbs add -ed to show that they are past.

They happened one time and it finished.

"Between the Lions" kids' song "It's over now" -- teaches to add ---ed only when something is finished

English Page Explanation

Real English -- What did you do yesterday?

I really like this next video except for two tiny points. I think we often put two verbs together in continuous and perfect tenses. In those cases, however, one of the verbs is always a form of be or have.

Also, when there are two syllables or more, we only double the final consonant before the ed if that syllable is stressed. For visit, we stress vis, so we don't double visited. Both the British and American versions of traveled are correct because British people stress the vel more than Americans do. Students shouldn't have to memorize long lists of which verbs double the final consonant before the ed.