The past simple: A2 ESL grammar lesson (PDF)

What's in the lesson

1Warm-up
2Reading: Carla's year in EuropeReading comprehension
3What does it mean?Grammar exercise
4Find the past formsGrammar exercise
5How the past simple worksGrammar rule
6A terrible dayGrammar exercise
7Did, didn't or the past?Grammar exercise
8Questions about CarlaGrammar exercise
9Questions for your teacherGrammar exercise
10Say it naturallySpeaking practice
11Two truths and a lieSpeaking practice
12About youGrammar exercise
13Wrap-up

Homework

1Homework: a visit to NairobiGrammar exercise
2Homework: find the mistakeGrammar exercise
3Homework: a day I rememberDiscussion

Two slides from the lesson

Warm-up

A few questions about you before we start.

What did you have for breakfast today?
Did you do anything fun last weekend?
When did you last travel by train or by plane? Where did you go?

Grammar rule

How the past simple works

Irregular verbs

Regular verbs take -ed (worked, saved, learned). Many common verbs are irregular: they have their own past form, and we learn them one by one.

Verb	Past	Verb	Past	Verb	Past
come	came	go	went	buy	bought
eat	ate	have	had	bring	brought
give	gave	get	got	think	thought
see	saw	take	took	catch	caught
meet	met	sleep	slept	sell	sold
find	found	spend	spent	tell	told
make	made	leave	left	put	put
wake	woke	run	ran	break	broke
fly	flew	drive	drove	lose	lost

Some groups help: bought, brought, thought, caught, taught all rhyme. slept, left, spent, lost end in t. put, cut, cost, hit don't change.

Negatives and questions: did + the base form

	Example
Positive	She went to Spain.
Negative	She didn't go to Italy. (didn't = did not)
Yes/no question	Did she go to Portugal? Yes, she did. / No, she didn't.
Wh- question	Where did she go? What did she buy?

When who or what is the subject of the question, there is no did: Who called you? What happened? (not What did happen?)

After did and didn't, use the base form: not She didn't went, not Did you saw it?

was and were make questions and negatives without did: Was she tired? They weren't at home.

Teach it live with video and a whiteboard, or print it: the PDF has every slide, the homework and the answers.

Teach this lesson