Once you’re back in the classroom, the students share what they saw and experienced using the simple past tense.Īlso read: 7 Activities for Teaching the Present Perfect for the ESL Classroom 6. Have your students take notes during the walk about things they observe. To freshen up your grammar lesson, get your students out of the classroom and outside for a short walk if you can. Pay attention to the transitions of time (next, then, after that, finally, etc.). Have them write about what they did yesterday, last week, last year, etc. To practice the written form of the simple past, have your students write about their day in a diary. Once the charade is over, another student describes each step: First, he got up, then he ate breakfast and then he brushed his teeth. For example, one student performs the action of brushing his teeth after getting up and eating breakfast. Similarly to charades, the students describe the steps they took during the charade. This is a great way to practice questions and negative use in the simple past tense. For example: Did you spill coffee yesterday? - No, I didn’t spill my coffee yesterday. Pair up your students and have them ask each other questions and give answers about a day in the past (yesterday, last week, last year, etc.). Good Days and Bad Daysīrainstorm a list of things that can make a day good and things that make a day bad. It’s important that the students use the simple past to talk about these actions.Īlso read: 7 Activities for Teaching the Present Progressive for the ESL Classroom 2. After sharing with the class what they have accomplished, the students should describe what they did in order to achieve this goal, for example they graduated college, studied English, took classes, etc. Preparationsįor this activity, the students think of significant accomplishments in their lives.

Here are 7 activities for teaching the simple past for the ESL classroom.įor more activities check out: 10 Exciting Activities for the Past Simple 1. As it describes past actions, it's quite an easy tense to teach using a variety of fun and interactive activities. The simple past is one of the most important tenses in the English language.

To teach past tense in english