Fantastical Stories: Past Tense Fun
“How can grammatical knowledge be transferred to oral fluency?” I don’t have all the answers, but this past tense activity will certainly get students chatting.
Category: Verbs
Simple Past Tense Quick Reference Handout
The simple past is a commonly used verb tense in English. It’s also a tense that English learners often struggle to form and use correctly. This handout is a great resource for learners to keep with them in their notes to reference when they’re using the past tense.
Simple Past Tense Cloze Paragraphs
Help build verb knowledge with these three past tense cloze paragraphs. There are two paragraphs in simple past and one paragraph that requires both simple past and past progressive.
Simple Present Tense Tip Sheet
It’s not always easy to find a condensed handout that explains the basics of a particular grammatical structure. I recently created this one for the simple present tense for my class. I’m planning to do some activities this week on the simple present, and I want them to have this handy if they forget a particular structure.
Simple Present and Present Progressive Cloze Paragraphs
Verb tenses can be a challenge for students. This document contains clozes to help English learners practice the simple present, the present progressive, and then both tenses together. The three different cloze activities contain a picture to help contextualize the paragraph.
English Verb Tenses and Aspects Handout
Verbs are very important, but they’re also challenging for students. This handout breaks English verbs down by tense and aspect and then gives examples for each.
Three Simple Past Tense Activities
Check out these three different past tense activities to get your adult ESL students to practice and use the simple past tense. There’s a talking chart, a group writing activity, and a structured practice handout.
Verb Cards for Interactive Practice
A while back I posted a set of verb cards to use for a variety of different activities. This is a new set that I created that uses actual images instead of clipart. There is a total of 81 different commonly used verbs in English. You can use these cards for an endless number of activities in your class.
Be + Adjective Walkabout Activity
As native or fluent speakers of English, we use the verb BE all the time, often without even taking note. Beginners, on the other hand, have difficulty with its uses and very irregular forms. I designed this activity as a vocabulary development activity that also gives students practice using the BE verb with adjectives.
WH Questions Past Tense Talking Chart
This is a great two-part activity that gives English learners a chance to practice question and statement forms in the simple past tense.
Adventure Man: A Past Tense Journey
Get your students excited to practice the past tense with this adventure writing activity. The slideshow will guide students to try and recreate a man’s adventure story based on the photos that were found of his travels although the man himself has vanished.
Simple Present vs. Present Progressive
Get your students collaborating and working together to practice the simple present and present progressive with these handouts.
Simple Present Morning Routines
This activity gives students a chance to prepare for the discussion by writing down their answers in advance, and then it allows students to walk around and talk to their classmates.
Present Progressive Go Fish
As a language teacher, I’m always trying to find ways for my students to practice English in an interactive and interesting way. This activity is a card game which gets students to practice asking questions in the present progressive.