How to Teach the Simple Past: A Step-by-Step Guide

Start with the meaning

The simple past describes something that happened and finished at a time in the past. Students need that idea before they need any verb endings, and a timeline shows it faster than an explanation does. Draw this before you name the tense, then say a true sentence about yourself.

Then check understanding with short questions. "Do you understand?" only gets you a polite yes, while these questions show you what students actually think. Use them with any example sentence.

Time expressions give students an easy way into the tense, because they signal a finished time. Keep them on the board during the lesson.

Teach it in this order

Spread the simple past over several lessons rather than covering every form at once. Each step below gives students something new they can say about their own lives.

Some coursebooks start with regular verbs instead of was and were, and that works too. The part worth protecting is the end of the sequence: keep negatives and questions until students are comfortable with positive sentences, because did asks them to change a verb they have just learned to change.

A 45-minute first lesson

This plan introduces the meaning and the first verbs, and gets students talking about their own weekend by the end. It works with most beginner and elementary classes.

1. Lead-in. Draw three quick pictures of your last weekend on the board. Students guess what you did. Accept any form for now, since you only want them thinking about the past.
2. Notice. Give students the short text below and ask them to underline the verbs. Then ask which ones end in -ed and which don't.
3. Clarify. Draw the timeline. Students sort the verbs into two columns, one for verbs that add -ed and one for verbs that change.
4. Practice. Students complete six sentences about a person they know: "Yesterday my brother ___ (walk) to work." They compare answers in pairs before you check.
5. Speak. Pairs tell each other about last weekend, using at least three verbs from the board. Walk around and note errors without interrupting.
6. Wrap up. Write two or three errors you heard on the board, without names, and let the class fix them. Each student then writes two true sentences about yesterday and hands them in as they leave.

Regular verbs: spelling and sound

Regular verbs have one spelling pattern with a few exceptions, and three possible sounds. Teach the spelling for writing, and the sounds for speaking, in separate steps.

Students often pronounce every ending as a separate syllable, so walked comes out as "walk-ed". In fact, only one of the three sounds adds a syllable.

Irregular verbs in sound families

A printed list of a hundred verbs tends to end up at the bottom of a bag. Start with the ones students need to talk about their week, such as went, had, did, saw, got, made, ate, came, said, took, bought and met, and add others as their stories call for them.

When you do present more, group them by sound. A family is easier to remember than an alphabetical list, and students can start to guess new verbs from patterns they already know.

Negatives and questions with did

The key idea is that did takes over the job of showing the past, so the main verb goes back to its base form. Show the same sentence moving through each form, and use one color for did and another for the base verb, so that students can see the pattern repeat.

Teach the short answers at the same time, because they make pair work sound natural straight away: "Did you go out?" "Yes, I did." or "No, I didn't."

The mistakes you will hear

These come up in almost every class. Knowing the reason behind each one tells you how to respond.

• I didn't went to school.

  I didn't go to school.

  The student marks the past twice. Point to didn't and ask, "Is this past?" When they say yes, ask what the next verb should be.

• Did you saw the film?

  Did you see the film?

  This is the same problem in a question. Have students circle did and check the verb after it.

• I goed home.

  I went home.

  This shows the student has learned the regular rule and is applying it everywhere, which is progress. Say the correct form back and keep the conversation moving.

• Yesterday I go to the beach.

  Yesterday I went to the beach.

  The time word feels like enough to show the past. Underline both yesterday and the verb to show that English marks the past in both places.

• I was go to the market.

  I went to the market.

  Students may treat was as a general past marker. Show that it goes with adjectives, nouns and places: "I was tired." "I was at the market."

• Where you went?

  Where did you go?

  The word did has no meaning of its own, so it gets dropped. Drill question starters as whole chunks: "Where did you...", "What did you..."

• I have seen him yesterday.

  I saw him yesterday.

  This is common when the student’s first language uses a similar form for finished events. Go back to the timeline: a finished time word needs the simple past.

Six activities for practice

Students need many chances to use the past to say something true. These need little or no preparation.

How to know they have got it

A correct worksheet only shows that students can apply a rule when they are thinking about it. Listen for the tense in free speaking, when their attention is on what they want to say. Short exit tasks like this one help too: write one positive sentence, one negative sentence and one question about yesterday.

Expect errors to continue after students understand the rule, because using a form automatically takes much longer than understanding it. Keep bringing the tense back in warm-ups, such as starting a lesson with "What did you do last night?", for weeks after you have moved on to something new.