COLEGIUL NAŢIONAL “GEORGE COŞBUC”

CLUJ-NAPOCA

LESSON PLAN

NAME: MATEI (căs. ROŞU) IULIA

DATE: June 5, 2013

Class: 5 G2

Class Level: upper level

No. of students: 30

Time: 50 minutes

Title of the lesson: TO BE – PAST SIMPLE

Type of the lesson: Mixed lesson (teaching new information and consolidation
by solving exercises)

AIMS: By the end of the lesson, the students will be able to:

1. Conjugate the verb “TO BE” at Past Simple Tense (Affirmative, Negative
and Interrogative);
2. To recognize the forms of the Past Simple of the verb “TO BE”, in a text;
3. To recognize the key words that indicate the necessity of using the Past
Simple Tense (e.g. yesterday, last week, last month, a week ago, a year ago,
etc.);
4. To formulate by themselves sentences (in the Affirmative, Negative and
Interrogative) containing the Past Simple of the verb “TO BE”.

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TEACHING TECHNIQUES and PROCEDURES:

1. Elicitation
2. Questions – Answers
3. Pair Work
4. Examples
5. Conversation (containing the grammar aspects that form the topic of the
lesson)

SKILLS: Reading, Writing, Reading - Comprehension

MATERIALS:

1. Blackboard;
2. Coloured sheets;
3. Sheet 1, Sheet 2, Sheet 3 (A4) – see the attachments at the end of the lesson
plan
4. Notebooks;
5. Textbook (More 1)

THE MOMENTS OF THE LESSON

WARMING-UP: The teacher greets the students, introduces herself and

asks the students to write their names on a blank sheet of paper, in order to
get acquainted with them.

TIME: 5 min.

ACTIVITY no. 1:

AIMS: to introduce students into the topic and catching their attention

TIME: 5 min.

INTERACTION: TEACHER - STUDENTS

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 PROCEDURES: The teacher has a small, preliminary conversation with
the students, asking them how they are feeling, if they are ready to start the lesson,
if they are influenced by the instable weather outside. The teacher asks the students
a few questions on this topic, e.g. “What was the weather like yesterday, in
Cluj?, mentioning that “I was not in Cluj yesterday.” The teacher ends this
conversation, saying to the students: “You remember that last week (last
Wednesday), I was here with you, in your classroom”.

The teacher writes a few of these sentences on the blackboard, i.e. the most
representative of them for the grammar lesson:

1. Last Wednesday, I was here.

2. I was not in Cluj yesterday.
1. What was the weather like last week?
2. Where were you last Saturday?

ACTIVITY no. 2:

TIME: 15 min.

2.1. The teacher (T) underlines “was” and “were” and explains that these are
forms of the Past Simple of the verb “TO BE”.
T gives every student two sheets of paper (A4), Sheet 1 and Sheet 2 and
also shows them two POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS of SHEET
NO. 1 - TO BE - PAST SIMPLE.pptx and SHEET NO.2 - KEY WORDS
AND EXPRESSIONS.pptx

Sheet 1 contains the forms of the verb “TO BE” in the Past Simple,
Affirmative, Negative and Interrogative.
Sheet 2 contains the most important and frequent words and expressions
that require the use of Past SimpleTense: e.g. YESTERDAY, LAST
WEEK, A MONTH AGO, etc.

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 2.2. T writes on the blackboard the forms of the verb “TO BE” at Past Simple
(Affirmative, Negative and Interrogative), offering explanations to the
students.
2.3. T explains to the students WHEN do they have to use the Past Simple:
Past Simple Tense is used to refer to DEFINITE PAST TIME
ACTIVITIES THAT HAVE COME TO AN END.
2.4. T draws on the blackboard the TIME LINE, in order to make the students
better visualize the use of Past Simple Tense:

Past Simple Present Future

Yesterday Today Tomorrow

2.5. T indicates to the students which are the key words and expressions they
have to look for when identifying the necessity to use the Simple Past.
She tells the students to look attentively on Sheet no. 2 and then writes on
the blackboard the most frequent such expressions: e.g. yesterday, last
week, last summer, a year ago, a month ago, etc.

ACTIVITY no. 3:

Corresponds to Aim no. 1 and 3

TIME: 10 min.

3.1. T gives each student a small coloured sheet. 30 SENTENCES WITH

PAST SIMPLE - TO BE.docx

Every coloured sheet contains a different sentence in which one word is

missing:

a) the verb “TO BE” in the Past Simple Tense;

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 b) words that are specific to the use of the Past Simple Tense (e.g. ago, last,
yesterday, etc.).

There are 30 different sentences, but each sentence has its pair-sentence,
according to its meaning (either it may be a question-answer type of pair, or an
affirmative or negative construction, which can be matched with another sentence,
from the point of view of the meaning).

3.2. T asks the students to fill in the blank space with the missing word. (2
min.)

3.3. When the students have finished, the teacher explains to them that they
have to be very careful at every sentence that is read by their colleagues, from the
very beginning, as their own sentence has a pair (sister) sentence belonging to
another colleague.

3.4. T checks the filling in of the blank spaces (orally), and tells the students to
signal her when they suppose another sentence matches theirs. In parallel, students
are asked to translate the sentences. T writes on the blackboard unknown words.

Observation: The 30 sentences are taken from:

1. The children’s English book (More 1), Unit 11, pages 123-124; (the
teacher tried to extract the sentences in the exercises and integrate
these sentences into a larger exercise, that of the coloured sheets);
2. “I can speak English – Ich kann Deutsch sprechen – Engleza si
Germana in 20 de lectii”, Steluta Istratescu, Ana Stan, Editura
Paralela 45, Pitesti 2010.

ACTIVITY no. 4:

Corresponds to Aims 2 and 4

TIME: 10 min.

4.1. T shows the students the following POWERPOINT PRESENTATION,

made by the teacher:

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 THE GOLDEN FISH.pptx

4.2. The students are invited to the blackboard to write down the forms of the
verb “to be” in the Past Simple Tense, that they have identified in the
POWERPOINT text.
4.3. The students are asked to formulate questions (using the Past Simple of
the verb “to be”) to which certain words or groups of words, indicated by
the teacher in the PowerPoint text (here underlined), should be the
answers. The questions are supposed to start with “Wh-“ words (e.g.
Where, What, Who, When) or with “How”.
4.4. The questions to which the underlined words are answers are the
following:
4.4.1. When was there a fisherman? Answer: Once upon a time.
4.4.2. What were the fisherman and his wife like? Answer: very poor.
4.4.3. What were their clothes like? Answer: shabby.
4.4.4. Who was merciful? Answer: the fisherman.
4.4.5. Where was there a cottage? Answer: In the place of his little pigsty.
4.4.6. What was full of cows? Answer: The yard.
4.4.7. What was there behind the house? Answer: a vegetable garden.
4.4.8. Where was there a vegetable garden? Answer: behind the house.

FINISHING THE ACTIVITY:

TIME: 5 min.

The teacher formulates the HOMEWORK for the students:

Write:
 a short dialogue between you and your friend or
 5 separate sentences

in which you use the verb TO BE in the Past Simple Tense (Affirmative,
Negative or Interrogative) together with the following expressions:

 Yesterday
 The day before yesterday

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  Last week
 A year ago
 Last Sunday

The Teacher makes appreciations regarding the students, thanks them for their
attention and participation, wishes them good luck in the future and expresses
her wish to see them again.