Simple past ESL lesson plan by Robert Huth – 

TESOL Certificate graduate
Level of students: High Beginner
Total class time: 90 min.
Aims:
·         To introduce new vocabulary about leisure activities
·         To introduce the past simple with its function to talk about the past (comparing it to
the present simple and present progressive)
·         To introduce the affirmative and negative form of the past simple and the forms of
regular and irregular verbs
·         To review adverbials of time concerning weekdays (on Monday, on Saturday, on the
weekend), here used with the past tense.
·         To practice the pronunciation of the “-ed” ending in the past simple and the stress of
the personal pronoun when using the same question to talk about another person
·         To provide Ss with controlled and semi-controlled practice in speaking, listening and
freer practice in writing in the context of reporting about past events using the past simple
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Assumptions:
·         Ss have previous knowledge about vocabulary concerning a number of leisure
activities and the vocabulary necessary to understand the teacher’s explanations and
commands.
·         Ss know how to use the present simple and present progressive to talk about the
present.
·         Ss have experience with the phonetic alphabet and know the meaning of “voiced” and
“voiceless”
·         Ss have experience with writing letters/e-mails in an informal style
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Possible Problems and Solutions:
·         Ss might have difficulties to differentiate between regular and irregular verb forms.
Sufficient explanation, practice and a list for reference will be provided
·         Ss might confuse present simple verb forms and past simple forms to talk about the
past. The difference will be highlighted and practiced in drills.
·         Ss might use the verb be in front of a past simple verb form when forming sentences
(like in “I am watched a movie.”). The correct pattern for sentences will be shown clearly on
the board.
Materials:  board, projector, recording, handouts with pictures, dialogue, grammar rules and
practice exercises
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PRESENTATION STAGE
1) Create interest step or lead in
Purpose:
·         To create interest in the topic of  leisure activities (simple present tense)
Technique:  personalisation and brainstorming with a mind map on the board.
Time: 10 min.
Interactive pattern: T-S, S-S
Procedure:
1.      I draw a mind map with the title “leisure activities” on the board and add lines to
connect possible sub-headlines. I explain “Leisure activities are activities we do in our free
time.”
2.      I show a picture of myself reading a book and say “This is me. In my free time, I often
read a book.” Then I add “read a book” to the mind map.
3.      I ask “What do you do in your free time?” and pair Ss up to add activities on a sheet
that shows the mind map.
4.      I let Ss collect their answers in the mind map on the board.
5.      I show pictures showing the following actions: watch a movie/go on a picnic/go
shopping/have a party/play sports/sleep/spend time with family/spend time with friends
6.      I ask Ss to compare their answers to the activities in the pictures asking “Is there any
new activity?”/”Do these people do the same things you do?”/ etc.
Option: Let each S rank the activities according to his likes and write them down in a list (as
a reflective task and maybe to use the answers for a writing activity).
Material: Board, Pictures
2) Presentation of new language in context

Purpose:
·         To introduce the past simple in the context of a conversation about weekend
activities. To see regular and irregular verbs.
·         To provide practice in listening for the gist
·         To get a first idea about the pronunciation of the past simple “-ed” ending and some
irregular verbs.
Technique: prediction, listening activity
Time: 10 min.
Interactive pattern: T-S
Materials: recording of the dialogue, handouts containing a printed dialogue and a picture
of the scene
Dialogue:
Did you have a good weekend?

Tony:                     Hi, Sarah. Did you have a good weekend?

Sarah:                   Oh, yes! I watched a great movie on Friday. On Saturday, I went shopping
with my friend Alice and then we had a party at our house. So on Sunday I slept all day.
Tony:                     That sounds good!
Sarah:                   How about you? You look tired. What did you do on the weekend?
Tony:                     Well, didn’t have much fun. I worked all the time and prepared our
presentation.
Sarah:                   Oh, no! I totally forgot the presentation!
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Procedure:
1.      I focus Ss’ attention on a picture of two people (Tony and Sarah) talking in an office.
(Tony looks very tired, Sarah covers her mouth with her hand as if she realized something
bad has happened.) I let Ss guess what the conversation is about.
2.      I show the title of the dialogue (Did you have a good weekend?) and set the scene:
“Tony and Sarah are co-workers. It’s Monday morning and they talk about their weekends.”
3.      I ask “Who had a good weekend? Who had a bad weekend?” to give a specific
listening task and let Ss guess.
4.      I play a recording of the dialogue. Then I elicit the answers (Tony = bad weekend,
Sarah = good weekend).
5.      I hand out the printed dialogues and let Ss read while I play the recording again.
6.      I elicit new vocabulary and write it on the board.

3) Elicitation of function and structure

Purpose:
·         To elicit the function of talking about past events using the past simple
·         To elicit the form of verbs in the past simple (regular and irregular)
Technique: elicitation through concept questions and use of time line.
Time: 5 min.
Interactive pattern: T-S
Procedure:
1.      Now I draw a timeline on the board and mark “NOW”, “PAST”, “FUTURE” and, pointing
at the picture, I ask “What day is it in the picture?” Then I add “Monday” after Ss have
answered.
2.      I elicit that the conversation is about past events by comparing it to the present
progressive:
T:         Is Sarah watching a movie now?
Ss:       No.
T:         Is she having a party now?
Ss:       No.
T:         Is she sleeping now?
Ss:       No.
T:         When did Sarah watch a movie?
Ss:       On the weekend/On Friday.
T:         When did she have a party?
Ss:       On the weekend/On Saturday.
T:         Right, on the weekend; not now. (I add “weekend” to the timeline.)
Tony and Sarah are talking about the past.

3.      I elicit the form of verbs in the past simple by comparing it to the present simple. I
write the following pairs of sentences on the board:
a.       I go shopping with my friend Alice.
I went shopping with my friend Alice.
b.      I work all the time.
I worked all the time.

4.      I ask “What is different in these sentences?” and, highlighting the past simple forms in
the examples, I explain that the verbs in the dialogue are in the past simple.
5.      I put the word “past simple” on the board (near “PAST” on the timeline) and explain
that we use it to talk about the past.
6.      I let Ss underline the verbs in the past simple that appear in the dialogue and let them
collect them on the board (regular on one side; irregular on the other).

4) Modelling

Purpose:
·         To raise Ss awareness of the formation and sentence structure of the past simple and
provide Ss with a chance to use past simple sentences for speaking (they do it for the first
time)
Technique: mechanical drill
Time: 1-2 min.
Interactive pattern: T-S
Procedure:
1.      I point at the sentence pairs from the previous step and explain that we form the past
simple by changing the verb form. The sentence structure is the same as that of the present
simple.
2.      Then I read out a verb and the sentence it appears in and let Ss repeat after me. After
doing it twice I read out only the verb and let Ss read out the full sentence.
Ex.       T: watched.
Ss: watched.
T: I watched a great movie on Friday.
Ss: I watched a great movie on Friday.
T: went.
Ss: went.
T: Sentence? (Pointing to a sentence if Ss have difficulties)
Ss: I went shopping with my friend Alice.
5) Pronunciation

Purpose: to make Ss aware of

·         the pronunciation the “-ed” ending in past simple verb forms
·         the stress of the personal pronoun when using the same question to talk about
another person
Technique: chain game, listening task (option)
Time: 5-10 min. (or more with option)
Interactive pattern: T-S, S-S
Procedure:
1.      I draw Ss’ attention to the verbs in the table again saying “Let’s take a closer look at
the pronunciation of these verbs on the left.”
2.      I explain that they all end with “-ed” but have a slightly different pronunciation.
3.      I explain that we pronounce “-ed” like
a.       /t/ when the verb ends with voiceless consonant sounds like in “watched” and
“worked”
b.      /d/ when the verb ends with vowel sounds or voiced consonant sounds like in
“prepared” and “played” (I add “played” to the table and model an example sentence)
c.       /Id/ when the verb ends with /d/ or /t/ like in “visited” (I add “visited” to the table and
model an example sentence)
While I explain I add phonetic symbols to the table and let Ss repeat the pronunciation of
each category after me.

watched      /t/
worked      /t/
prepared /d/
played     /d/
visited   /id/

4.      I let Ss copy the phonetic symbols to the table in their handouts.

Option: I give Ss another list of verbs, play a recording and let them sort the verbs according
to their pronunciation (/t/, /d/, /Id/).

5.      Now I focus Ss’ attention on the “you” in italic that’s found in the dialogue (see above).
I ask “Why is this you special?” and elicit some answers.
6.      I explain that when we ask the same question as before but about somebody else, we
stress the personal pronoun to make clear that we now talk about another person.
7.      I read out the dialogue once again putting special emphasis on the pronunciation of
“you” and emphasise and illustrate the meaning with gestures.

Option: I let Ss practice in a question chain (I ask them to point at the person they’re talking
to when saying the “you” to emphasise meaning):

Ex.       T: Did you watch TV on the weekend?

S1: [Yes/No] Did you watch TV on the weekend?
S2: [Yes/No] Did you watch TV on the weekend?
S2: [Yes/No] Did you watch TV on the weekend?

6) Systematization on the board

Purpose:
·         to present and explain the formation of verbs in the past simple (regular/irregular)
and the patterns for sentences (affirmative/negative)
Technique:  (encourage development of deductive skills through) elicitation
Time: 10 min.
Interactive pattern: T-S
Procedure:
1.      I say that I’m now going to explain the rules for verbs in the past simple.
2.      I focus Ss’ attention on the left side of the chart and ask Ss what these verbs have in
common to remind them that all verbs end in “-ed”.
3.      I add the headline “regular” to the left side of the chart and explain that the past
simple form of regular verbs ends like this.
4.      I ask Ss to look at their handouts which contains a column about the spelling of
regular past simple verbs and explain:
Most verbs:                                                    +ed      (e.g. watched, worked, visited)
Verbs ending with e:                                     +d        (e.g. prepared)
Verbs ending with a consonant +y:                        y to i +ed = -ied (e.g. studied)
Some forms need double consonant:         (e.g. robbed, shopped)

5.      Now I write “irregular” over the right side of the chart and explain that these are
irregular past simple forms, that they’re not formed by adding “-ed”, and that we have to
memorize them one by one.
6.      I ask Ss to look at the dialogue again and let them guess the base forms of the verbs
from the context.  Then I write them behind the past simple forms.

7.      Now I present the pattern for sentences in the simple past and write them on the
board:

Affirmative:    S + past simple form of the verb

Negative:        S + didn’t + base form of the verb

8.      Pointing at the chart I show that didn’t is the contraction of did not and did the past
simple form of do. I explain that we use did for all subjects.
9.      I add two example sentences to the systematisation on the board.

Ex.       I watched a great movie on Friday.

I went shopping with my friend Alice.
I didn’t watch a great movie on Friday.
I didn’t go shopping with my friend Alice.

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PRACTICE STAGE
1) Mechanical drill
Purpose:
·         To provide Ss with practice in transforming affirmative sentences in the past simple
into negative sentences and the other way round
Technique: oral transformation drill
Time: 1-2 min.
Interactive pattern: T-S
Procedure:
I say “Let’s practice turning positive sentences into negative sentences and negative
sentences into positive sentences.” and start with the examples on the board (later I use
other sentences from the dialogue as well as sentences describing leisure activities from the
warm-up, including Ss’ ideas):
Ex.       T:         On Saturday, I played sports. Negative?
S1:       On Saturday, I didn’t play sports.
T:         On the weekend, I didn’t have a party. Positive?
S2:       On the weekend, I had a party.
…
2) Reading and written practice

Purpose:
·         To provide Ss with practice in forming past simple verb forms (regular/irregular)
Technique:  gap filling
Time: 10 min.
Interactive pattern: S, S-S
Procedure and materials:
1.      I show Ss a picture of a young man having a hard time mowing the lawn.  I ask “Did he
have a good weekend?” to raise Ss attention. I let Ss guess and say “Let’s find out.”
2.      I hand out a gap filling exercise with a story about a his weekend:
<Text>

I had a very bad weekend. On Friday night, I ________ (go) downtown to meet my friend Alex.
We ________(want) to go to the movies, but he ________(not come), so I _________ (watch) the
movie alone.
Early on Saturday morning, my Father _________ (call) me and we _________(work) in the yard. I
hate working in the yard. In the afternoon, I ___________(go) shopping with my girlfriend. I
_________ (see) a lot of nice things to buy, but I_________(lose) my wallet and _______(not buy)
nothing.
On Sunday, my sister was sick so I ________(stay) at home and________(care) for her all day. It
really ________ (not have) fun this weekend.

3.      I let Ss complete the exercise alone and ask them to pair up to compare their answers.
4.      I remind them not just show each other their sheets but talk about what they wrote
and monitor their performance walking around in the classroom.
5.      After Ss have completed the exercise we check the answers by reading out the
dialogue aloud.
6.      I ask “Now, did he have a good weekend or not?” and elicit Ss’ answers to check Ss’
understanding of the text and to close the activity.
3) Communicative drill

Purpose:
·         To provide Ss with freer practice in listening, speaking and writing about past events
using the past simple
Technique:  personalization
Time: 10 min. (or more with option)
Interactive pattern: S-S
Procedure and materials:
1.      I focus Ss’ attention to the  worksheet and read out and explain the instructions for the
activity:
Tell your partner about 5 things you did and 5 things you didn’t do last week. Use time
expressions like                  on Monday/Tuesday/…/the weekend
in the morning/afternoon evening
at night
Then listen to your partner and write down what he/she did or didn’t do.

2.      I monitor the activity and provide vocabulary or other help where there is need.

Option: For more practice, let Ss tell the class about their partner’s last week.

PRODUCTION STAGE
Purpose:
·         To provide Ss with freer practice in writing about past events using the past simple
Technique: personalization
Time: 20 min.
Interactive pattern: S
Procedure and materials:
I read out and explain the instructions for the activity:
You are on a trip around the world. Write an e-mail to a friend or your family about your
trip. What country/places did you visit? What did you see? What did you do? How was it?
Where are you now?

Ss compose the text for themselves. They may use a dictionary. I monitor the activity and
provide help.