Does anyone know of any good activities to practice the past simple?

Does anyone know of any good activities to practice the past simple? I'm teaching a Syrian refugee who has been here for a few years but I'm stumped for how to approach this because usually it's related to personal stories and experiences and we don't know each other well enough yet to broach his past. One activity book at school featured a speaking game with bomb and military tanker cards with past tense verbs and questions on it. I wish I was making this up! I'm shocked at how Eurocentric and downright inappropriate some books can be! He likes reading so maybe I can base it around the last book he read?

Comments

  1. Hannah McCullochDecember 2, 2017 at 10:19 AM

    If anyone has a tip for grammar review activities in general which would be suitable, I'm all ears (or should that be eyes?)

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  2. Giusy FotiaDecember 2, 2017 at 11:02 AM

    Well, start from a story or short story (2-3 paragraphs). 1st activity: the student draws what happens in the story (one picture for each main event), then he puts the pictures in chronological order, and repeats the story. The visuals will help the student to understand the concept of 'past' and the topic - totally impersonal - may make him feel more comfortable. Then move it to a more personal level: tell him what you did yesterday. Again you can try to draw some pictures on the board of you eating, drinking coffee, working etc. Then you can ask him to do the same. Simple past is used to tell what happened yesterday or two hours ago, you don't have to go deep into the kid's past to teach it. Yes, you are right: our books are definitely too eurocentrics! :/

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  3. Giusy FotiaDecember 2, 2017 at 11:03 AM

    Hannah McCulloch have you ever tried kahoot? https://kahoot.com/

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  4. Julia BlinovaDecember 2, 2017 at 11:58 AM

    Hannah McCulloch I agree with Giusy Fotia that impersonal stories with pictures can do well. I think you can find something like this in New English File or New Total English elementary course books. In fact, you can start with the pictures and ask the student what they see in them (maybe pre-teach some vocabulary here), then ask the student to put the pictures in the most logical order (you can give some clues about the first and last pictures). Read the story to check and then you can personalise, revise the forms, etc. The possibilities are endless.
    For grammar review I love board games. You can take an empty board for Snakes and Ladders and make cards with the questions yourself (I sometimes use tests for this purpose). I teach one-to-one, so I play with the student but to level the playing field I ask them to listen to my answers carefully. If they can catch me making a mistake, they get a bonus (e.g. I miss a turn).
    I also love cards with question prompts. For instance, there is a card with a topic "Work" and the prompts can look like this: Where / work? What time / start /work?
    You can vary the difficulty of the activity by leaving out as many words as you want or just putting subtopics on the card.

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  5. Hannah McCullochDecember 2, 2017 at 2:46 PM

    Thanks very much everyone!

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  6. Francesca Di MambroDecember 2, 2017 at 2:49 PM

    Famous people that he knows or you can introduce him to e.g. Prince Harry and his new fiancee? Impersonal, imaginative and enjoyable. I used to teach asylum seekers in Scotland and it was important to tread carefully with many topics as many students had horrific backgrounds. However, you could also tackle recent past e.g. yesterday, last week and concentrate on his new experiences in your country, staying away from the more sensitive stuff.

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  7. Hannah McCullochDecember 2, 2017 at 3:33 PM

    Thanks Francesca! Where were you in Scotland? :)

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  8. Claudie GDecember 2, 2017 at 3:42 PM

    Hannah.. First I HAVE to relate to the horrific idea of presenting students who have been through trauma with pictures or activities that involve anything that could activate memories (and that concern goes for the teachers dealing with issues themselves). I attended a workshop presented by the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture and they recommended when teaching parts of the body to use a complete picture of the body with the parts labelled instead of (say) a single hand. I never liked the "Whodunit" murder activities from books that were published 20 years ago... so I am wondering how old the activity book is. For the past twenty years I think there has been an increased sensitivity to content that reflects our increased sensitivity to many issues (not referring to PARSNIPS - another issue..Can Google that)
    .
    I can't remember if you teach kids or adults - I teach adults so these are what I use...adapt for age and interests!
    For past ( -ed and irregular). Yes, could use picture stories showing activities in a typical day..One of the basic writing books (maybe " Effective Writing" or From Writing to Composing (lol - they are old!!) has someone getting up...she got up, had breakfast, locked the door, caught the bus, arrived at work at 8.30...

    Or a picture of a busy scene..what is happening now? What happened before?
    What resources do you have? YouTube? Probably not..we are spoiled here..Quizlet, Kahoot ( but I don't use those often at all) Have to have really good reason to use technology.

    I think it would be easy enough to get magazine pictures and "create" a day...or a story depending on the student's needs/ interests - shopping? Looking for a job? Travelling? Transportation? Sports words?

    Student peer interviews get over the hurdle not wanting as a teacher to get too probing.. ..but if this is one on one maybe he could interview you first..basic background questions - he will be asked them by people he meets anyway...

    You could do a "Hannah's timeline" with him...but I agree this is tricky because maybe the usual milestones we expect everyone to have experienced were interrupted. . Good on you to be sensitive to this. Timeline's for famous people's lives are also good to learn information and verbs...

    I do love Oxford picture Dictionary tape ( old!!) Song about Cleaning verbs and cleaning tools..." Now Mr Potts, he wasted the counter, he washed the counter with a big orange sponge..." sentences are added while looking at the pictures and the words. It is fun cos it gets faster and faster.. good practice for different pronunciations of -ed endings and vocabulary

    (Not about simple past - more for present perfect - "before and after " pictures - Picture of a house with maintenance problems - vocab for problems, cracked, broken, etc..then second picture house has been repaired.."grass has been cut" , " window has been replaced" )

    Looks like my reply to your post with the CEFR link jumped here...Thanks for link..I read an article about how CEFR came about because of EEC and it was pretty political in approach and now with Brexit, who knows....

    Lovely communicating with lovely group of teachers!!


    enl.auth.gr - www.enl.auth.gr/gala/14th/Papers/Invited%20Speakers/Fulcher.pdf

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  9. Francesca Di MambroDecember 3, 2017 at 12:06 AM

    I taught in Anniesland College Glasgow Hannah McCulloch. Best job ever!

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  10. Hannah McCullochDecember 4, 2017 at 6:06 AM

    Francesca Di Mambro Lovely! I studied in Glasgow, so I know it pretty well. Great city!

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  11. Hannah McCullochDecember 11, 2017 at 5:06 AM

    Hi all, just to let you know I asked him about his day from the day before and he had an English test so we chatted about that. I then used a short video I found on Youtube called The Page Turner which is about a useless invention (He's specialising in Science so it was good to teach some related vocabulary) I got him to make notes on what was happening, pausing in places to review present continuous and review verbs, then eventually retell the scene in the past with lots of support. He loved it! Then we talked about books and reading. Here is the link to the video if you're looking to try it some time! I actually got it from an article James Taylor wrote for our Journal one time. youtube.com - The Page Turner | Rube Goldberg | Joseph's Machines

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  12. Sun ShineDecember 18, 2017 at 2:03 PM

    Preparing a timeline about someone they admire might help. Students like it. I ask them to write the first sentence. as follows:

    1 He/she was born on (date) in (place of birth)
    2 got his first bike when he/she was five.
    3 moved house ...
    Thank you for sharing. :)

    ReplyDelete

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