The Past Simple

The past simple is a verb tense used to describe actions or events that were completed at a specific point in the past. It’s one of the most common ways to talk about the past in English.

How It’s Formed:

• Regular verbs: Add -ed to the base form of the verb (e.g., walk becomes walked).
• Irregular verbs: These verbs don’t follow a specific pattern and must be memorized (e.g., go becomes went, see becomes saw).

Examples:

• Regular verb: I walked to school yesterday.
• Irregular verb: She went to the store last week.

The past simple is used when the action is completed, and there is usually a clear time reference, like yesterday, last week, in 2010, etc.

Here are the photos from the slides for better view:

Learning Activities:

• Activity #1: Think of something you did over the weekend. Then, in pairs share your experiences using the past simple tense. Write down at least five sentences using both regular and irregular verbs. (Work in pairs to help each other out)
• Activity #2: Write a short story that happened in the past using the past simple. It can either be a real story from your life or a made up story. Then each student will read the story out loud and the rest of the class will have to guess if it’s a real story or a made up one.