RESOURCES FOR TEACHING THE SIMPLE PAST TO TEENAGERS

1. LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE TIME . . .

Materials: Board

Dynamic: Whole class

Time: 30 minutes

Procedure:

1. Write a list of descriptive adjectives on the board.

Examples: shocking, embarrassing, funny, crazy, wonderful,

ridiculous, terrible

2. Each student chooses an adjective and writes two to four brief

sentences to describe an experience he/she had that illustrates the

adjectives chosen. (You might give a real or fictitious example of

your own.) Tell the class that you will read their stories aloud, so

they should not get too personal unless they are prepared for

everyone to know. Students should not sign their papers.

Examples:

I had a terrible evening. I ran out of gas and walked in the

dark to a gas station, but it was closed. I had to wait for

someone to pass by and help me.

The most embarrassing thing I did was to talk about the

teacher when she was standing behind me!

A crazy thing I did was to go swimming, naked, in my

neighbor’s pool.

3. Collect the papers and read them aloud. The students (other than

the author) should guess who wrote which experiences.

2. TELL THE STORY

Materials: Short video

Dynamic: Small groups

Time: 45 minutes

Procedure:

1. Choose a video of no more than 30 minutes. You might use a

children’s story (such as Where the Wild Things Are), a short video

(such as The Red Balloon), or an excerpt from a longer video as

long as the scene is self-contained, that is, tells a story itself. Tell

the class to pay close attention to the story.

2. After the class watches the video, put them into small groups of no

more than four. You can list difficult vocabulary on the board or

give them a handout. Or you may want to circulate and answer

questions about vocabulary as they arise.

3. The students discuss the video they watched and retell the story

in writing. Each group chooses one recorder, but all group

members check over their finished draft.

Variation:

Copy a child’s picture book. Delete any words on the pages. Put the

students into small groups and give one copy of the pictures to each

group. Have them write the “text” to correspond to the pictures.

Fun with Grammar by Suzanne Woodward

http://www.azargrammar.com/materials/FWG_TOC.html