# Session 31: Past tense

<div align="left" dir="ltr" id="bkmrk-session-title-past-t"><table style="width: 108.095238%; height: 547.234375px;"><colgroup><col style="width: 32.487923%;" width="199"></col><col style="width: 67.391304%;" width="434"></col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height: 45px;"><td style="height: 45px;">**Session Title**

</td><td style="height: 45px;">**Past tense**

  
</td></tr><tr style="height: 141px;"><td style="height: 141px;">Objective

</td><td style="height: 141px;">By the end of the session, students will be able to:

  
1. Understand what Simple Past Tense is.
2. Identify regular and a few irregular past tense verbs.
3. Form and use simple past tense sentences.

</td></tr><tr style="height: 109px;"><td style="height: 109px;">Topics/Concept

</td><td style="height: 109px;">1. Understanding simple past tense
2. Identifying regular and irregular Verbs
3. Forming and using past tense sentences

</td></tr><tr style="height: 109px;"><td style="height: 109px;">Material Required

</td><td style="height: 109px;">1. Slips of paper with regular and irregular verbs
2. Small box or bowl
3. Board and chalk

</td></tr><tr style="height: 109px;"><td style="height: 109px;">Methodology

</td><td style="height: 109px;">1. Activity-based learning
2. Constructive approach
3. Collaborative learning

</td></tr><tr style="height: 34.234375px;"><td style="height: 34.234375px;">Session Duration

</td><td style="height: 34.234375px;"> 90 Minutes

</td></tr></tbody></table>

</div>### Intro Activity (15 minutes):

#####   **“Yesterday,I….”!** 

- Students want to sit in a circle
- The first student starts by saying a sentence beginning with:
- “Yesterday, I…” and completes it with an activity using a past tense verb.

 Example:

1. “Yesterday, I played football.”
2. “Yesterday, I ate mangoes.”

- The next student must repeat the previous sentence(s) and add their own.

 Example:

 “Yesterday, I played football, and I watched TV.”

- Continue around the circle. Each student adds one more sentence to the chain, using a new past tense verb.
- If someone forgets or makes a mistake, offer support and gently correct the tense if needed.

### Main Topic/ Activity (60 minutes):

#####  **What is Past Tense? (20 minutes)** 

- The past tense is used to talk about something that already happened. It tells us about actions or events that took place before now — yesterday, last week, or even just a minute ago!

 **Types of Past Tense Verbs:**

1\. Regular Verbs – We just add -ed- at the end.

 walk → walked

 jump → jumped

 clean → cleaned

2\. Irregular Verbs – The spelling changes completely or doesn't follow a rule.

 go → went

 eat → ate

 buy → bought

- Give them more examples of irregular verbs

#####  **Story Time (20 minutes)** 

- Tell the students that the story you are telling about is something that happened yesterday.

 **Story = “Raju’s Busy Day**”

 Yesterday, Raju woke up early. He brushed his teeth and ate a banana. Then, he packed his bag and ran to school. At school, he wrote a test and drew a picture in art class. After school, he played with his friends and came home tired. He watched TV, read a book, and finally, he slept.

- Write this story on the board and call students to underline past tense verbs on the board."

**Purpose**: Children connect deeply with stories. When a story is told in the past tense, it provides a natural, engaging way to introduce and reinforce past tense verb forms without a heavy grammar focus.

##### **Charades: Past Tense Edition (20 minutes)** 

- Write a mix of regular and irregular past tense verbs on small pieces of paper.
- Fold and place them in a bowl or container.
- Divide the class into two teams.
- One student from Team A comes up and picks a slip from the bowl.
- The student then has 30 seconds to act out the verb without speaking.
- Their team tries to guess the verb in past tense (e.g., “danced”, not “dance”).
- If the team guesses correctly within the time, they score a point.
- If not, the other team gets one chance to guess and steal the point!
- Then it’s Team B’s turn, and the game continues.

Example Verbs to Include:

**Regular**: walked, cooked, cleaned, smiled, jumped, clapped

**Irregular**: ate, went, ran, drank, sang, wrote, slept, drove

- The team with the most correct guesses at the end of the game wins!

### Follow up Tasks (5 minutes):

**Quickly review:**

- What are regular verbs?
- What are irregular verbs?

**For homework**: Ask students to write 5 sentences using simple past tense (3 regular + 2 irregular)

### Review Questions/Assessment/Tasks (10 minutes):

**Fill in the Blanks” board activity:**

1. I \_\_\_ (go) to school yesterday. → went
2. She \_\_\_ (play) football. → played
3. They \_\_\_ (eat) ice cream. → ate
4. We \_\_\_ (watch) a movie. → watched

### Expected Learning Outcome:

**Knowledge building:**

- Identify the concept of past tense and recognize when to use it in everyday situations.
- Use regular and irregular verbs in simple past tense form while speaking and writing short sentences.
- Differentiate between regular and irregular past tense verb forms (e.g., played vs ate).

**Skill building:**

- Charades: past tense edition helps students verbally guess past tense verbs ("You danced!").
- Peer interaction and group problem-solving.
- By story time activity students collectively identify the past tense verbs.