Presented by Karen Inchy The Past Simple Presented by Karen Inchy

Function Indicates an action or series of actions that began and ended at a particular time in the past. e.g. He walked to the beach yesterday. Often used for narrative.

Regular Form Positive: add -ed to the base form of the verb. e.g. jump – jumped Difficulty: spelling

Spelling Rules If the verb ends in an -e, only add -d. e.g. live – lived If the verb ends in a consonant + -y, change the -y to -i and add -ed. e.g. study – studied

If the verb ends in a vowel + -y, just add -ed. e.g. play – played If the verb ends in consonant - vowel -consonant, double the last consonant. e.g. stop – stopped exception: visit - visited

Pronunciation Difficulty: The past -ed is pronounced in 3 ways. If the last letter of the base verb is: Unvoiced: /t/ - worked, watched Voiced: /d/ - loved, cleaned Verb ends in d or t: /id/ - wanted, added

Negative: Add did not before the base form of the verb. e.g. He did not pass his driving test. Contraction: didn’t Difficulty: when forming the negative pupils may continue to add -ed to the base form of the verb. e.g. He didn’t passed his driving test.

Questions: Begin with did and the verb stays in the base form. e.g. Did he go to college? Difficulty: pupils may use the past form of the verb instead of the base form. e.g. Did he went to college?

Irregular Verbs Difficulty: irregular verbs: Do not take -ed Have to be learned. e.g. teach – taught run – ran put – put know – knew

To Be The verb to be is irregular: I/ he/ she/ it - was we/ you/ they - were Difficulty: The verb to be (the copula) is idiosyncratic (no Hebrew equivalent) and has a multiplicity of forms (2 forms). Regular past simple verbs only have one form.

Negative: I/ he/ she/ it - was not we/ you/ they - were not Contractions: wasn’t / weren’t Questions: begin with was or were and then the subject (inversion). e.g. Was she here? Were they here? Difficulty: pupils may use did plus was or were to form questions. e.g. Did she was here?

Time Expressions yesterday last (week, month, year) a long time ago, two days ago in 1987 in the 1960s when I was a child

Bibliography Azar, B. (1998) Understanding and using English Grammar Celce-Murcia (1999) The Grammar Book Zelenko, E. (1994) Develop Your Grammar About:http://esl.about.com/library/grammar/blpastsimple.htm http://www.learnwithlucy.com/stregpt.htm