Videos to Teach the Past Simple Tense
Recently I have created a set of videos to teach the past simple tense in English. There is a video that helps students learn to form the past tense in the following situations:
Verb to BE – negative form
In the previous two lessons, students learnt affirmative of the verb to be. They learnt the long and the short forms so now it is time to teach the negative form of the verb to be. But before we teach anything new, it is necessary to practise what they learnt in the previous lessons. First,…
When I teach the verb to be again – Lesson 2 – Short Forms
In the previous lesson, I taught the affirmative of the verb TO BE and now it is time to revise the grammar and explain the short forms. First, we need to revise. Students need to revise a lot, or they will forget. So let’s start with revising the pronouns. Play, the following video. First, students…
Past continuous tense – usage
In our previous post, we tried to explain how to form the past continuous tense in English. In this post, we will try to show you when you should use the past continuous tense.
SVOMPT – Word Order in English
The SVOMPT rule is the most important rule in English. As there are very few declinations in English, the word order rule is the one that keeps the sentences understandable. If you do not apply this rule, your sentences will make no sense. <!– wp:more –> Unfortunately, there are very few textbook that teach this…
Reported Questions – learn this grammar
Reported speech is not easy but when it comes to reported questions students go mad. “There are so many rules to apply,” they whimper. “First, you have to change the question into an announcement and then you have to shift the tenses.” That was why I tried to simplify this procedure. <!– wp:more –> In…
A SOME THE ANY AN
When you teach the concept of countability in English, students have to learn to use the words A, SOME, THE, ANY, AN in front of the nouns correctly. To decide correctly, students have to take several mental steps.In this post I explain the mental process and I offer your students a chance to practise it…
Common mistakes – present simple
After teaching present simple to my elementary students, we wrote a test and I collected the most common mistakes my students made. I analysed the mistakes and prepared games and exercises to help my students learn from their mistakes. In this post there is an infographic with all the mistakes, their corrections and explanations. Then…
Verb to be
The verb TO BE is the most important verb in English. Unfortunately, it is the most irregular verb in English, too. However, as all students of English manage to master its forms in the end, there is no reason to dispair. This mastery comes through practise. In this post I would like to share with…
Irregular verbs worksheets
This is the first post in a series on irregular verbs. It is called irregular verbs worksheets because in these posts I am going to publish worksheets in which your students can practise irregular verbs. There will be 10 irregular verbs each time and at least four exercises to practise them. Moreover, there will be…
Somebody or anybody, something or anything
Do your students struggle with the words somebody, anybody, something, anything, everything, everybody, nothing and nobody? Do they get these basic words wrong nearly every time? If your answer is yes, then this post is just for you. ADVERT: [showmyads] In this post I would like to share with you several tools to help your…
Some or Any – grammar
The usage of Some and Any in English is quite simple. Some is used in positive statements, requests or offers and ANY is used in questions and negative sentences. However, many textbooks confuse students by mixing this simple concept with the concept of countability. In this post I will try to keep the explanation as…
How to Form and Use the Third Conditional
The third conditional is the most feared grammar point I know. Students of English think that it’s hard to form and understand. Therefore, when they start learning the grammar they are paralysed with fear. And as a result, they fail to learn it. Thus the third conditional keeps its reputation. ADVERT: [showmyads] But the truth…
Questions with LIKE
The word LIKE is one of the most productive words in English. However, many students often confuse the meaning of the questions with LIKE and they give completely wrong answers. Especially pre-intermediate students of English find these questions really difficult. ADVERT: [showmyads] The aim of this post is to explain the meaning of different questions…
Gerund or infinitive?
Engames and Fluency MC have joined forces again to bring you a post that will help you decide whether you should use a gerund or an infinitive after a verb. This post is not going to provide a comprehensive overview of the grammar. Our aim is to give your students a simple guide to help…
Past simple and past continuous
Yesterday a friend sent me a song he’d written that uses only the past simple and past continuous tenses. He asked me how I liked it, and I had to admit it was great. A few hours later I encountered a short explanation of the same grammar by Australiaplus.com, and I realised that I wanted…
Teach irregular verbs with Fluency MC #3
As I wrote before, irregular verbs are the most important thing for all students of English to learn. However, it is not easy to master them. That is why Fluency and I started to collaborate on a series of posts that deal with teaching just the irregular verbs.ADVERT:[showmyads]In this post we are going to introduce…
Little and Few – learn the difference
The difference between LITTLE and FEW, especially when you add A LITTLE and A FEW, causes a lot of problems event to students whose English is really good. In this post I try to teach the difference in a graphical way. Having studied the infographic, you should try the interactive quiz and check whether you…
Possessive case #2
I have already published a post on possessive case. But when I tried to teach it again, I found out that it was not clear enough for the group I am teaching now. So I created a new infographic and several new interactive exercises in which students can practise the grammar. And my new students…
Past simple tense – negative
I have already published several posts on past simple tense. There are several posts on irregular verbs, a post on regular verbs in past tense and now I would like to explain how to make negative sentences in past simple. It is quite simple – you just add DIDN´T and the infinitive. To help you…