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:

• the affirmative sentences of regular verbs.
• the affirmative sentences of irregular verbs.
• the negative sentences of regular verbs.
• questions.
• and short answers

All these grammatical forms are taught in a similar way. Students get a clue and they try to form the correct sentence. After a while, they hear and see the correct answer. This method is very effective and students really improve their grammar. Try it!!!

Affirmative sentences in the past simple tense

In the first video, students learn to form the past tense of regular verbs. Students see a sentence in the present simple tense and they have to make it in the past simple tense. Just play the video and students really quickly learn how to form the past simple tense. In the second part of the video, students hear a sentence in the present tense and they have to say the sentence in the past simple tense.

In the second video, students make sentences with irregular verbs. First, they just listen and repeat and then they form the sentences.

And students can learn even more irregular verbs here:

Negative sentences in the past simple tense

Once your students know how to form affirmative sentences in the past simple tense, they should learn the negative. Remind them that they have to put the root verb into infinitive as the past is expressed by the word DIDN´T.

In this video, students hear the affirmative sentence and they have to make it negative. This video contains only regular verbs.

The next video works the same way as the one above, but this time the verbs are both regular and irregular.

Questions in the past simple tense

Many students claim that it is really difficult to make questions in the past tense. But it is not true. When we watch the following video they always say that it is really simple. So, why don´t you try it out with your students?

Short answers in the past simple tense

When your students know how to make questions, they should learn how to form short answers in English. Once again the following video will help you.

If you need more materials to teach irregular verbs, try this one.

And you can find some online exercises to practise the past tense at grammarlane.com .