The Past Simple: Rules, Practice and Pronunciation

The past simple tense in English can seem pretty straightforward. Until it isn’t!

What is the past simple tense in English?

The past tense is used:

• When something has happened once in the past – I left school in 1989.
• When things happen more than once – We ate a lot when we were on holiday.
• When something refers to a time in the past – I lived in Spain for 2 years.

We can also use the word ago with past tense phrases – It happened a long time ago

Negatives and questions

We use the past tense of do with questions:

• Did you see that car?
• Did you live in Spain a long time?
• Did she pass her exam?

We use didn’t (did not) with negatives:

• We didn’t go on holiday this year
• I didn’t call her yesterday

Some TEFL students may get confused using do/did with question forms. For example, they may ask why ‘do’ isn’t used with all wh- questions.

Question forms is another lesson, but as a quick explanation you can tell your students if there is an auxiliary verb or a modal then we use that verb. For example;

• How much does the watch cost?
• When does your sister get home?

When there isn’t an auxiliary verb we use do/did.

Read more: What’s The Deal With Direct And Indirect Questions?

Regular and irregular verbs in the past tense

The regular verbs of the past simple are formed by adding -ed.

Play becomes played. Like becomes liked and so on.

The problem is that in English we also have irregular verbs which don’t follow this pattern. For example, do becomes did and eat becomes ate.

If you’re teaching TEFL students as beginners, start off teaching the past simple tense with irregular verbs. One of the most – if not the most – common irregular verb is the verb to be. The past tense of to be  is was. Other irregular verbs include:

• be – was
• become – became
• can – could
• do – did
• eat – ate
• get – got
• go – went
• have – had
• leave – left
• make – made
• say – said
• sit – sat
• tell – told
• write – wrote

Top tip: A list of irregular verbs will be in the back of your TEFL student’s coursebook. They will need to commit these verbs to memory. You can help them by creating games which use the irregular verbs or using word search or worksheets to help them.

Past simple pronunciation in English

But now we get to the really tricky part: past simple tense pronunciation.

If you’re a native speaker, you’ve probably never given the pronunciation of regular past simple verbs much thought. But for English language learners, their pronunciation can be infuriating.

Let’s first think about the rules.

Consider the following sentences:

Yesterday I asked my teacher a question.

Last week I played football with my friends.

My mother suggested I go to London to study English.

If you pronounce those sentences correctly, you will realise that although there are three regular past simple verbs in the sentences, their endings are all pronounced differently. This can be problematic for English language learners because it seems like you cannot know how to pronounce a word by looking at it.

But, in fact, you can.

If the verb ends in /t/ or /d/, the past simple ending is pronounced /Id/.

For example, wanted and ended.

If the verb ends in a voiceless sound, such as /p/, /f/, /s/, /ʃ/, /ʧ/ or /k/, the past simple ending is pronounced /t/.

For example, stopped and washed.

If the verb ends in another voiced sound, the past simple ending is pronounced /d/.

For example, played and allowed.

This is a lot of information for our learners to keep in mind when trying to speak fluently. It’s not complicated, but it will take practice to get used to using the correct pronunciation ending.

It’s helpful to point out rules when they apply to pronunciation. Pronunciation of the regular past simple endings can be problematic for English learners at lower levels but if they notice the rules, they should help them.

Ok, so those may not be the easiest rules to remember but with enough practise your students should get the hang of it.

Past simple pronunciation exercises

To help them out with the past simple pronunciation, use categorisation activities and guided discovery so they become familiar with the rules.

What is a categorisation activity?

A categorisation activity is exactly what it says. The learners must put words into their correct categories.

In this case, learners must put the verbs and their endings in their correct categories. This can be done by creating cards with the present stem of regular verbs. Hand these out to the students.

On the board, make columns for the three different pronunciation endings – /t/, /d/, /Id/ -, without writing the rules. Make sure your students understand the IPA symbols. Let your students categorise the vocabulary cards by sticking them on the board in the correct categories.

Read more: What Is The IPA?

Do not help them in any way. Don’t even indicate whether they are correct or not.

When they have done all the vocabulary cards, let them know how many are wrong without actually telling them which ones are the incorrect ones. Give them time to change their answers and continue until they are all correct.

This can even be done before you focus on the rules. By allowing your students to complete this activity by trial and error they should figure out the rules for themselves. In this way the rules will be more memorable for them.

Even though a grammar point can be relatively simple, sometimes pronunciation can be more complicated. Pronunciation of regular past simple endings can be problematic for English learners at lower levels but we can help them out with this simple categorisation activity.