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Mastering Past Tense: Effective Strategies for Teachers

Explore innovative methods to enhance student grasp of past tense, incorporating practical activities and teacher reflections.

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Mastering Past Tense: Effective Strategies for Teachers

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  1. Journey on Learning in Action: Innovation- Cogitation Presenters Chan Sui Ki (La Salle) Primary School Ms Lam Wai-ling Ms Kwok Yee-mei, Amy Mr Wong Yuet-fai, Angus School-based Curriculum Development Section Chan Yeung-ming, Eve Are There Better Ways to Teach the Past Tense ?

  2. Journey on Learning in Action: Innovation- Cogitation Why do teachers at upper levels keep complaining about students’ poor mastery of the past tense? Are There Better Ways to Teach the Past Tense ? Why does the problem happen again and again across schools?

  3. Students’ Problems What are your students’ problems in learning the past tense? • Students did not remember/ could not master the concept of the past tense. • Students did not use the past tense in speaking and writing. • Students had difficulties learning the different forms of verbs especially irregular verb forms.

  4. Curricular Changes

  5. Pedagogical Changes

  6. Reading Week: Input from Reader Record in 2007 I was seven year old. I was 130 centimetres. I was 32.6 kilos. Record in 2008 I am eight year old. I am 131 centimetres. I am 33.7 kilos.

  7. Reading Week: Input from Reader Interviews A: What was your height last year? What is your height now? B: Last year I was _______ centimetres and now I’m _____kilos. Main objective: Student-student interaction to use past tense and present tense to talk about weight and height PresentationsLast year Ching Cha Yu was 134 centimetres and now he is 137 centimetres. Last year Lee Chi Man was 128 centimetres and now he is 130 centimetres.

  8. I learned the difference between the past tense and the present tense from the story.

  9. Communicative Approach:Daily Speaking and Listening Interaction The past tense is used regularly and naturally in the classroom rather than treated as an occasional special language item. • What is the weather like today? • What was the weather like yesterday? • What day is today? • What day was yesterday? • What date is today? • What date was yesterday? • What did you have for lunch yesterday? • What do you usually have for lunch every day? • What do you usually do at weekends? • What did you do last weekend?

  10. Communicative Approach:Daily Oral and Listening Interaction Regular everyday dialogue using the contrast of present and past tense

  11. Communicative Approach:Daily Oral and Listening Interaction • Teacher’s meaningful interaction with students using the past tense

  12. Speaking about how you celebrate festivals every year and last year Do you usually eat moon cakes at Mid-Autumn Festival? Did you eat one moon cake last Mid-Autumn Festival? ……… Let students explore under what situations they should use past tense.

  13. Tense Worksheet with reference to authentic situation of the school • In 2008, there _______(be) five primary 3 classes in Chan Sui Ki (La Salle) Primary School. • Miss Yu _______(be) the Principal of the Chan Sui Ki (La Salle) Primary School in 2008. • The School picnic______(be) on 19th December, 2007. • Chan Sui Ki students _______(have) a school picnic every year. • All Primary 2 students _________(go) to Ho Man Tin Plaza to see the shops last year. • All Primary 3 students _______(go) to McDonald’s to use English to buy food in December, 2007.

  14. Tense Worksheet with reference to authentic situations of the school • All Primary 2 students _________(go) to Ho Man Tin Plaza to see the shops last year. • All Primary 3 students _______(go) to McDonald’s to use English to buy food in December , 2007

  15. Integrating the past tense and present tense concepts in writing

  16. Diary writing about best classmate When and why you two became best friends? Shared food with you? Helped you with your problem? Lent you a pen? What is the name of your best classmate? Where does he/she sit in the classroom? What is he/she good at?

  17. Letter writing about Easter How do people celebrate Easter every year How did you celebrate Easter in 2008 ?

  18. Dealing with students’ learning problems Difficulties of picking up the concept and Difficulties of learning the form

  19. Form-focused Activities Help students to learn regular and irregular past tense verbs Design special verb tables highlighting verbs with special spellings Use tenses progressively: from sentence level to text level WS 4; WS 5; WS 6 Form-focused Activities Emphasize time markers

  20. see saw

  21. hear heard

  22. say said

  23. eat ate

  24. drink drank

  25. sing sang

  26. write wrote

  27. Go/come Went/came

  28. saw caught said ate wrote sang drank Went/came heard Prepared by Mr Liu Chun Lung

  29. Teachers’ Reflection • We focused too much on the language form in the past. The new focuses on meaning and application facilitated learning. • Moving the teaching of the past tense to the beginning of the term can make a difference in learning because of immersion. • It is practical to let students learn the differences between the present and past tense not only through written texts but also speaking. This helped minimize the difficulty of learning the tense. • Immersing students in daily life situations is a good practice. Students can use authentic language to interact with peers and teachers. • Students showed interest in clicking the part of the body to learn the irregular verb forms. It was a good start to arouse the students’ interest of learning. However, it is very important for the students to recite the verb forms by heart and study very hard every day. • When teaching other tenses, same principles could be applied.

  30. References • Krashen, Stephen. D., and Tracy D. Terrell. 1983. The natural approach: Language acquisition in the classroom. Oxford, England: Pergamon/Alemany. • Marton , F. and Runesson, U (2003). The space of learning. Paper presentation at the symposium Improving Learning, Fostering the will to learn, European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction, Padova, Italy (August, 2003). • Shulman, L .(2004). The Wisdom of Practice: Essays on Teaching, Learning, and Learning to Teach (JB-Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching) (v. 1) San Francisco, USA

  31. Thank you !!

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