Here's an easy but effective activity for practicing past forms of English verbs, both regular and irregular. I used a teddy bear, but many other objects will do just as well.

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The simple past: a classroom activity

Here's an easy but effective activity for practicing past forms of English verbs, both regular and irregular. I used a teddy bear, but many other objects will do just as well.

The participants here were from an English class I conducted for Post Publishing employees. We did do some practice first and you will notice for the most part, the speakers put to use the suggestion I made with the "Clever Parrot" video (http://bit.ly/UAfTus)

In appropriate situations, they combined final sound of the verb with the initial sound of the word following it instead saying each verb separately and distinctly, eg. rockdit (rocked it), tickledit (tickled it), grabdit (grabbed it), hidit (hid it), etc.

Here are the base forms of the verbs used in the activity. Listen for how they are changed into the simple past.

try
talk
rock
pretend
tickle
grab
hide
shake
feed
bite
burp (ทำให้เรอ)
kick
play

If you do a similar video with your class using a different set of verbs, let me know and maybe we can add it to our collection. Make sure the sound is clear and loud enough, however. That is often a problem with amateur videos.

To further understand the past simple, read the chapter in Understanding English verb forms: The past simple

You can find a full description of Understanding English verb forms here:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/books/196206/understanding-english-verb-forms

You can buy the book online here:

http://www.se-ed.com/eshop/Products/Detail.aspx?No=9786167061030&CategoryId=482

http://www.chulabook.com/description.asp?barcode=9786167061030