Teaching grammar

Simple past
Explanation of Simple Past grammar

• "Simple Past" is used to describe an action in the past. For example,

when you want to talk about what you did yesterday, you use the past
tense. Suppose you woke up early yesterday morning and after having
breakfast, you got ready to go to work. You ate lunch at one o'clock
and came home from work at five o'clock. All these events happened
yesterday. Therefore, their verb is past tense.
Convert a verb to simple past
• There are two ways to convert a verb into past tense. The first case is
to add suffix "ed" or "d" to the simple verb, like "walk" whose simple
past form is "walked".
• In the second case, the form of the verb changes completely, like
"go" whose past tense is "went".
• Accordingly, the past simple verb is divided into the following two
categories, which we will learn it separately:
• Regular verbs
• Irregular verbs
definition of the simple past
• the Simple Past grammar is used to describe an action that started at
a specific time in the past and ended at the same time in the past.
• In other words, no trace of it can be seen at the moment.
• Consider the following examples:
• Mina finished her meal.
• Sarah and her mother talked about you.
• Did they go to the hospital?
simple past grammar structure
• Two types of verbs are used for the simple past grammar structure,
which are:
• The grammar structure of Simple Past with the verb To be
• Grammar structure of Simple Past with main verb
The grammar structure of Simple Past with the verb To be

• To make past simple sentences with the verb "to be", we use "was" or
"were", which is the past form of "to be", according to the subject of
the sentence. If we only have this verb in the sentence, we consider it
as the main verb for which the simple past tense is used. In the table
below, you can see the structure of past simple sentences with the
verb "to be" for various active pronouns.
• I was
• We were
Positive words

• Affirmative sentences are made in simple past tense with the verb to
be using the following formula:
• Subject + was/were + complement
• Pay attention to some examples below:
I was at school tomorrow.
Negative sentences

• To make negative sentences, we use the following formula:

• Subject + wasn't/weren't + complement
• I was not late for school this morning.
Question sentences

Simple past question sentences are divided into the following two categories:
• Yes/No Questions:
Was/Were + subject + complement?
Was your father sick a week ago?

• "Question sentences with question word" (Wh-questions)

• Wh-word + was/were + subject + complement?
Where were you last week?
Worksheets about past verb to be
Grammar structure of Simple Past with main verb

• Positive words
Subject + verb + object
I walked to the shop yesterday.
We played a new game two days ago.
• Negative sentences
Subject + didn't + verb + object

I didn't talk to ali yesterday.

Simple Past verb structure

• the past simple verb is made in two forms, regular and irregular.
• regular verbs
• Regular verbs, as their name suggests, follow certain rules to become
past tense.
• For example, when the verb "walk" becomes past tense, it takes "ed"
and becomes "walked". There are many regular verbs in English and it
is easier to learn them compared to irregular verbs.
Pay attention to the following examples that are made
with regular verbs:
• I walked all the way from the mall to my house in an hour.
• She called her mother after her class.
• Can you give me more examples?
irregular verbs

• A group of English verbs are irregular, that is, they do not follow a
specific rule to become past tense. For this reason, they may be a
little more difficult to learn than regular verbs. In the table below, you
can see a number of common irregular verbs in English.
• The best way to learn irregular verbs in English is to refer to their list
Consider the following examples of irregular verbs in
English:

• maryam and mina were at the birthday party last Friday.

• We went to the supermarket yesterday and Jamie bought groceries.
• She spoke English very well.
Worksheets about regular verbs
Worksheets about irregular verbs
Application of Simple Past grammar

• To describe an action that was completed in the past:

Leila went to the supermarket yesterday.
• To describe habits done in the past:
I played tennis when I was young.
• To express events/facts in the past tense:
My sister hated broccoli when she was a child.
• To describe several consecutive events in the past tense:
First I got up, then I had breakfast.
Simple Past tense adverbs

• yesterday
• Last night
• last (Saturday/week/month/year)
• (a week/a month/a year) ago
• in (1987/spring)
Pay attention to the following examples to
learn more about the use of past tense adverbs:
• My grandmother passed away last year.
• We played the guitar yesterday.
• He lived in Tehran in 2010.
• They got married two years ago.
adverbs of frequency
• In addition to the adverbs mentioned above, we can also use
"adverbs of frequency" to show repetition.
• I often brought my lunch to work.
• I sometimes walked home.