ESL Past Tense Activities and Games | Ideas to Teach ESL Past Tenses

The past tense in English, it’s a classic grammar point that appears in almost every single ESL textbook in publication! The students have seen it a ton of times before, and you’ve probably also taught it more times than you can count. How do you keep things fresh and interesting, both for you and the students? You’ll need to use some ESL past tense activities or games. It’s teaching past tense made easy!

ESL Past Tense Games and Activities: Top 20

Check out these fun, engaging and interesting activities and games for verb tenses right here.

#1: ESL Board Games

I love to play board games in real life, and also like to use them with my students because they’re one of the best interactive ESL activities. For my students, I make my own in just a few minutes that are related to what I’ve been teaching in class. In this case, I’ll make a variety of questions from the past. For example: Where did you go to elementary school?

Or, I’ll have statements in the past tense and students have to come up with the correct question. For example: I went to ABC middle school.

It’s a great way to do some review before a test, or to finish up a class about the past tense in a fun, challenging way.

Board Games for ESL Students

p.s. Board games are also ideal for teaching for and since!

#2: The Memory Circle Game

This versatile ESL game is ideal for helping students remember names, new vocabulary, or in this case, grammar. The way it works is that the first person says a sentence from the past.

For example, “I played soccer last night.”

Then, the next person says that sentence and then adds their own. If they make a mistake, they’re “out” and then game continues until one person is left.

Find out more about this fun past tenses game here: ESL Memory Circle.

#3 ESL Past Tense Game: Rocks Scissors Paper

This ESL game is ideal for reviewing questions and answers in the past tense, especially if you want to mix in some present tense as well to help students differentiate between the two. You can use it as a review before a test, or as a way to finish up a class. It’s quite simple and works better for beginners rather than intermediate or advanced students.

You make some questions and then matching answers. For example:

What did you do yesterday? I went to school. (Past)

What are you doing now? I’m studying English (Present)

Cut up all the little pieces of paper, separating questions and answers. Then, give students 3-4 strips of paper and they have to circulate around the class, trying to find their match. Once that happens, they do rock-scissor-paper and then winner keeps both papers.

More details here about using this activity for teaching past tense: Rocks, Scissors, Paper ESL Review Game.

#4: Telling a Story, the Better Way

In many ESL textbooks related to this grammar concept, students have to tell a story of some kind. Their most embarrassing moment or a memory from their school days for example. It’s usually kind of a throwaway activity, but you can turn it into something way more interesting and useful.

Learn how to do this here: Telling a Story, the Better Way for ESL Students.

ESL Games for Irregular Past Tense Verbs

Do you want to see a fun ESL past tense game in action? Then you’ll want to check out this short video for all the details you need to know about this game for irregular English verbs in the past:

#5: Flashcard Sentences, ESL Past Tense Games

If you teach kindergarten or elementary school kids, then flashcards hold some serious ESL teaching gold. You can do a ton of things with them. My secret is to not buy random cards, or make your own, but check with the publisher of the textbook you’re using. They often make a set to go along with each book.

The way that you could use them with the past is by doing a quick review game. Hold up a card to each student 1 by 1. They have to make a sentence using a past tense verb. If correct, they keep the card and get a point. If incorrect, move onto the next student and they can try.

For example, there’s a picture of a bus. The student would have to say, “I rode the bus yesterday.”

Or, a picture of an apple. The student says, “I ate an apple.”

More details here about one of the best ideas for teaching past tense: Flashcards for ESL Teaching.

#6 ESL Past Tense Activity: English Central Videos

Maybe you’ve been looking around YouTube for a nice video that has a variety of past tense verbs. Maybe you want your students to listen, and then write down these verbs as a quick warm-up or lead-in.

The only problem is that it can be hard to find appropriate ones sometimes. Instead, check out English Central which is designed specifically for English learners.

Learn more here: English Central (ESL YouTube).

10 ESL Activities for the Past Simple

Do you want even more ideas for an ESL past tense activity that you can use with your students today? Check out this short video below for 10 more activities and games that your students will love:

#7: Dictogloss ESL Past Tense Activity

For more advanced level students, you may want to try out dictogloss. In this case, you’ll want to choose a story from the past. The way it works is that you read the passage, at a more or less normal pace. Then, the students have to try to create the main concepts from it, working with a partner.

Read it again and the students can add more to it. At the end of the activity, you can highlight the past tense verbs.

Check it out here: Dictogloss ESL Activity.

#8: Dialogue Substitution

Students can often get in the habit of reading dialogues mindlessly and basically taking nothing in. Instead, if you choose to use a reading passage to introduce this grammar point, why not remove some of the key words, in this case many of the verbs.

Have a list of possible choices, and students can work together with a partner to fill in the blanks. Once they’re done, they can read the passage together.

Learn how to do it here: Dialogue/Reading Passage Substitution.

#9: Story Timeline

If you’ve used a story to introduce the past tense, then consider this timeline activity to make things a bit more interesting. It’s an ideal partner or group activity.

Check it out: Story Timeline ESL Reading Activity.

#10: Disappearing Text

This is a very, very simple way to review some key irregular verbs. Write a sentence on the board. For example, “Last night, I ate pizza, went to my friend’s house and watched a movie.”

Then, erase the beginning, or end few words and students have to say the sentence without them. Erase the whole thing eventually and students will have memorized it.

Learn more here this past tenses game: Disappearing Text Review Activity.

#11 Simple Past Activities: Make a Diary

An idea for a homework assignment is to have students keep a diary for a few days. Perhaps 3, 50 word entries for beginners and longer ones for more advanced students. For beginners, it can be a very simple record of what they did that day, with an emphasis on past tense verbs.

#12 Past Tense Speaking Activity: Who Did the Same?

In this activity, students try to find someone who did the same thing. I usually have the students stand up and mingle with others in the class. They can say things like, “I ate pizza for dinner last night.” Their partner might say, “Oh! I did too.”

If someone else did as well, that’s 1 out of 3 (or however many things in common students have to find). If their partner says no, they can try another sentence, or move onto another person.

#13 ESL Irregular Verbs Game: Concentration

This is a fun ESL memory game that can be used with students who are just starting to learn the irregular past verbs. By irregular, I mean verbs that don’t end in “ed.”

You wan to make sets of cards with the verb in the present and then the past. For example:

speak / spoke

fit / fit

dive / dove

eat / ate

teach / taught

fit / fit

speak / spoke

Etc.

Then, print out the cards and cut them up. Be sure to cover the back with something like construction paper so students can’t see through the cards.

Then, they lay them out on the table and have to find the matching present tense and past tense verbs. You can find out more about irregular past tense verb activity right here:

Concentration Memory Game

#14: Task Based Learning Activities

I’m ALL about task based teaching and learning in my classroom. In many ways, these kinds of activities have a huge advantage over more traditional PPP (presentation, production, practice). They allow students to focus on the language that they want to learn, they’re motivating and help students learn how to work in pairs or groups. But perhaps the best thing is that they’re student-centred to the max.

Task based activities also lend themselves well to the simple past as they allow students to focus on experiences they’ve had in their life. To find out more about this style of teaching, along with specific activity ideas, you’ll want to check out the following:

ESL Task Based Learning.

#15: Mystery Box Game

#16: ESL Suffix Games and Activities

Regular past tense verbs are formed by using suffixes, usually an “ed” at the end of the verb. The good news is that there are some pretty specific rules for how to form these kind of verbs. And, lots of fun games and activities you can use with your students to practice this. More details about this ESL past tense activity here:

Suffixes Games and Activities.

#17: Telephone Review Game

A fun way to review the past tense with your students is to play the telephone game. You probably already know it? The way it works is that you can give students a sentence with the past tense in this case and they pass it along from person to person until the end of the line. At that point, they compare with the original. The results? Usually very different! Check it out here:

ESL Telephone Activity.

#18: How to Teach Past Tense: Use Conversation Starters

The simple past is often the tense that we conduct conversations in. After all, isn’t much of small talk about what happened recently? For example, getting to school or work, what’s in the news, the latest results from the popular local sports teams, what was on TV last night, etc.?

Intermediate and advanced learners can have free-flowing conversations about these things. However, beginners often struggle as they don’t have the vocabulary and grammar framework to say more than a couple of sentences without running into a roadblock.

That’s where conversation starters can help them. It’s the start of a conversation with some blank spaces for them to fill in and it’s often just what they need in terms of support. More information can be found here:

ESL Conversation Starters

#19: Chain Spelling

A fun way to review spelling and past/present tense verbs is to play the chain spelling game. All the students have to stand up and then you can say a verb in the present tense. The students have to take turns spelling out the equivalent verb in the past tense. If a student misses a letter, they sit down and are out of the game.

#20: Hidden Picture ESL Past Tense Game

Where do these ESL Past Tense Games Fit into the Lesson Plan?

That’s a great question and we’re happy that you asked! A standard, CELTA style kind of lesson looks like this:

• Lead-in or warm-up that sets the context and introduces a topic
• A reading, listening or video that demonstrates the use of the past tense
• A deeper dive into the finer points of the past tense
• Controlled practice (fill in the blanks, etc.)
• Freer practice (conversation, etc.)
• Follow-up game or activity related to the grammar point
• (Next class): Review

Most of these ESL past tense games would fit into the freer practice or follow-up part of the lesson. However, some of them could work as a quick lead-in or warm-up and you may also find that some work well as a quick review activity. We’ll make note of how they could work for each activity.

What are the ESL Past Tenses?

There are 4 ESL past tenses that you’ll want to point out to your students. They are:

• past continuous
• simple past
• past perfect
• past perfect continuous

If you need a little brush up on English grammar when teaching the past tense, no problem. We’ve got you covered.

Most native English speakers know this stuff intuitively, but may not be able to explain the ins and outs of it to these English learners. It’s totally normal and nothing to worry about—just be sure to bone up on the grammar before teaching it!

Here’s a quick review of the various past tenses you can use in English, along with some examples for each one. The textbook you’re using should also be a great source of information for this.

#1: The Simple Past

They moved to Canada in 2011.

I went to school in Montreal.

I didn’t like that teacher.

Did you like the movie?

#2: Past Continuous 

I was watching the game when my Mom called.

They weren’t sleeping when I phoned.

What were you doing when I came home?

#3: Past Perfect

We’d (We had) finished our homework before we went out for the night.

She hadn’t eaten dinner before going to bed.

Had you seen you Dad before going out to play soccer?

#4: Past Perfect Continuous

I’d (I had) been working at the same place for 25 years when I retired.

I hadn’t been waiting too long when my Mom got there.

Had long had you been waiting for your friend?

How to Teach the Past Tense ESL?

If you’re more of a visual learner, then you’ll perhaps want to check out this YouTube video that explains the 4 past tenses in English, including the present perfect and how to use them correctly:

What are some Simple Past Questions?

Do you want to see some of our favourite past simple conversation questions? Here are a few of them:

What was the last difficult thing you had to do?

Where did you go for your last vacation? What did you do? What did you eat?

Where did you live when you were a child? Tell me about it.

Tell me about your best, or worst teacher that you had in school.

What chores did you do when you were young?

What is your best memory from when you were a kid?

Who was your best friend from your school days?

What did you do for your last birthday?

Were you a good or bad student when you were young?

Do you have any questions in the simple past that you’d like to add to the list? Please comment below and we’d be happy to add them!

Do you have any Past Tense Lesson Plans?

If you’re looking for some complete lesson plans for teaching the past tense, then these games and activities probably aren’t going to do it for you. Not to worry though. We’ve got you covered. Here are a few of our go-to sources for lesson plans for the past tense:

ESL Kids Stuff

Lingua House

BBC Teaching English

ESL Past Tense Worksheets

If you’re looking for some past tense ESL worksheets, then these games and activities aren’t going to do it for you! Instead, we recommend checking out some of our favourite resources:

ISL Collective

English for Everyone

All Things Grammar

ESL Past Tense Online Practice and Exercises

Are your students looking for some extra practice with the ESL past tense? Then you’ll certainly want to direct them to these sources for online practice:

My English Pages

Agenda Web

ESL Games Plus

How do you Teach the Past Simple?

Teaching the simple past requires a context. For example, a past vacation, memory or story about something that happened to the student. Teach students a mix of regular and irregular past tense verbs and use time expressions to provide context. Use some past tense activities or games, written exercises and homework assignments or projects.

What is Past Tense with Examples?

The past tense is how we talk about something that already happened in English. You can use regular or irregular verbs. For example, “I played soccer last night” is an example of a regular verb (play + ed). An example of an irregular verb is the following: “I went to my friend’s house for dinner last weekend” (go—>went).

Irregular Past Tense Verbs

Here are some of the irregular past tense verbs that students often have a difficult time with:

be—>was/were

eat—>ate

find—>found

flow—flew

get—>got

go—>went

lead—>led

make—>made

speak—>spoke

teach—>taught

try—>tried

write—>wrote

Did you Like these ESL Past Tense Activities?

Yes? Then you’re going to love this book: 101 ESL Activities for Teenagers and Adults. There are dozens of engaging, interesting and useful activities and games that you can use in your classes today.

The book is well-organized into sections, ranging from speaking and writing to grammar and warm-ups. You’ll be able to find what you’re looking for in seconds.

Then, each activity starts off with a brief overview so that you can see, at a glance whether or not it’ll work for your class. After that are more detailed, step-by-step instructions that tell you exactly what you need to do before, during and after the activity. Finally, don’t forget the teaching tips that’ll help you avoid the most common mistakes for each specific activity so that you class can be as awesome as possible.

The book is available in both digital and print formats. The digital copy can be read on any device by downloading the free kindle reading app. Take it with you for lesson planning at your favourite coffee shop. Or, keep a copy on the bookshelf in your office to use as a handy reference guide.

Yes, it really is that easy. Check out this ESL activity book for yourself over on Amazon, but only if you want to get yourself a serious dose of ESL teaching awesome in your life:

Have your Say about these ESL Past Tense Activities

What are your thoughts about these ESL games and activities to help your students with the past tense? Any tips for teaching this grammar concept? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you.

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Last update on 2021-02-06 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API