Journey on Learning in Action:
Innovation- Cogitation
Are There Better Ways to Teach
the Past Tense ?
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
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Journey on Learning in Action:
Innovation- Cogitation
Are There Better Ways to Teach
the Past Tense ?
Why do teachers at
upper levels keep
complaining about
students’ poor mastery
of the past tense?
Why does the
problem happen
again and again
across schools?
2
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.
3
Curricular Changes
Old Practices
Past tense to be
taught only in last two
modules of P3 second
term
Past tense was taught
for a short period of
time as a segregated
grammar item
New Practices
Past tense to be
taught from the first
module of P3 second
term
Past tense was taught
for a longer period of
time for immersion
purposes
4
Pedagogical Changes
Old Practices
New Practices
Teaching pedagogies were
mainly form-focused
Teaching pedagogies are mainly
communicative in nature
Students exposed to past
tense usage in reading and
grammar exercises
Students experience and use the past
tense through reading, speaking,
listening and writing
Learning relied on publishers’
materials without reference to
students’ everyday life.
Teacher designed learning tasks with
reference to students’ everyday life.
Past tense taught
without comparison of present
tense
Past tense taught with comparison of
present tense
Relied on form-focused drilling
such as the verb table to help
students to learn
Form-focused activities still in use:
But more sensitivity to students’
learning problems
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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.
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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.
Presentations
Last 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.
Main objective:
Student-student interaction to use past tense
and present tense to talk about weight and height 7
I learned the difference between the past tense
and the present tense from the story.
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
No of
respondents
3A
27 (81.82%)
6 (18.18%)
0 (0%)
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3B
35 (100%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
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3C
23 (65.71%)
12 (34.29%)
0 (0%)
35
3D
24 (68.57%)
11 (31.43%)
0 (0%)
35
3E
22 (66.67%)
10 (30.3%)
1 (3.03%)
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131 (76.61%)
39 (22.81%)
1 (0.58%)
171
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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?
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Communicative Approach:
Daily Oral and Listening Interaction
Regular everyday dialogue using the
contrast of present and past tense
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Communicative Approach:
Daily Oral and Listening Interaction
• Teacher’s meaningful interaction with
students using the past tense
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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.
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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 buy13
food in December, 2007.
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
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Integrating the past tense and present
tense concepts in writing
Modules
Writing
Reader:
Well done Max!
Write a simple story
(Present tense)
Unit 5 and 6
Special Events
Journal writing: visiting Lion’s Nature Education Centre
(Past tense)
Unit 7
Let’s Celebrate
Letter about Easter Holiday: Compare what people
normally do for Easter and what the student did that
particular Easter
(Present and past tense)
Unit 1
My good friend
Write a simple story in past tense
(Past tense)
Unit 2
My classmates
My best classmate: Write about a present friend and
describe how the student came to know the friend
(Present and past tense)
Unit 3 and 4
Yummy food
Email to a friend about favourite food
(Present and past tense)
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Diary writing about best classmate
What is the name of
your best classmate?
Where does he/she sit
in the classroom?
What is he/she
good at?
When and why you
two
became best friends?
Shared food with
you?
Helped you with
your problem?
Lent you a pen?
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Letter writing about Easter
How do people
celebrate Easter
every year
How did you
celebrate Easter
in 2008 ?
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Dealing with students’ learning problems
Difficulties of picking up the concept
and
Difficulties of learning the form
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Form-focused Activities
Help students to learn
regular and irregular
past tense verbs
Use tenses
progressively:
from sentence level
to text level
WS 4; WS 5; WS 6
Form-focused
Activities
Design special
verb tables
highlighting
verbs with
special spellings
Emphasize time markers
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see
saw
20
hear
heard
21
say
said
22
eat
ate
23
drink
drank
24
sing
sang
25
write
wrote
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Go/come
Went/came
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saw
caught
said
ate
sang
drank
heard
wrote
Went/
came
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Prepared by Mr Liu Chun Lung
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.
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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
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Thank you !!
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