Whenever I have to teach the simple past tense in English, one activity I always use is speaking and writing practice using some short “stories” I made up. Writing them was much more difficult than I had originally imagined, since the use of regular verbs in a narrative is not really authentic language. Native speakers just don’t talk that way. But, to give my EFL English students a bit of practice writing regular verb forms in the past and especially their pronunciation, I came up with some short ones using just this form. They are harder to read and pronounce than “normal”, but intensive practice seems to be quite helpful. So, I continue to use them even though I know that this speech pattern is not going to occur in natural English speech.

Since my students are all from a Spanish-speaking country in South America, Colombia, they often have a problem pronouncing the verb ending -ed in its various forms. I had noticed the same propensity for pronunciation problems with regular -ed verb endings in other Spanish-speaking areas, so I prepared exercises to help with this from the start. Students in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Panama, and Ecuador have benefited from these simple “stories.” I hope your EFL/ESL students will too.

TEFL students can read the story paragraphs aloud, focusing on the correct pronunciation of the final forms of the verbs. They can fill in the blank endings in the paragraph to practice by adding -ed or just -d as needed. They will also practice when to change “y” to an “i” before adding -ed. For example, Play becomes played, and stay becomes stopped, but trying and crying becomes tried or cried. Stories can be cut into strips and rearranged, acted as a “skit”, pantomime, or a variety of writing exercises and comprehension activities can be added. As an added feature, I bold the verbs in the paragraphs.

I tried to create short paragraph stories that were also of some interest. One is set in the Old West and is called “The Calico County Sheriff.” The others take place during a visit to the zoo and during a bank robbery, respectively. They are entitled “The Zoo” (169 words) and “The State Bank” (131 words). Bit catchy titles, right? Only a little “writing license” was taken in the creation of these short paragraph stories. Hey, it worked for Shakespeare, didn’t it?

Here are two as examples for you to try.

The zoo

Last Wednesday we decided to visit the zoo. We arrived the next morning after breakfast, cashed our passes, and entered. We walked to the first exhibits. I looked at a giraffe that was looking back at me. I nervously walked to the next area. One of the lions looked at me as he lounged in the shade while the others napped. One of my friends first hit and then hit the tempered glass in front of the monkey cage. They howled and yelled at us as we rushed to another exhibit where we stopped and gawked at the feathery birds. After resting, we headed to the petting zoo where we petted shaggy sheep that only stared at us, but the goats would thrash and nibble at our clothes when we got too close to their enclosed pen. Later, our weary group pushed their way through the crowded pathways and out the gate with turnstiles. Our car rattled, shook, and wobbled as we dozed on the leisurely drive home.

The State Bank

This morning at 8:33, someone robbed the Banco del Estado downtown. The robber entered the bank and said that he wanted all the money from him. The thief smiled but he seemed very tired. The cashiers seemed concerned. The thief received the money he requested, asked to be excused, and then hurried out when the door turned. He ran down the street and screeched away in a damaged car that rattled and screeched and smoked. He seemed like he really needed the money. The police soon arrived. They ran and chased them down the street. They searched and questioned passers-by, but the thief disappeared. The police failed to catch him. Investigators dropped the case and did nothing further. The money was never recovered and the thief was never identified, the incident report ended.

In the second part of this series of articles, I demonstrate the use of a similar style, but a much longer piece to practice the past simple of regular verbs. If you’re successful and want to try another one of my “stories” or two, email me for more. Better yet, try creating a pair of your own. Either way, I’m happy to share these with you and would love to hear how they worked out for you and your EFL/ESL English learners. So feel free to let me know how well they worked (or didn’t work) for you.

Good luck