1.6.3 Past Simple (Negative) Lesson Plan

Lesson Procedure:

1. No, He Didn’t. After watching the movie, I Didn’t Sleep (L1U6L3), have pairs of students lay out the sentence strips, matching Ben’s activities to the days of the week, but in a jumbled order. Partners take turns correcting the information, using sentences in negative past simple. For example: He didn’t sleep in class on Tuesday. He slept in class on Monday.
2. Ben’s Terrible Week. Extend the sentence strips activity to incorporate the concept of cause and effect. This time, students match Ben’s activities with the events that caused them (the “cause” phrases from the Preparation section). They may have to watch the movie again, to confirm their answers.
3. What I Did Last Week. Have students write their own short passage about activities they did each day last week. They should include at least one activity per day, and incorporate at least three negative past simple sentences. They may want to use the cause and effect model from the previous activity. For example: I didn’t go to the party because I was busy. Ask several volunteers to read their passages to the class. Then have pairs of students select one of those passages. The partners reconstruct the selected story from memory, and write down the sequence of events they remember. To check their work, students read their versions to the original writers. Remind all students to use the past simple negative form of verbs.