1

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, AmyMr Wong Yuet-fai, Angus

School-based Curriculum Development Section

Chan Yeung-ming, Eve

2

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?

3

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.

4

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

5

Pedagogical Changes

Old PracticesTeaching pedagogies were mainly form-focused

Students exposed to past tense usage in reading and grammar exercises

Learning relied on publishers’ materials without reference to students’ everyday life.

Past tense taught

without comparison of present tense

Relied on form-focused drilling such as the verb table to help students to learn

New PracticesTeaching pedagogies are mainly communicative in nature

Students experience and use the past tense through reading, speaking, listening and writing

Teacher designed learning tasks with reference to students’ everyday life.

Past tense taught with comparison of present tense

Form-focused activities still in use:

But more sensitivity to students’ learning problems

6

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.

7

Main objective: Student-student interaction to use past tenseand present tense to talk about weight and height

Reading Week: Input from Reader

PresentationsLast 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.

Interviews

A: What was your height last year?

What is your height now? B: Last year I was _______ centimetres and now I’m _____kilos.

8

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%) 33

3B 35 (100%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 35

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%) 33

131 (76.61%) 39 (22.81%) 1 (0.58%) 171

9

Communicative Approach:Daily Speaking and Listening Interaction

The past tense is used regularly and naturally in the classroomrather 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?

10

Regular everyday dialogue using the contrast of present and past tense

Communicative Approach:Daily Oral and Listening Interaction

11

Communicative Approach:Daily Oral and Listening Interaction

• Teacher’s meaningful interaction with students using the past tense

12

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.

13

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 buy food in December, 2007.

14

• 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

Tense Worksheet with reference to

authentic situations of the school

15

Integrating the past tense and present tense concepts in writing

Modules WritingReader:

Well done Max!Write a simple story

(Present tense)

Unit 5 and 6

Special EventsJournal writing: visiting Lion’s Nature Education Centre

(Past tense)

Unit 7

Let’s CelebrateLetter 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 friendWrite a simple story in past tense

(Past tense)

Unit 2

My classmatesMy 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 foodEmail to a friend about favourite food

(Present and past tense)

16

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?

17

Letter writing about Easter

How do people celebrate Easter

every year

How did you celebrate Easter

in 2008 ?

18

Dealing with students’ learning problems

Difficulties of picking up the concept

and

Difficulties of learning the form

19

Form-focused Activities

Form-focusedActivities

Design special verb tables

highlighting verbs with

special spellings

Use tenses

progressively:

from sentence level

to text level

WS 4; WS 5; WS 6

Help students to learn regular and irregular

past tense verbs

Emphasize time markers

20

seesee

sawsaw

21

hearhear

heardheard

22

saysay

saidsaid

23

eateat

ateate

24

drinkdrink

drankdrank

25

singsing

sangsang

26

writewrite

wrotewrote

27

Go/comeGo/come

Went/cameWent/came

28

saw

said

ate

sang

drank

heard

caught

wrote

Went/camePrepared by Mr Liu Chun Lung

29

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.

30

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

31

Thank you !!