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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
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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?
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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.
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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
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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
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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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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.
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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
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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?
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Regular everyday dialogue using the contrast of present and past tense
Communicative Approach:Daily Oral and Listening Interaction
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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 buy food in December, 2007.
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• 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
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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)
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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
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
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seesee
sawsaw
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hearhear
heardheard
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saysay
saidsaid
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eateat
ateate
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drinkdrink
drankdrank
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singsing
sangsang
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writewrite
wrotewrote
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Go/comeGo/come
Went/cameWent/came
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saw
said
ate
sang
drank
heard
caught
wrote
Went/camePrepared by Mr Liu Chun Lung
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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 !!