Did you cook dinner? (Past Simple negative and questions)

Ewa | Jun 01, 2025Jun 11, 2025

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this lesson on Past Simple for beginners are to:

• understand the rules to talk about the past;
• discuss past actions;
• listen to a recording where people talk about what they did yesterday.

With this lesson, students explore various past activities. They learn the rules to talk about the past in positive and negative sentences, questions and short answers. They also work in pairs to ask and answer questions and write a conversation about past events, starting with the question “What did you do yesterday?”.

WARM-UP AND GRAMMAR

This lesson on Past Simple for beginners starts with a warm-up. Students look at photos from yesterday and discuss where people were and whether they were happy. After that, they listen to a recording where people talk about the photos from the previous task. Students choose the correct photo for each conversation. Moving on, they listen to the recording again and choose the correct past phrases (e.g. did he play…?, I didn’t play…) in the dialogues. Following that, students look at the rules to talk about the past in positive and negative sentences, questions and short answers. They add examples from the previous task. Afterwards, students use words and phrases to write what people didn’t do last weekend (e.g. Annie didn’t talk to her friend). They then look at pictures and write what people did (e.g. She emailed her friend). 

DISCUSSION

In this part of this lesson, students continue practising Past Simple for beginners. First,  students use words and phrases (e.g. you / dance / at the weekend) to write questions about past actions (e.g. Did you dance at the weekend?). With a partner, they ask and answer the questions and add an extra follow-up question. Then, students complete gaps in a conversation about work activities in the past. After that, they look at photos of different situations. Students choose one photo and write a conversation like the one from the previous task. They use the verbs provided in the task (e.g. call, email, talk) and start the conversation with the question “What did you do yesterday?”.

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This lesson plan also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students choose the correct words or phrases to complete statements. The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.

WORKSHEETS

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