Were your school days fun?

Olia | Feb 09, 2025May 16, 2025

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this lesson on was and were for beginners are to:

• learn and practise was, were, wasn’t and weren’t to talk about the past;
• discuss subjects people learn at school;
• watch a video where people mention their favourite subjects.

With this lesson, students talk about their likes and interests. They explore school subjects (e.g. history, music, maths, etc.), practise adjectives (e.g. interesting, boring, etc.) and watch a video in which people talk about their favourite subject. Students also read a short text, explore to be in the simple past, and talk about their past with a partner.

WARM-UP AND VIDEO

This lesson on was and were for beginners starts with a warm-up. Students create sentences about themselves using sentence beginnings (e.g. I love…, I hate…, etc.) and activities (e.g. reading, sports, etc.). Following that, they complete sentences with school subjects using pictures. Next, students practise school subjects more and describe them using the adjectives interesting, boring, easy and difficult. Afterwards, students describe activities (e.g. reading a Harry Potter book, etc.) using one of those adjectives. Students then watch a video on people’s favourite school subjects. Students watch the video and check which subject is mentioned the most. Then, they match people’s favourite subjects with the reasons and watch the video again to check the answers. Later, they read a short text about the video, noting the use of to be in present and past tenses. Students do tasks where they explore was, were, wasn’t and weren’t to talk about the past. 

GRAMMAR PRACTICE AND DISCUSSION

In this part of this lesson on was and were for beginners, students complete gaps in statements and questions about school days and other situations. They use the correct form of the verb to be in the past. Next, students turn questions from the previous task into statements. They then choose statements and create questions. Afterwards, students work in pairs. They choose a card with an adjective and say a sentence with was or were about their past. Their partner has to say if it’s true or false. Then, students swap roles. After that, they choose an adjective from the rest of the cards. Students ask their partner a question about their past using was or were. They swap roles, asking and answering questions. Finally, students choose topics (e.g. my favourite teacher, my favourite subject, a concert I remember, etc.) and talk about them in the past.

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This lesson plan also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students create sentences by putting the words in the correct order. Then, they say if each sentence is true for them or answer the question. 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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