Category: Uncategorized

(lesson extract download PDF)

4 Bargaining

This conversational exercise helps students practice the language of bargaining.

See the YouTube short gap fill (best on mobile)

5 Elements of money and finances vocabulary and expressions (with audio and answers)

This is a business English ESL listening/speaking exercise introducing and exploring financial vocabulary. Students try to match the vocabulary with the appropriate pictures. Then they ask and answer the questions.

Elements of money and finances vocabulary (PDF)

(see the video version of this exercise on YouTube)

Elements of money and finances audio

6 Talking about money (with audio and answers)

This is an elementary ESL listening/speaking exercise for talking about money. First, students try to match the vocabulary at the bottom of the page to the pictures. They can then listen and write notes below the pictures. They can also also ask/answer the questions as a speaking activity.

Talking about money (PDF)

Talking about money audio

7 Parts of speech for money and finances vocabulary (with answers)

This is a sorting exercise exploring the grammar of financial vocabulary. Students try to sort the words into the appropriate columns. Then they use the words in sentences.

Parts of speech money and finances vocabulary (PDF)

8 Basic financial vocabulary

This is a business English ESL exercise introducing and exploring basic financial vocabulary. Students try to complete the sentences by looking at the pictures. This exercise works well as an icebreaker at the beginning of a lesson.

Basic financial vocabulary (PDF)

Basic financial vocabulary audio

Business English Speaking Activities

6 Expanding Business English Vocabulary Activities

8 Business English Vocabulary Exercises

5 Cool Advertising & Branding Vocabulary & Language Exercises

5 Describing Graphs Language Exercises

15 Captivating Computing, Technology and Innovation Vocabulary and Language Exercises

5 Intercultural Body Language, Gestures and Etiquette Language Exercises

Elementary to Pre-Intermediate Speaking and Vocabulary Lessons for Money

December 18, 2018January 11, 2024

Invitation and Request Dialogues

Mastering the Art of Invitations and Requests

1 Invitations: accepting and refusing (with answers and audio)

Students try to complete the invitations conversations using the pictures and the useful vocabulary. Or you use the audio and you can have a listening lesson instead/as well.

Invitations: accepting and refusing worksheet

Short invitation dialogues (PDF )

(see the YouTube version of this exercise)

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2 Invitations and excuses

This exercise is a more advanced one than the one above. It aims to expand students’ vocabulary.

Extract from Invitations and excuses

See the YouTube video

3 Making requests – office dialogues

This is a more advanced exercise than the one below. So, it should be used after students understand the basics of making requests.

Extract from PDF

See the video on YouTube

4 Movie invitation (pair work speaking)

Movie invitations are fun. Invitations can be practiced using calendars and event schedules.

Requests around town (PDF)

5 Making requests around town (with answers and audio)

Students try to write commonly used requests and short conversations that are appropriate for the situations shown in the pictures. And then listen to the conversations to compare and check their answers.

Requests, advice and commands speaking skills (PDF)

Making requests around town

6 Requests, advice and commands speaking skills (with answers and audio)

This is a speaking/listening exercise and worksheet for English language learners to practice deciding whether to give commands, advice or make polite requests in a variety of situations shown in the pictures. This exercise can be done as a listening exercise now that I have added audio.

Requests, advice and commands

8 Preposition Exercises for Location, Time and Movement (PDF)

5 Reported Speech and Indirect Questions Listening/Speaking Exercises

5 Gerunds and Infinitives Exercises

10 Adjectives Exercises Including Adjectives for People and Things

3 Parts of Speech Exercises

7 Picture-Based Present Continuous Worksheets (PDF)

8 Preposition Exercises for Location, Time and Movement (PDF)

5 Future Tense Vocabulary and Speaking Exercises

5 Useful Passive Tense Practice worksheets

6 Present Perfect Language and Speaking Worksheets

11 Incredibly Useful Past Tense Simple Teaching Activities (PDF)

Listening/Speaking Exercises for Conditionals

7 Making Polite Requests (with answers)

This is a grammar exercise and worksheet for English language learners to practice making polite requests in the different ways and different scenarios. Students match the expressions on the left to the pictures and write complete requests with the appropriate request phrase.

Making polite requests (PDF)

ESL Listening Activities Guide

5 Elementary Conversational Expressions Exercises

5 First Day Activities for an ESL Class

10 Really! Elementary ESL classroom icebreakers

7 Essential Speaking Activities for ESL Classes

8 Invitation and Request Dialogues for Everyday Scenarios

8 Classroom requests & queries (with answers)

This elementary exercise focuses on common classroom requests.

Classroom requests (PDF)

Classroom requests

9 Hotel dialogues: making requests exercise

This is an hotel dialogues exercise focusing on common conversational exchanges between hotel staff and guests.

Hotel dialogues: making requests (PDF)

December 16, 2018December 20, 2023

New Year’s resolutions vocabulary and discussion worksheets

New Year’s Resolutions Vocabulary and Discussion Worksheets

20th December 2023

1 New Year language worksheets

Below are some new exercises for introducing and practicing the vocabulary for talking about topics related to the New Year.

Picture and vocabulary matching PDF

Language exercises related to New Year activities PDF

Conversational practice worksheet for talking about the New Year PDF

A critical thinking and discussion worksheet for discussing the New Year PDF

Write a conversation about New Year PDF

2 New Year Resolutions for 2024 worksheet

New Year resolutions provide a lot of useful language and vocabulary that can form the basis of good vocabulary and discussion lessons. It’s quite a personal topic and gives students a good opportunity to express themselves. This is an English language worksheet for thinking about and brainstorming resolutions for the next year. It is also a good and way to teach the future tense.

New Year’s resolutions 2024 (PDF)

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3 Resolutions for the future worksheet

This is an English language worksheet for thinking about resolutions for the future. Students write down their own resolutions under the appropriate headings. Then they choose their three most important resolutions and set dates/ deadlines for when they want to achieve those resolutions.

Resolutions for the future teaching idea

Resolutions for the future (PDF)

Future Tense: Plans, Predictions and Schedules (3 exercises)

10 Really Elementary Classroom Icebreakers

7 Essential Speaking Activities for ESL Classes

New Year’s resolutions vocabulary and discussions (PDF)

ESL listening exercises

4 New Year resolutions expressions and vocabulary

This is an activity for introducing or exploring the vocabulary and language of New Year resolutions. It can used for dictating new language or it can be used as a game by giving students or teams points for guessing/finding the words that match the pictures.

New Year resolutions vocabulary and discussions activtities

11 Classroom Debate and Discussion Language and Critical Thinking Activities

10 Essential Opinion and Argument Writing Templates and Worksheets

6 ESL Exercises and Worksheets for Talking about Cities

15 Captivating Computing, Technology and Innovation Vocabulary and Language Exercises

December 12, 2018February 4, 2019

Crime and illegal acts vocabulary exercises

2 Icebreaking Crime and Illegal Acts Vocabulary Exercises

Crime and illegal activities vocabulary 1 (with answers)

Students look at the pictures and match the them with the vocabulary. This exercise is a great icebreaker or introductory exercise for a discussion about crime and illegal activities. After matching the words to the pictures, students could be asked to rank the crimes in order of seriousness. Alternatively, they could be asked to think of appropriate punishments for each crime.

Click on the image below or the link at the side to download the PDF file

Crime and illegal activities 1 (PDF)

Related Crime Lessons Resources:

Crime Reading, speaking and Vocabulary Lessons

Crime and illegal activities vocabulary 2 (with answers)

This is a second exercise in the same format as the exercise above. It expands on the vocabulary in the first exercise. Another idea for following up on the vocabulary exercise would be to get students to write opinions crimes that effect their lives, explaining where, when and how they they have been affected.

Crime and illegal activities 2 (PDF)

Related Resources:

10 Role Play Speaking Activities

11 Classroom Debate and Discussion Language Activities

5 First Day of Class Activities

8 Invitation and Request Dialogues for Everyday Scenarios

December 1, 2018January 20, 2024

Intercultural body language, gestures and etiquette language exercises

10 Interpersonal and Intercultural Body Language, Gestures and Etiquette Language Exercises

January 20th 2024

Body language is always an interesting topic for the classroom. Body language and gestures elicit a surprising variety of interpretations. It’s quite fun. And of course, when you add in a mix of cultures, it gets even more interesting.

1 Body language quiz with answers

This is a body language quiz with answers for language learners and for intercultural communication. Students read the description of the body language and write a suggestion for it’s meaning.

2 Expressing opinions about travel and culture

A vocabulary and critical thinking exercise for discussing travel and culture. Students use the words at the bottom of the page to complete the sentences and then agree/disagree with the statements and give reasons for their choices.

3 Brainstorming the meaning of body language and gestures

A nice easy icebreaker to start a class. Students brainstorm ideas for the meanings of the body language or gesture in each picture.

4 Body language and gestures

This exercise explores gestures as a form of interpersonal communication. I should note that the answers may vary and my answers are just my interpretation.

Body language and gestures

5 Body language and gestures 2

This is similar to the above but a little more straight forward.

Body language and gestures vocabulary (PDF)

Body language gestures 2 audio

6 Body language and gestures 3 vocabulary exercise (with answers)

The exercise below is for introducing and exploring body language and gestures vocabulary. Students match the vocabulary to the pictures. This can serve as an introduction to a discussion of intercultural communication and body language.

7 Body language, gestures and manners vocabulary dictation

This is exercise is a good way of introducing the vocabulary associated with body language, gestures & manners to learners of the English language. Dictate the vocabulary on Page 2 of the PDF and tell the students to find the appropriate picture and to write the words on the correct picture. Dictate the words randomly. Alternatively, if the students are quite weak scramble the words on the whiteboard.

Body language, gestures and manners worksheet (PDF)

Culture home

US vs UK vocabulary

Customs and gestures game

5 travel and tourism language and vocabulary lessons

Intercultural Lessons Home

8 Brainstorming good and bad manners

This is a great icebreaker and brainstorming exercises for a class about intercultural issues or politeness and etiquette topics.

Brainstorming good and bad manners (PDF)

9 Manners & etiquette speaking skills worksheet (with answers)

This is an exercise for practicing language associated with manners and etiquette. Students look at the pictures and complete the speech bubbles with their own ideas.

Manners and etiquette speaking skills (PDF)

10 Polite vs impolite etiquette language skills worksheet (with answers)

This is an exercise for practicing language associated with manners and etiquette. Students look at the pictures and write sentences with their own ideas.

Polite vs impolite etiquette language exercise (PDF)

11 Hugging, kissing and shaking hands lesson

This is an ESL speaking and writing lesson for practicing basic language for talking about relationships and culture. Learning and understanding the language of relationships, friendship and romance is a pretty fun and easily personalized topic for English language learners. First, students match the pictures with the vocabulary and expressions at the left of the page. Then they can hold short conversations using the example at the bottom of the page as a guide .

Hugging, kissing and shaking hands lesson (PDF)

Other Resources:

10 Jobs and Careers Language Skills Exercises

6 Describing People and Appearance Vocabulary and Language Exercises

8 Business English Vocabulary Exercises

8 Business English Speaking Skill Worksheets

Intercultural Lessons Home

November 29, 2018December 30, 2023

Advertising and branding vocabulary and language exercises

5 Cool Advertising & Branding Vocabulary & Language Exercises

Advertising and branding vocabulary and listening/speaking exercises help students familiarize themselves with language, expressions and terminology necessary to get ahead in the corporate world.

1 Elements of advertising vocabulary

This is a business English ESL exercise introducing and exploring the language and vocabulary of advertising. Students try to match the vocabulary with the appropriate pictures. This exercise works well as an icebreaker at the beginning of a lesson.

Elements of advertising vocabulary (PDF)

Branding vocabulary (PDF)

Elements of advertising

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2 Branding vocabulary worksheet (with answers)

This is an Business English exercise introducing vocabulary commonly used to talk about brands and branding. Students try to match the vocabulary with the appropriate pictures. The worksheet includes important business and branding vocabulary including:

target audience slogan brand image premium brand

market leader customer awareness branding strategy

brand identity product line brand loyalty brand ambassadors

Vocabulary and listening exercise for company branding

Branding vocabulary

This is a listening and dictation exercise for familiarizing students with advertising related vocabulary.

8 Business English vocabulary exercises

Advertising related vocabulary diction

8 Business English Speaking Skill Worksheets

5 Describing Graphs Language Exercises

5 Intercultural Body Language, Gestures and Etiquette Language Exercises

10 Computing, New Technology and Internet Vocabulary and Speaking Activities

4 Advertising survey and speaking lesson

This is an ESL speaking and writing lesson for talking about advertising. First, students write five survey questions about advertising. There are some examples of questions on the first page of the PDF. When they have written five questions on Page 2 of the PDF, they can walk around the class asking classmates their questions and noting down their answers on the worksheet. Finally, they write a short report from their survey question answers. This is a fun communicative exercise that allows students to mix freely.

Advertising survey and speaking activity

Advertising classroom survey lesson (PDF)

5 Branding questionnaire speaking lesson

This is an ESL speaking activity, questionnaire that encourages discussion around the topic of branding.

Branding questionnaire (PDF)

November 28, 2018December 30, 2023

Describing people and appearance vocabulary and language exercises

Amazing Describing People and Appearance Listening, Vocabulary and Language Exercises

30th December 2023

Learning the language and vocabulary for describing people and their appearance is useful because:

It helps you communicate with others about the people you see.

It helps you to identify people.

It helps you to express yourself.

It helps you to connect with people.

It helps you to better understand the people around you.

1 Describing appearance

This is an elementary multiple choice and /picture matching activity for talking about appearance. Multiple choice and matching activities are no-stress activities (I hope!).

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2 Expressing opinions about appearance

A more advanced speaking and vocabulary exercise for agreeing/disagreeing with opinions about appearance.

Elements of appearance vocabulary (PDF)

3 Elements of appearance vocabulary worksheet (with audio and answers)

This is a listening/speaking exercise introducing and exploring the language and vocabulary of appearance for describing people. Students listen to the audio and match the vocabulary with the appropriate pictures.

Describing appearance vocabulary exercise

(see this exercise on YouTube)

Elements of appearance

4 What does she look like?

This is a listening/speaking exercise for describing people. This exercise focuses on a missing woman. Students can complete the listening exercise and then write their own conversation.

What does he look like? conversation (PDF)

(see YouTube video)

What does she look like?

5 What does he look like ? (conversation listening/speaking activity)

In this conversation or speaking exercise students practice listening and creating a conversation describing someone’s appearance. They use the conversation skeleton below to create their own conversation. This could also be adapted to be a speaking activity.

What does he look like?

6 What do they look like ? (with audio and answers)

This is a describing appearance listening, vocabulary and writing exercise. First, students listen to the audio and match the items (A-I) to the pictures. Then students use the vocabulary in the center of the worksheet or their own ideas to write descriptions of the people in the pictures.

Describing people and appearance listening and writing (PDF)

What do they look like?

7 Clothes and accessories listening/vocabulary (with audio and answers)

This is an elementary English language listening/vocabulary exercise introducing and exploring the language and vocabulary of clothes and accessories. Students try to match the vocabulary with the appropriate pictures. Or the exercise can be used as an introduction to the vocabulary and the students listen to the audio and match the words to the pictures.

Clothes and accessories (PDF)

Clothes and accessories

8 Describing people word sorting

This is an ESL exercise to help students become familiar with vocabulary for describing appearance. Students sort the words into the appropriate columns.

Describing appearance word sorting (PDF)

3 Clothes, Accessories and Fashion Vocabulary and Speaking Exercises

5 Cool Advertising & Branding Vocabulary & Language Exercises

6 ESL Speaking Activities for Talking about Shopping (PDF)

7 Brainstorming and Speaking Activities for Routines, Interests and Hobbies

7 Essential Speaking Activities (PDF)

Body language and gestures

Describing People Home

9 What do they look like 2? (writing activity)

This is similar to the second exercise above but with different pictures.

Describing appearance writing 2 (PDF)

10 Describing a person

In this writing exercise students brainstorm information about a person they know well. Then they write a more wholistic description of a person including appearance, personality and other aspects of his/her life.

Describing a person (PDF)

10 opinion and argument writing worksheets

8 comparison/contrast templates and exercises

10 cause/effect writing activities

3 kinds of exercises for teaching transitions

6 memorable narrative essay writing practice exercises (PDF)

6 delightful descriptive paragraph and essay writing exercises (PDF)

11 essential exercises for elementary writing students (PDF)

November 26, 2018November 12, 2023

Easy-to-use comparison/contrast sentence, paragraph and essay writing exercises

Comparison/contrast writing practice exercises

Comparison/contrast writing can be really enjoyable to teach if you have a variety of activities to slowly develop students’ writing skills. These can include: brainstorming, organizing, outlining, sorting and sentence writing exercises.

1 Comparison/contrast essay: high school students vs university students (with possible answers)

This is a comparison/contrast essay worksheet. Students have to complete the essay with appropriate ideas.

Comparison essay high school vs university students practice exercise

Comparison/contrast essay ( high school vs university students) exercise (PDF)

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2 Compare/contrast essay organizer (with example)

This is a worksheet that introduces students to one method of preparing a topic for a comparison/contrast essay.

Comparison/contrast organizer example and template

Comparison/contrast organizer template and example (PDF)

3 Compare/contrast outline worksheet (with example)

This is a comparison/contrast outline worksheet to help students organize their ideas and plan their essay. The model compares movies and concerts.

Comparison/contrast outline worksheet with example (PDF)

4 Brainstorming ideas for comparison/contrast essay

This is a comparison/contrast brainstorming worksheet to help students become familiar with the language of comparison/contrast essays. It also helps them organize their ideas.

Brainstorming comparison/contrast topics and ideas (PDF)

3 comparative adjective exercises and worksheets

10 essential academic vocabulary exercises

6 descriptive writing exercises and worksheets

6 narrative essay writing templates and worksheets

10 cause/effect writing activities

11 essential basic exercises for paragraph/essay writing

3 kinds of exercises for teaching transitions

5 Elementary comparison/contrast lesson

This is an elementary comparison paragraph brainstorming, outlining and writing lesson for lower level ( or English as a Second Language) students.

Elementary comparison/contrast lesson (PDF)

6 Comparison sentences (with possible answers)

This is a worksheet to help students practice writing comparison sentences and increase their writing flexibility and fluency.

Comparison/contrast sentence writing exercise

Writing comparison/contrast sentences exercise (PDF)

Writing comparison sentences 2

7 Comparative adjective sorting ( with answers)

This is an elementary exercise to help English language students understand and remember the different forms of comparative adjectives. Students sort the adjectives into the appropriate columns and then write sentences.

Comparative adjective sorting and writing exercise

Comparative adjective sorting and sentence writing exercise (PDF)

8 Comparisons: similarities & differences (with answers)

This is a worksheet to help students practice writing sentences comparing similarities and differences.

Similarities and differences writing exercise

9 Comparison essay: the city or the countryside ?

This is a comparison/contrast essay worksheet. Students have to complete the essay with their own ideas.

City vs countryside exercise (PDF)

10 Compare/contrast transitions sentence writing exercise

This is a worksheet to help students practice writing comparison/contrast sentences.

Comparison/contrast sentences (PDF)

November 17, 2018December 14, 2023

Entertaining Christmas vocabulary and speaking exercises

15 Entertaining and Merry Christmas Vocabulary and Speaking Exercises

Christmas is a good topic as it touches on so many aspects of society and culture. It’s also pretty good fun.

Updated 14th December 2023

1 What’s Santa saying ?

In this Christmas vocabulary exercise students complete the speech bubbles with their own ideas about what Santa is saying.

Speaking skills and language exercise for Santa Claus

What’s Santa saying ? (PDF)

Subscribe to Eslflow

2 Christmas conversational practice

Christmas conversational practice questions for one on one teaching or pair work.

3 Christmas pronunciation exercises

Short pronunciation exercises are fun!

4 Critical thinking activities for Christmas

Ranking and discussion questions comparing Christmas traditions.

Christmas word sorting ? (PDF)

5 Christmas word sorting

In this Christmas vocabulary exercise students sort the Christmas related words into suitable categories.

6 Write a conversation: what are you doing at the end of the year?

Students can watch the video or listen to the audio and complete the gap fill conversation. Then they have to use at least 6 of the most common words or phrases to make their own conversation.

What are you doing at the end of the year? (PDF)

What are you doing at the end of the year?

7 Good Christmas role play/speaking activity

This is a fun Christmas role play activity. Students can listen to the audio or watch the video and match the vocabulary to the pictures. Then they can answer the questions or create their own “Good Christmas” role play.

8 Bad Christmas role play/speaking activity

This is a complementary exercise to the Christmas role play activity above. But this time the idea is to a “Bad Christmas” role play.

The Story of Christmas (PDF)

9 The Story of Christmas (or The Story of Jesus) (with answers)

Using pictures is a great way to present and illustrate the story of Christmas. And by getting students to match the pictures to the vocabulary, they will become more deeply engaged with the story.

(Return to Christmas lessons home)

The Story of Jesus

10 Brainstorming Christmas

Just a fun brainstorming exercise covering different aspects of Christmas.

Brainstorming Christmas (PDF)

11 Elements of Christmas vocabulary (with answers)

In this Christmas vocabulary exercise students match the Christmas related words and phrases to the pictures. The vocabulary can serve as an icebreaker or introduction into the religious, cultural and moral aspects of Christmas.

Christmas vocabulary exercise with pictures

Elements of Christmas (PDF)

Culture home

4 New Year resolutions brainstorming and language exercises

5 travel and tourism language and vocabulary lessons

Intercultural Lessons Home

12 Christmas discussion questions

This is a Christmas discussion questions and speaking activity worksheet for English language learners.

Christmas discussion questions(PDF)

13 Christmas vocabulary dictation exercise

This is an activity for introducing or exploring Christmas related vocabulary with English language learners. It can used for dictating new language or it can be used as a game by giving students or teams points for finding the words that match the pictures.

Christmas vocabulary and picture matching dictation or game

Christmas vocabulary (PDF)

14 Christmas vocabulary and speaking exercise

This is an elementary activity to get students talking about Christmas.

Christmas speaking activity and questionnaire

Christmas vocabulary and speaking (PDF)

15 Elements of Santa’s Life

In this totally fun exercise students match the words and phrases to the appropriate pictures for a humorous look at Santa’s life.

Vocabulary activity and pictures for Santa Claus an Christmas

Elements of Santa’s life (PDF)

10 Role Play Speaking Activities

11 Classroom Debate and Discussion Language Activities

5 First Day of Class Activities

8 Invitation and Request Dialogues for Everyday Scenarios

November 9, 2018June 24, 2024

Incredibly useful past tense teaching activities

Incredibly Useful Past Tense Teaching Activities

24th June 2024

Teaching the past tense is not easy. Students have to learn a whole new set of vocabulary. It’s tough. Indeed, often, students have a mental barrier against learning and using it. Students learn and start to master the present simple tense and then suddenly they hit the past tense which presents them with a whole set of new vocabulary. Many elementary students stop right there and never really progress. As a teacher, I want a variety of activities to help me get students through this difficult learning stage. A variety of listening and speaking activities really helps.

1 Past tense conversational questions

These English as a Second Language (ESL) activities focus on enabling students to practice using the past simple tense through one-on-on or pair work conversations. The PDFs comprise two categories of scenarios: open-ended (Wh questions) situations and yes/no scenarios, each supplemented with potential responses and follow-up questions that help expand the conversation.

Simple past tense verb to do conversational questions (PDF)

Simple past tense verb to be conversational questions (PDF)

.

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2 A Bad vacation past tense role play speaking activity (with answers)

In this past tense simple activity students listen to the audio and complete the role play story about a bad vacation using the vocabulary and the pictures. Alternatively, the pictures may be used as an example and students can be asked to create a role play using their own ideas.

Bad Vacation past tense activity (PDF)

(view as a video on Youtube)

Bad vacation

3 Introducing elementary past tense vocabulary (and listening)

NB: I just added video to this exercise. This is an ESL listening/vocabulary exercise to introduce students to the past tense. Students match phrases to pictures as the teacher dictates past tense phrases using sentences to give context. This exercise is a great icebreaker and introduction to the past tense. It also works really well as an online listening assignment. Just post page 1 and 2 (page 2 if students are being presented the vocabulary for the first time) of the PDF, along with the audio file to Google Classroom. Students listen to the audio, write the vocabulary on the pictures digitally and then return the assignment.

Elementary past tense vocabulary listening and dictation.

Elementary past tense vocabulary (PDF)

(student worksheet)

Create a past tense conversation (PDF)

Elementary past tense vocabulary dictation

4 Write a conversation exercise: simple past tense

Writing conversations with language cues is one good way of getting into the past tense. Students have to think about a past tense context and and create a role play for this context. The language cues give them some assistance in guiding and developing their ideas. Also, there are 2 example conversations that can be used as listening exercises.

A Good Day past tense exercise (PDF)

Past tense conversation

5 A Good day past tense activity (with answers)

This is another slightly more advanced ESL exercise to help students expand their knowledge of past tense verbs.

Past tense endings pronunciations 2 (PDF)

A Good Day

6 Past tense endings pronunciation updated (with answers and audio and video)

This is a second exercise to help students understand, practice or review the past tense endings.

(Past tense “ed” endings YouTube video)

Past tense endings 2

7 A Bad day past tense activity (with answers)

This exercise is a compliment to the exercise above. Of course, if you want to talk about things using the past tense, you need to be able to discuss and describe both good and bad situations. And often, in the classroom, bad situations are more interesting and fun.

A Bad Day past tense exercise (PDF)

A Bad Day

Past Continuous and “Used to” Exercises

7 Illustrated News Story Telling Exercises for ESL Students

10 Adjectives Exercises Including Adjectives for People and Things

3 Parts of Speech Exercises

6 Picture-Based Present Continuous Worksheets (PDF)

8 Preposition Exercises for Location, Time and Movement (PDF)

5 Useful Passive Voice Practice worksheets

6 Present Perfect Language and Speaking Worksheets

4 Excellent Exercises for Aspects of Nouns

3 Great Exercises for the 2nd Conditional (PDF)

8 Lost person roleplay

This is an ESL or English language role play listening /speaking lesson for practicing conversational English. It’s a bit of an old classic and allows for imagination and creativity while practicing the past tenses and vocabulary for describing people.

Lost person role play (PDF)

See the video on YouTube

9 Past tense verbs and sentences worksheet (with answers)

This is an ESL exercise to help students learn to use the past tense. Students match the verbs to the pictures and then write short sentences for each picture.

Past tense verbs and sentences 1 (PDF)

Past tense sentences

10 Making past tense sentences with time phrases worksheet (with answers)

This is another fairly elementary ESL exercise to help students learn to use the past tense. This time students match try to write short sentences with past tense time phrases for each picture.

Making past tense sentences with time phrases (PDF)

Past tense sentences with time phrases

11 Past tense endings pronunciation worksheet (with audio and answers)

This is an exercise to help students understand, practice or review the past tense endings and the different kinds of pronunciation for the “ed” endings of verbs with different spellings. Students sort the verbs into the appropriate column. Students then write some sentences which they can be asked to say out loud.

Past tense endings pronunciations (PDF)

Past tense endings 1

12 Ghosts past tense simple grammar game

Ghosts is a brilliant high energy game perfect for practicing the past tense. With a capable elementary or pre-intermediate class it can become something quite special.

Ghosts past tense grammar game (PDF)

13 Bad Christmas role play/speaking activity

This is a fun Christmas role play activity in the past tense. Students can listen to the audio or watch the video and match the vocabulary to the pictures. Then they can answer the questions or create their own “Bad Christmas” role play.