Unit 1- We Visited a Zoo – ESL Lesson

Unit 1: We Visited a Zoo

Objectives:
- Teach ESL learners how to describe events that took place in the past
- This English lesson focuses on the use of the past simple tense.
- It also introduces the past progressive tense for talking about actions that were going on at a specific time frame in the past.
- The lesson also highlights the differences between the irregular and regular past tenses of verbs – regular past is formed by adding –ed or –d to the end of the verb.
Main Lesson Materials & Study Steps
Lesson Story:
Freddie and Lisa have just returned to the zoo where they had a lot of fun. They decide to go tell their friends, Bob and Sally. They are amused by the fact that Lisa lost her hat to a monkey at the zoo. Freddie impersonates the monkeys to help Bob and Sally visualize the event.
Vocabulary:
Adverbials of time
Yesterday | Last week | Last month |
Two minutes ago | Two years ago | Last winter |
Irregular Past Verbs & Sentences
have | had | We had a good time at the zoo yesterday. |
do | did | What did you do at the zoo yesterday? |
see | saw | We saw the pandas. |
go | went | We went to the zoo by car yesterday. |
Regular Past Verbs & Sentences
reach | reached |
grab | grabbed |
play | played |
dance | danced |
visit | visited |
- The monkey reached out and grabbed Lisa’s hat.
- The monkeys played with Lisa’s hat.
- We visited the zoo last week.
Present & Past Progressive in Sentences
· The monkey is eating a banana. | · The monkey was eating a banana. |
· They are swinging all over the branches. | · They were swinging all over the branches. |
This lesson is part of the Level 6 English course.