Grammar Part: Common Mistakes in Simple Past Tense

Can you identify the grammar mistakes in both pictures?

Yup! We don't use 'eated' and 'drewed' in Simple Past Tense.


Students also tend to write like these:

I was drank the milk.

We were cooked the dinner.

She putted the book on the shelf.

Many people sawed the accident this morning.


Why students often make these mistakes?

The most logical answer is that they do what we called as 'overgeneralization'.

It means they simply use that particular rule in forming simple past tense for all the verbs. They might get confused of 'which should be changed with what'. Not all the verbs can be changed to simple past tense simply by adding -d or -ed. 'Be' verb is also used differently, same with action verbs.

These are the things that students need to understand and remember. So, be careful in forming the verbs, learn the rules!

Mind Your Adjective: A Learning Strategy

An adjective is a word that tells us more about a noun or a pronoun.

Examples:

The big book is quite heavy.

Mother cooks a delicious dinner.

If you put more than one adjective in your sentences, you have to follow the order of adjective types.

Here is the order:

1. Opinion
2. Size/shape
3. Age
4. Temperature
5. Colour
6. Origin
7. Material
8. Purpose

Too hard to remember? Let me give you an easy step to remember the order.

1. Oliver
2. Smith
3. Ate
4. Two
5. Chocolate
6. Oreos
7. Mom
8. Packed

What I've done here is just putting the order into a mnemonic so that it makes more sense to you as well as easy to remember because it is put into one meaningful sentence. But be careful, don't get mixed up with the two 'O's!

Now let us try the strategy. Give several adjectives based on this picture.

This is a sleek, big, purple, leather handbag.

(O) (S) (C) (P)

In this sentence, we have followed the order of adjective. We start with opinion, size, colour and lastly purpose.

I hope this strategy could help you in your learning!

What is that? a poem? Owhh....a limerick!

A limerick is a five-line poem written with one couplet and one triplet. If a couplet is a two-line rhymed poem, then a triplet would be a three-line rhymed poem. The rhyme pattern is a a b b a with lines 1, 2 and 5 containing 3 beats and rhyming, and lines 3 and 4 having two beats and rhyming. Some people say that the limerick was invented by soldiers returning from France to the Irish town of Limerick in the 1700's.

A flea and a fly in a flue

Were caught, so what could they do?

Said the fly, "Let us flee."

"Let us fly," said the flea.

So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

Try completing this limerick.

There once was a pauper named Meg

Who accidentally broke her _______.

She slipped on the ______.

Not once, but thrice

Take no pity on her, I __________.