Present, Preterite and Imperfect! Oh, my!

It is getting to that time of year when it becomes time to mix the Preterite with the Imperfect... DUN, DUN, DUN! In the past, I laid it all out there for them in one big grammar lesson. What I found, is that it was way too overwhelming all at once. So, this year, we will try baby steps...


Thus far, my students have seen the regular -ar, -er and -ir endings of the preterite. In fact, thanks to this catchy tune, this was a breeze to teach and remember.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95heLa1taQA  (On YouTube, search Tik Tok Preterite)

We have also gone over the conjugations of Hacer, Querer, Venir, Poner, Poder, Estar, Tener, Decir, Ir and Ser. These are what I call the ¨Poema¨ Verbs and we have practiced them by reciting:

Hice, Quise, Vine, YO

Puse, Pude, Estuve YO

Tuve, Dije, Fui, Fui Yo

(They especially love to exaggerate the FUI FUI part)

Now that we are back from winter break, I am slowly starting to integrate the Imperfect. I started by showing students a PowerPoint about what I was like as a little girl. With gems like this photo (where I strangely resemble someone moderately famous), it certainly was high interest...

Throughout the PowerPoint I made sure to make statements such as ¨De niña, yo viajaba a Wisconsin con mis abuelos cada verano. Nosotros paseábamos en bote y íbamos de pesca todos los dias.¨ I would then break out and pick individuals in the room to ask questions to. ¨ Anna, de niña, ¿viajabas con tu familia?¨ ¨Will, de niño, ¿ibas de pesca?¨ and so forth. 

I found that through modeling and the use of the images, the kids were able to answer questions throughout the activity. When it was over, I asked them if they noticed anything different about the verbs. They noted the endings and when asked why, it didn´t take much time for them to realize that these were repeated actions and descriptions in the past. Two weeks later and we are mixing the preterite and the imperfect a little more day by day. The posts to follow will likely be more of this adventure down the yellow brick road to el pasado.