ESL (English as a Second Language) Reading Lesson: The Past Tense

To the teacher: Writing declarative sentences based on students' life stories is one of the more effective ways of creating reading texts for the ESL classroom. In this example, taken from a level 1 ESL class in Boston, Ma., , the teacher simply listened to a student's story outside class, then turned it into a reading text for class the next day. The example uses the simple present and simple past tenses, two grammar points appropriate for level 1 ESL.

The advantage to using stories in the classroom based on student life stories is that students get to know one another much more quickly, and by reading stories about people they know rather than abstract persons from a textbook.. Knowing the basics of classmates' life stories builds community in the classroom, allows students to learn what they have in common, and to get to know one another better.

Moreover, students read stories that have meaning and relevance, leading to easier conversational exchange from day to day.

Finally, by creating readings based on classmate's stories, the teacher is then free to create any kinds of quizzes, tests, and follow-up activities as he or she desires. One can create true/false, multiple choice, cloze, vocabulary and writing exercises based on the story. And each exercise serves to deepen students' understanding of each other, fostering closer, more spontaneous relationships -- and conversational exchanges -- in the classroom.

Her name is Natasha. She's 25 years old. She's from Russia. She was born in 1985. She is young. She lives in Dorchester, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. She lives with her fiance. Natasha came to the U.S. two months ago.

Her fiance has been in the United States for fifteen years. His name is Vladimir. He has a good job. He works for a consulting company in Cambridge, Ma. Vlad came to the US when he was thirteen years old. He is bilingual. He speaks Russian and English.

Natasha doesn't live in Boston. with her mother and father. Her mother and father live in Russia.

Natasha has two sisters. But her sisters don't live in the U.S. They live in Russia, too

One of Natasha's sisters is her twin.

Natasha doesn't have a job. She doesn't have kids. She is going to marry her fiance this summer.

After she marries her fiance, they are going to move to Quincy, near Boston. Quincy is on the Red Line subway line. The subway in Boston is called the T. Natasha's fiance's mother lives in Quincy now. Natasha is going to live close to her mother-in-law.

Natasha's mother-in-law came to the United States fifteen years ago. She was a teacher in Moscow. Natasha's mother in law's name is Svetlana.

Natasha's mother-in-law came to the United States after the breakup of the Soviet Union. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, it was easier for Russians to leave Russia and to move to the United States. The Soviet government could not prevent Russians from leaving.

Natasha came to the United States easily too. She was sponsored by her mother-in-law and father-in-law.

Natasha was sponsored by her in-laws because they wanted Natasha to hurry up and come to the US and marry their son!