FULL Period 1 1.2 Simple Past Tense
1. 1 - Past Tense
Introduction to Simple Past Tense
Discussion: Look at the picture. Who was this person? What do you know about him? Read the text.
He was born in San Francisco, California in 1955. He lived with his adoptive parents Paul and Clara Jobs. Paul worked as a mechanic and a carpenter, and Steve learned how to work with his hands. Paul showed Steve how to build electronics such as radios and televisions.
Steve Jobs’ career started in 1972. He worked as a technician for Atari. After taking a break to travel to India, Jobs returned to Atari in 1974. In 1975, he attended meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Steve Wozniak. In 1976, Jobs and Wozniak started their own business, which they named “Apple Computer Company”, remembering a happy summer when Jobs picked apples.
In 1976, Wozniak invented the Apple I computer. They received funding from an Intel engineer and started to sell the computers. However, because of disappointing sales and Jobs difficult relationship with the company, he stopped coming to work and resigned as chairman in 1985. Jobs founded NeXT Inc. after his resignation with $7 million. In 1996, Apple decided to buy NeXT for $427 million and Jobs returned to the company that he co-founded.
With Jobs as chairman, the company increased sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac, the iPod portable music player and other new products. On June 29, 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone.
Jobs earned a salary of only $1 per year as CEO but he was worth $8.3 billion in 2010 according to Forbes. In August 2011, he resigned as CEO of Apple, and he died of cancer in October 2011.
Comprehension questions:
- When was Steve Jobs born?
- What did Paul Jobs do for work?
- What was the name of the company that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started?
- Who invented the Apple I computer?
- In what year did Apple start selling the iPhone?
Past Simple explanation:
- Usage:
- To describe actions that happened at a specific time in the past.
- To tell a story or narrate events that are completed.
- Formation:
- Regular verbs: Add -ed to the base form of the verb (e.g., “walk” → “walked”).
- Irregular verbs: Change form (e.g., “go” → “went”).
- Examples
- Regular Verbs:
- “I played soccer yesterday.”
- “She visited her grandmother last week.”
- Irregular Verbs:
- “He went to the market.”
- “They saw a movie on Friday.”
- Irregular verbs table
- Regular Verbs:
- Negative Form:
- Use did not (didn’t) + base form of the verb.
- Example: “She did not (didn’t) go to the party.”
- Use did not (didn’t) + base form of the verb.
- Questions form:
- Use Did + subject + base form of the verb.
- Example: “Did you see the movie?”
- Use Did + subject + base form of the verb.
Listening: Listen to the following conversation of a detective with a suspect and answer the following questions.
