Grammar Fix: I didn't went: did already did the work

Objective & content

students correctly use the plain, base form of the verb after did (in negatives with didn't and in questions), and avoid stripping past marking from the verb when did is not present. The printable is the unit's class pack: one A4 pupil sheet (recognition items, then fill-in and word-order drills) printed once per pupil, and one teacher sheet with the answer key and the notes below.

Pedagogical guide

every one of our learners' first languages marks the past tense directly on the main verb (or its participle) no matter what auxiliary is present — by simple inflection (Spanish, Portuguese, Polish) or by a compound construction where both the auxiliary and the verb form carry marking (French, Italian, German, Dutch). No market's L1 has a mechanism where an auxiliary takes over all past marking alone, leaving the main verb completely unmarked, so once did or didn't appears, the instinct to keep the verb marked too doesn't switch off. Expect the same slip ("I didn't went", "Did you saw it?") from any class, not just from one language group. Use it after the class has watched the unit, or on its own as a targeted repair when the mistake shows up in written work.

Suggested procedure

1. (3 min) Write the target sentence on the board and ask what is wrong with it. Collect the class's answers.
2. (10 min) Pupils work through the pupil sheet alone: recognition items first, then the drills.
3. (5 min) Check with the teacher sheet. Read the explanation of each recognition item aloud.
4. (2 min) Exit line: each pupil writes one correct sentence with the structure on a slip of paper.

Adaptations

• [S] Do the recognition items together as a class before pupils try the drills alone.
• [A] ask students to write 3 sentences about what they did last weekend using didn't + a verb, then swap with a partner and check each other's verb forms stayed plain.

Materials & prerequisites

One pupil sheet per pupil, one teacher sheet. No audio needed; the Grammar Fix unit video is an optional lead-in. Watch for: negative double-marking (didn't + a wrongly past-marked verb — "I didn't went", "She didn't saw" — a third of this sheet's recognition items test this directly); question double-marking (did + a wrongly past-marked verb — "Did you saw it?", "Did she went?" — another third of the items); and did-absent overcorrection (once the rule lands, learners can swing the other way and strip past marking even when did isn't there at all — "I go yesterday" instead of "I went yesterday" — the final third of this sheet's items are built specifically to catch that swing, so don't be surprised if a student who "gets the rule" still fails these).

Curriculum alignment

Grammar tags: negation-do-does-did. Filed at A2- (the level where the mistake starts to appear); the example sentences stay inside that band.

Assessment & extensions

The exit line is the check. Extend with the Grammar Fix unit itself, or with the grammar sheet on the same structure when one exists.