- Time
- 5-8 min
- Level
- A1-A2
- Grouping
- Whole class / circle
- Materials
- None
Students go around a circle completing “Yesterday I ___” with a real activity, and each new student has to recall and repeat everyone before them before adding their own line. It's a memory-game format that drills past simple naturally, with the challenge increasing every turn.
What it practices
The recall pressure is what makes this different from a simple past-simple drill:
- Past simple form ("I watched", "I went", "I ate") — mixes regular and irregular verbs by design, since real days rarely use only one type.
- Third-person recall ("She watched... He went...") — the repeating student has to switch pronouns correctly, not just remember content.
How to run it
- Model the first line yourself “Yesterday I ___” with a real, simple activity — keep your own example short.
- Have the next student repeat your line in third person, then add their own “Yesterday you/she watched TV, and yesterday I cooked dinner.”
- Keep going around the circle each student repeating everyone before them, oldest line first.
- Allow classmates to help with recall quietly, if someone blanks — the goal is fluency practice, not memory-test anxiety.
- Cap the circle at 8-10 students before starting a new round, so the recall chain doesn't collapse under its own length.
- Close with the last student retelling the entire class's activities in one go, if the group is confident enough.
Classroom management tip: seat students in a visible circle or U-shape for this one — recall is much harder when students can't see who said what, and eye contact naturally cues turn-taking.
Level variations
- A1Supply a small verb bank on the board (watched, played, cooked, studied) so students aren't inventing vocabulary under memory pressure.
- A1-A2Require one irregular verb per turn (went, ate, saw) once regular -ed forms are solid.
- A2Add a time detail to each line (“Yesterday at 7pm I...”) for extra recall difficulty and richer sentences.
Free worksheets for follow-up practice
Follow up with a full past simple lesson:
- Regular Verbs in the Past Simple (A1) — isolates the -ed spelling and sound rules.
- Irregular Verbs in the Past Simple (A1) — closed-list drilling once regular forms are solid.
- Write About Yesterday – Past Simple Writing (A2) — freer written production of the same content as the game.
Browse the full set of grammar worksheets or see the guide on how to teach past simple for a complete lesson plan.