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Telling about past events

Focus on grammar

When we tell about events which happened in the past we typically use doing verbs in the past tense. Most doing verbs used in recounts are in the past simple .

Past simple

We use the past simple to talk about events which were completed in the past.

Yesterday I went with my friends Sophia and Lara to Ocean Park.
When we got off the cable car, we walked to the fast, fun rides.

We typically make verbs into the past simple by adding -ed to the verb base eg walked. However, there are many commonly used past simple verbs, however, which have irregular forms.

To make a past simple verb negative, we add did not to the base form of the verb eg did not wear. In more informal texts we often contract the negative past simple by joining did and not together into one shortened form eg didn't wear.

Doing verbs in the past simple are used in the ORIENTATION, RECORD OF EVENTS and RE-ORIENTATION stages of a recount.

Here are some events from the ORIENTATION of the recount My day out at Ocean Park. The writer uses doing clauses with doing verbs in the past simple to write about these events:

doing clause
			event
	At about nine o'clock	we	arrived		at Ocean Park,
			bought	our tickets
and			went		through the entrance.

Here are some events from the RECORD OF EVENTS of My day out at Ocean Park:

doing clause
		event
When	we	stepped	off the cable car,
	we	walked	to the fun, fast rides.
Then	we all	went	on a swinging pirate ship called a Crazy Galleon.
... but	Sophia	didn't go	on it.

Here are some events from the RE-ORIENTATION of My day out at Ocean Park:

doing clause
		event
At the end of the exhausting day	we	went		to a souvenir shop
	Sophia	bought	some sweets ...

In the CODA at the end of the story, the writer uses past tense relating clauses and a past tense thinking clause to evaluate the whole day.

clause
	*past tense*	evaluation
Ocean Park	was	great.
We	thought ...
... the day	was	great fun and very exciting.

At the very end of the CODA, to finish off the recount, the writer stops writing about the past and tells the reader about a present hope that similar events will happen in the future.

thinking clause			doing clause
	thinking verb present tense			event future tense
I	hope	(that)	something similar	will happen	again soon!

To see how doing verbs in the past simple are used to tell about past events in the recount My day out at Ocean Park click here:

For more information see:

	Grammar: Clause: Using the clause to represent experience: The processes: 'What's happening?': 'Doing'
	Grammar: Groups & phrases: Verb group: Time & tense: Past simple
	Grammar: Word classes: Verbs: Doing verbs

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Using other kinds of past tenses in recounts