In my previous post I offered a set of materials to help you teach the 10 most frequent irregular verbs in English. Now, there are a couple of activities to teach, or if you are a student to learn, another set of 10 irregular verbs. We give you a set of activities to help you teach the past tense and the past participle of the verbs give, find, think, tell, become, show, leave, feel, put and bring.
Here you will find a video, a worksheet and a game. The video contains a short dictation, Random Repeat method and a simple fill in the gap exercise. In this way, your students will learn and remember the correct form and pronunciation of the past tense and the past participle of the given verbs. They can practise their knowledge using the worksheets below. And they can really enjoy the lesson by playing the Snake game in which they need to use the irregular verbs again.
ADVERT:
[showmyads]
I hope you like this post. If you find a mistake comment please!
Irregular verbs – video
The aim of this video is to help people learn the past tense and the past participle of the verbs give, find, think, tell, become, show, leave, feel, put and bring. In the first part, there is a dictation. You need a piece of paper and something to write with. Listen and write the sentences. At the end of the dictation you will see the correct version on the screen.
In the second part of the video, the Random Repeat method is used. This method was suggested in the book Human Memory by Baddeley. You first listen and just repeat the words, then you hear only the infinitive and your task is to say the past tense and past participle of the verb. You have 4 seconds to do this and then you hear the correct answer.
Then, you see a sentence and your task is to complete the sentence with a correct verb in the correct form. You have 5 seconds for this and then you hear and see the correct answer. Please read the whole sentence aloud to maximise the learning.
Mind map
Worksheet
You can check your answers here:
Snake Game
If you cannot connect to the internet, then you can use the desktop version of the programme.
Desktop – Windows 32 bits
Desktop – Windows 64 bits
Links
Did you like the post? Do you find it useful? Have you found a mistake here? Please, let us know and comment!!! Thank you.
Recently I published a post on irregular verbs which I am really proud of. In this post, there is an app which helps students learn the past tense of the 52 most frequent irregular verbs in English. Using the app, over 80% of my students managed to learn all the past tenses of the verbs. This is a result I had never achieved before.
Even though the results are astonishing, I noticed three problems. First, students didn´t learn the correct pronunciation using the app. Second, students didn´t know the past participle of the verbs. And third, they could not use the the verbs in context.
That is why I decided to create a series of posts where I will offer a set of materials to help my students learn all these things. In this post, you will find a video called Grammar Point, where you can learn the past tense and past participle of the 10 most common verbs in English. Then there is a worksheet to help you practise the verbs.
Irregular verbs – video
The aim of this video is to help you learn the past tense and the past participle of the verbs be, have, say, make, go, take, come, see, know and get. In the first part, we use the Random Repeat method, which is suggested in the book Human Memory by Baddeley. You first listen and just repeat the words, then you hear only the infinitive and your task is to say the past tense and past participle of the verb. You have 4 seconds to do this and then you hear the correct answer.
In the second part of the video, you see a sentence and your task is to complete the sentence with a correct verb in the correct form. You have 5 seconds for this and then you hear and see the correct answer.
Worksheet
You can check your answers here:
Your ideas
Did you like the post? Do you find it useful? Have you found a mistake here? Please, let us know and comment!!! Thank you.
I can see what you think. Irregular verbs again? You must be joking!!!
I know. I have already published many posts on irregular verbs. For example:
<!– wp:more –>
ADVERT:
[showmyads]
But let´s be honest. None of them proved to be the miracle solution which would make my students learn all the verbs.
In fact, after all those years of teaching, I have come to a conclusion that there is just one way to ensure that students learn something. They have to LEARN it. I, as a teacher, can motivate, explain and navigate, but only the students can learn.
And that is why I decided to write this post. Here, I would like to share with you a simple vocabulary trainer which will help your students learn the past tense of 50 irregular verbs in English. If they learn these fifty (in fact there are 52, but fifty sounds so much better 🙂 ) they will understand 87% of all occurrences of all irregular verbs in English.
Needs analysis
To know the irregular verbs, students need to learn the following. They need to memorize the meaning of the verb, the infinitive and the past tense of each verb. The easiest and quickest known way to do this are word lists and flashcards. If you doubt my words, have a look at anything written by Paul Nation.
However, as we live in the twenty-first century, paper is not something that our student would be fond of. Especially teenagers seem to be allergic to it. But they never fail to have their mobile on them. Thus, if we could get into their mobiles, they might start learning.
Thinking along these lines I decided to make a mobile app that would work a bit like the flashcards, and which would provide the meaning, the infinitive and the past tense of the verb. Moreover, if the students finish the game, they will meet each verb between six and eighteen times which should ensure they remember them.
You can see the app below:
And you can download the app here:
Learn 50 irregular verbs – App store
Irregular verbs past tense – Italian version
Irregular Verbs – Invitation to collaborate
The app will be free and there will be a web version too.
You can download the word file here.
Please, send the resulting file to my email rotreklzdenek@gmail.com. Thanks.
Irregular verbs in English are very important for students to learn. These verbs belong among the most frequent words in English and if you want to speak about your experience you cannot do without them. Therefore it is extremely important to give a lot of time to teaching and learning these verbs.
<!– wp:more –>
To make the learning easier, teachers should offer interesting and fun activities. At www.engames.eu you can find a lot of activities to teach the irregular verbs. For example:
All of the activities above will make teaching and learning the irregular verbs easier.
ADVERT:
[showmyads]
I have already published many activities but this time I come with something new.A board game. The game is called Catch me!(if you can). The rules are simple and the preparation time is low. The game is fun and students have to produce all the irregular verbs.
Catch me!! – resources
Moreover, you need the key:
Irregular verbs board game – key
Irregular verbs – board game
Irregular verbs board game – rules
Each player places their counter on one of the coloured squares. If there are just two players they place their counters on the pink squares. If there are three players they place their counters on the blue squares and when there are 4 players, they place their counters on the blue squares. If there are five players, one of the players is a referee.
Students decide who will start. The last player takes the key and serves as a referee for the first move.
The player one moves counterclockwise and he/she has to say the past tense and the past participle of the verb in the square in front of him. If he or she does this correctly (the referee decides), he/she moves to this square. The player goes on like this till he/she makes a mistake. Once they make a mistake, the referee tells the player the correct answers and the player stops on the square in front of the square with the verb he/she did not know.
Player one now takes the key and player two tries to move on in the same way. Players take turns after they make a mistake.
The aim of the game is to catch the others. Once a player gets to a square someone is standing on, they catch the player and take them out of the game.
You can change the aim and say that the winner is the student who returns to the square where they started first.
Irregular verbs – other resources
And of course there is the wonderful song by my friend Jason.
Irregular verbs are probably the most important verbs in English. There are quite a lot of them and they are very common. However, for many ESL and EFL students they are very difficult to learn.
<!– wp:more –>
I have already prepared many activities to teach the irregular verbs to my students. There are irregular verbs from the rap song by Fluency MC, there are several stories to learn the verbs in context and there are many infographics to make the learning a bit easier.
ADVERT:
[showmyads]
Having tried all of these, I have to say that the most effective way of teaching irregular verbs in English is the SNOWBALL method. This method does not promise to teach you 100 verbs in 10 minutes. You have to study the verbs for 10 days in a row to learn these, but then I can guarantee that you will remember more than 90% of these verbs. So why don´t you try it for yourself?
Snowball method – How does it work?
Moreover, if you make a mistake, the verb is repeated again until you get it right or until you make 3 mistakes.
Irregular verbs – infographics

Irregular verbs – Snowballs
Do Snowball 2 the next day. Then do Snowballs 3-10 one each day. Snowball 1 – full screen Snowball 2 – full screen Snowball 3 – full screen Snowball 4 – full screen Snowball 5 – full screen ADVERT:
[showmyadsa] Snowball 6 – full screen Snowball 7 – full screen Snowball 8 – full screen Snowball 9 – full screen Snowball 10 – full screen
After teaching for fifteen years, it seems that it does not matter how much and well the teacher teaches, it is the student who must learn. I have already published many methods of teaching irregular verbs. There are posts on teaching irregular verbs with a rap song, there are posts with many games and stories where the irregular verbs are used in context. And the result? My students do not know the irregular verbs! If the students do not learn the verbs, they do not know them.
ADVERT:
[showmyads]
This of course does not mean that we should stop making our lessons as interesting as possible. No! It means that we should give students a chance to learn the verbs in an effective way themselves. That was why I started to learn another foreign language. And I found out that the best method to learn new vocabulary was the one which I call SNOWBALL.
Snowball method
This means that each word gets repeated at least six times and if the student does not know it, it gets repeated more frequently.
And I used this method to teach the irregular verbs. There are 100 most frequent irregular verbs in English and if you do one snowball every day, each irregular verb will get repeated at least 6 times.
As the answers are evaluated by a computer, DO NOT USE CAPITAL letters and divide the words with a comma (no pause after the comma).
ADVERT:
[showmyadsa]
This is the first post in a series on irregular verbs. It is called irregular verbs worksheets because in these posts I am going to publish worksheets in which your students can practise irregular verbs. There will be 10 irregular verbs each time and at least four exercises to practise them. Moreover, there will be an interactive version of the worksheets, so your students can practise at home too.
ADVERT:
[showmyads]
In this post your students can learn the past tenses and past participles of the verbs: be, make, drink, have, sing, write, give, read, run and sleep. In the worksheet there are seven exercises to practise the verbs: three crosswords and four fill in the blank exercises.
Irregular verbs worksheet – infographic

If you use this material in a class, first present the irregular verbs using the infographic. Present the verbs and ask the students to translate the verbs.
Irregular verbs worksheet
[showmyadsa] As I write above there are seven exercises. On the first page, there are crosswords which students should complete by writing the past tense and past participle of the verbs.
Exercises 4 and 5 are simple fill in the blanks exercises. Students should use either the past participles or past tenses of the verbs they learnt.
Exercises 6 and 7 are fill in the blanks exercise again. But this time the students complete questions and once they finish, they could use the questions for speaking. They work in small groups and ask and answer the questions. In smaller print there are additional questions students should ask to make the conversation longer and give students more opportunities to use the target language.
Irregular verbs worksheet – online quiz
Irregular verbs in English are forever. No matter how you teach them, the students resist. I have already designed about twelve different ways to teach irregular verbs and my students still struggle. I have tried to teach the verbs in context, through rhymes, straightforward and in songs but to no avail. However, the last method, using picture rhymes was quite successful, so here I come with another set of 18 irregular verbs.
ADVERT:
[showmyads]
In this post there is the infographic with all the verbs, a simple worksheet and two games to practise the irregular verbs in English. I hope you find this activity useful.
Irregular verbs in English with rhymes – infographic
Give your students time to study the words (about 4 minutes should be enough). Now hand out the second page of the worksheet and ask the students to write the past tenses and past participles of the verbs using the picture clues.
Irregular verbs in picture rhymes – worksheetIrregular verbs in English with rhymes – games
As the game is in Flash, it will only play on desktop computers. Irregular verbs in picture rhymes – Penalty shootout
ADVERT:
[showmyads]
The second game is called Fling the Teacher. To win the game, you have to answer all the questions by choosing the correct forms of the given verb. If you answer all the questions correctly you will fling your teacher. (But I am sure, that he/she will not mind as long as you know all the irregular verbs 🙂 ). The game is in Flash and it will only play on desktop computers.
Irregular verbs in picture rhymes – Fling the teacherIrregular verbs in English with rhymes – other posts
- Irregular verbs again
- Irregular verbs again 2
- Irregular verbs – third time lucky?
- Irregular verbs in context 1
- Irregular verbs straightforward
- Irregular verbs straightforward #2
- Irregular verbs straightforward #3
- Teach 9 irregular verbs in one lesson
- Irregular verbs in context – Scream
- Irregular verbs in context – Teacher story
You can see a wonderful video by Fluency MC here:
All the pedagogy books tell you that pictures are much more memorable than words. There is even this saying “A picture is worth thousand words”. So why don’t we use this fact and use pictures for teaching for example irregular verbs?
Unfortunately, things are not that easy. In fact, the research shows that it is more difficult to learn from a pictionary than from a simple word list. However, the research as well showed that pictures can help you remember the words if they are used as a support.
In this post I come up with an original way of presenting irregular verbs in English using pictures. It is not a pictionary, but the pictures just serve as a way of supporting your memory in remembering the past tense and the past participle. Moreover, there are two games, a worksheet and an online quiz to practise what the students learn.
Irregular verbs in pictures – infographic
Put simply, the pictures do not represent the irregular verbs, they rhyme with them.
ADVERT:
[showmyads]

Check the rhymes with the students and ask them to memorise them for two minutes. Then hand out the second page from the file and ask them to complete the tables with past tense and past participle of the verbs.
Irregular verbs in pictures – pdf fileThe last page of the hand out contains two simple exercises: In the first one students should complete the table and in the second, they use the past tenses of the verbs from the table and complete the sentences.
Irregular verbs in pictures – games
As the game is in Flash, it will only play on desktop computers. Irregular verbs in pictures – Penalty
The second game is in Flash and will play only on desktop computers. It is called On Target, and your task is to choose the correct option and then shoot all the bad cows and ducks. You can shoot one of the bottles on the wall to get a bonus. Enjoy.
Irregular verbs in pictures – On TargetThe following quiz can help your students practise the irregular verbs either at school or at home. In the quiz you have to choose the correct verb for each sentence. The students will be rewarded with a game if they pass. The quiz is in HTML5, so it will play on all desktops and mobile devices.
ADVERT:
[showmyads]
Irregular verbs in pictures – quiz
Irregular verbs in pictures – lesson plan
Irregular verbs – links
Here is a great video on irregular verbs by my friend Fluency MC.
In this post, I offer a set of activities for teaching 9 English irregular verbs. I have tested the sequence in class several times, and I have tried to improve it to get even better results. Right now I feel that the following sequence will ensure that students will learn the past tense of at least seven of these verbs.
ADVERT:
[showmyads]
The sequence contains the following steps: a vocabulary activity, reading and comprehension questions, a listening drill, a Grammar Up activity, a crossword, a wordsearch, a word order activity and a speaking exercise.
Let’s start.
English irregular verbs – vocabulary
English irregular verbs – reading
Read the text and put the actions into the order in which they happened:
Yesterday was a bad day. First I forgot to do my homework and my teacher was angry. I left school at 2 o´clock and I thought that everything was OK. I went home by tram and someone stole my money. Then I lost my keys and I couldn´t get into my house. So I went out, but I fell and broke my leg. In the evening I ate a bad sausage and then I had a stomach ache. It was a really bad day.
Put the actions into the correct order
go out
have stomach ache
forget homework
leave school
lose keys
eat a bad sausage
someone steals his money
teacher be angry
cannot get into house
break leg
fall
go home
English irregular verbs – Listening drill
English irregular verbs – Grammar Up
Yesterday BE * bad day. First I FORGET – do my homework and my teacher BE angry. I LEAVE school – 2 o´clock and I THINK that everything BE OK. I GO home – tram and someone STEAL my money. Then I LOSE my keys and I CANNOT get into my house. So I GO out, but I FALL and BREAK my leg. – * evening I EAT * bad sausage and then I HAVE * stomach ache. It BE * really bad day.
English irregular verbs – crossword

English irregular verbs – word order

English irregular verbs – wordsearch
ADVERT:
[showmyadsa]

English irregular verbs – speaking
7. Retell the story. Use the clues below:
Forget homework
leave school
go home
steal money
lose keys
cannot get into my house
go out
fall
break leg
eat sausage
have stomach ache
If you would like to have all the activities in one worksheet, you can download the pdf worksheet here.
English irregular verbs in context
By now students should be able to remember the nine irregular verbs from this story. If you have time you should play the video again and ask your students to repeat the sentences. I believe that a good way to consolidate your students’ the knowledge of the English irregular verbs is to play the video once per class for a number of classes.