Recently I have created a set of videos to teach the past simple tense in English. There is a video that helps students learn to form the past tense in the following situations:
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When I was teaching my classes online, we couldn’t practice speaking. We had to use Google Meet and the interaction was pretty limited. Once we returned to our classes I flooded my students with speaking activities. In this post, I would like to share the ones that I used to practise the past simple tense.
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When learning English, students are usually given a list of irregular verbs to memorize. This list usually consists of 60 to 100 verbs. There is nothing wrong with this approach but I think that it would be much more useful to give students a list of the most frequent verbs in English and the chunks the verbs appear most often in.
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Unfortunately, there is little material like this. That was why I tried to create some. In this post, you will find a worksheet which contains nine most frequent irregular verbs in English. Moreover, the verbs are practiced in the phrases they appear most frequently in. At the end, students are given a chance to memorize these really useful chunks and use the irregular verbs in exactly the same way the native speakers do.
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[su_heading size=”28″]9 Most Frequent Verbs[/su_heading]
Do you know which irregular verbs are the most frequent in English? They are: be, have, say, make, go, take, come, see, know, get and give.
You can see all of them, except for the verb to be, in the graphic organizer below:
[su_heading size=”28″]Meaning[/su_heading]
It is important to understand the verbs. I suggest that the students should translate the verbs into their mother tongue. For this, there is the following table with several pictures. The pictures demonstrate the meaning (or better to say one of the meanings) of the given verb.
Once the students translate the verbs, it is a good idea to cover the verbs and try to remember them using only the pictures.
Moreover, now it is the right time to memorize all the 9 verbs and their forms.
[su_heading size=”28″]Exercise[/su_heading]
Once the students learn the irregular verbs, it is necessary to practise them. Use the second page of the worksheet and in the exercise 1 students try to fill in the gaps using the correct form of the verbs.
You can download the full worksheet here:[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/9-Most-common-irregular-verbs.pdf” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”7″ desc=”Pdf Document”]9 Most Frequent Verbs – Worksheet[/su_button]
[su_heading size=”28″]Chunks[/su_heading]
At the end of 1980s Michael Lewis suggested that we should teach chunks of language. Popular as the notion might be, there are very few materials that would promote this kind of teaching. In this worksheet you will find a table with the most common collocations of the irregular verbs. This list is based on my research in BNC corpus. I suggest that students should learn the phrases by heart.
I hope you find this post and worksheet useful.
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.
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I hope you like this post. If you find a mistake comment please!
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Irregular verbs – video
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This video is called Grammar Point. It is an interactive video where you are given some time to complete the tasks set in this 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.
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Mind map
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Some students find mind maps very useful, while others hate them. Anyway, for those who it might help, here is a simple mind map showing the verbs, the past tenses, the past participles and the meaning of the verbs. It´s up to you if you use it.
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Worksheet
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It is important to practise the irregular verbs to learn them. The following worksheet contains several pages with exercises to practise the irregular verbs. You can check your answers in the key.
You can check your answers here:
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Snake Game
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To reward my students, I use video games. You can try it with the following Snake game. Once the students finish the worksheets, display the following game on the IWB. Students use the keyboard to control the snake. Whenever they eat an egg, they have to complete the sentence with an irregular verb in the correct form.
If you cannot connect to the internet, then you can use the desktop version of the programme.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/Snake_irrverbs2_web/snake_irr_verbs2/snake_win32.zip” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Desktop – Windows 32 bits[/su_button]
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/Snake_irrverbs2_web/snake_irr_verbs2/snake_win64 (1).zip” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Desktop – Windows 64 bits[/su_button]
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Links
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You can find some interesting ideas on teaching irregular verbs at British Council site.
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.
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Irregular verbs – video
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This video is called Grammar Point. It is an interactive video, where you are given some time to answer the tasks given in this 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.
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Worksheet
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It is important to practise the irregular verbs to learn them. The following worksheet contains several pages with tasks to practise the irregular verbs. You can check your answers in the key.
You can check your answers here:
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Your ideas
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You can find some interesting ideas on teaching irregular verbs at British Council site.
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:
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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.
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Needs analysis
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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:
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/50irregularverbs/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Learn 50 Irregular verbs – full screen[/su_button]
And you can download the app here:
[su_button url=”https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fifty.irregular.verbs” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Learn 50 irregular verbs – App store[/su_button]
[su_button url=”https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fifty.irregularverbs.italian” target=”blank” background=”#f56aaa” size=”6″]Irregular verbs past tense – Italian version[/su_button]
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Irregular Verbs – Invitation to collaborate
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As you can see, the application is perfect for Czech students but not of much use for anyone else. That is why I would like to ask you for help. Could you translate the past tense of the 50 irregular verbs and send them to me? If you do, I will publish the app place a link here and your students will be able to use this app too.
The app will be free and there will be a web version too.
You can download the word file here.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/irregular-verbs-tabulka.docx” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Irregular verbs past tense[/su_button]
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.
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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.
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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.
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Catch me!! – resources
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To play this game, you need to print the game and the key for each group of students.
Moreover, you need the key:
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cATCH-IRREGULAR-1-KEY.docx” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Irregular verbs board game – key[/su_button]
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And you can print the game from the pdf file.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CATCH-ME-GAME.pdf” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Irregular verbs – board game[/su_button]
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Irregular verbs board game – rules
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This game is for up to five players. To play the game, each student needs a counter. Each group needs the game and a key.
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.
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Irregular verbs – other resources
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You can find more interesting activities at British Council site.
And of course there is the wonderful song by my friend Jason.
I recently created my first app for mobile phones and it became a hit among my students. Already 85 students downloaded the game and they are working hard on learning the new vocabulary.
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However, as this app was just for Czech students, I wondered whether I could offer it to people from around the world. And after a while I created a similar application but this time you can learn 190 most frequent irregular verbs in English.
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One hundred and ninety irregular verbs are nearly all the irregular verbs there are in English. Those that are not included are so rare that you will probably never meet them in real life.
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How does this app work?
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When you download and install the game from Google Play, you will see the following screen:
Click PLAY and you will see the followin screen:
It shows the levels you have finished and the levels you can play. You can play all the green and red levels. The white levels are not available till you finish the ones before.
Once you click the level you want to play, you will see the following:
At the top of the screen there is an irregular verb and in the brackets there is written which form you should write. Type the approprite form and click CHECK or ENTER. If your answer is correct, green word correct will appear under your answer. If it is not correct, you will see the red word WRONG and the correct answer below it.
If you answer correctly, the verb will not appear in this level again. If you make a mistake, the word will get repeated once or twice.
Each level contains between 15 and 75 words to learn.
[su_button url=”https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=all.irregular.verbs” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Buy and Download the App[/su_button]
You can find the app in the Google play store by writing 190 Irregular verbs.
I hope you will like this game and that it will help you learn all the irregular verbs.
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.
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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.
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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?
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Snowball method – How does it work?
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The Snowball method is quite simple. You have to work for 10 days in a row. On the first day, the computer teaches you 12 verbs. On the second day, the computer gives you the 12 verbs from the previous day and it adds 12 new verbs. It goes on like this till the day six. Each day there are 12 new verbs and all the verbs from the previous days are repeated. On day 7, no new verbs are added and the 12 verbs from day 1 vanish. In this way, on days 7 to 10, no new verbs are added, and the oldest verbs are deleted. Thus, each verb is repeated at least 6 times.
Moreover, if you make a mistake, the verb is repeated again until you get it right or until you make 3 mistakes.
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Irregular verbs – infographics
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In the following Snowballs, these verbs are taught:
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Irregular verbs – Snowballs
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Once you have gone through the verbs, do the Snowball 1. Your task is to write the infinitive and the past tense of the verb in the picture. Please, use a comma and a space after the infinitive (e.g. draw, drew).
Do Snowball 2 the next day. Then do Snowballs 3-10 one each day.
[su_spacer][su_button url=”http://www.envocabulary.eu/Irregular verbs past tense/snowball1/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Snowball 1 – full screen[/su_button]
[su_spacer][su_button url=”http://www.envocabulary.eu/Irregular verbs past tense/snowball2/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Snowball 2 – full screen[/su_button]
[su_spacer][su_button url=”http://www.envocabulary.eu/Irregular verbs past tense/snowball3/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Snowball 3 – full screen[/su_button]
[su_spacer][su_button url=”http://www.envocabulary.eu/Irregular verbs past tense/snowball4/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Snowball 4 – full screen[/su_button]
[su_spacer][su_button url=”http://www.envocabulary.eu/Irregular verbs past tense/snowball5/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Snowball 5 – full screen[/su_button]
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[su_spacer][su_button url=”http://www.envocabulary.eu/Irregular verbs past tense/snowball5/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Snowball 6 – full screen[/su_button]
[su_spacer][su_button url=”http://www.envocabulary.eu/Irregular verbs past tense/snowball6/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Snowball 7 – full screen[/su_button]
[su_spacer][su_button url=”http://www.envocabulary.eu/Irregular verbs past tense/snowball7/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Snowball 8 – full screen[/su_button]
[su_spacer][su_button url=”http://www.envocabulary.eu/Irregular verbs past tense/snowball8/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Snowball 9 – full screen[/su_button]
[su_spacer][su_button url=”http://www.envocabulary.eu/Irregular verbs past tense/snowball9/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Snowball 10 – full screen[/su_button]
Irregular verbs are the most important and at the same time for many students the most difficult part of learning English. These verbs are very common and if students learn them, their English improves radically. But they have to learn them! Therefore, any activity that makes the learning easier and more fun is welcome.
Recently Svetlana Kandybovich published a great game to help children learn irregular verbs. Reading the post I realised that I have been using three games that other teachers might want to use. And thus, I decided to share them.
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In this post, there are three games to make the learning of irregular verbs more enjoyable. The first game is crosses and noughts, the second is called Sprint and the third one is Ski Jump.
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Irregular verbs games – Crosses and Noughts
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Print the following worksheet. Print one copy of the first page for each student. The second page contains the same list three times so you need to print just one page for three students.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Irregular-verbs-crosses-and-noughts.pdf” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Irregular verbs worksheet[/su_button]
Read the list of the irregular verbs with the students to ensure that they pronounce the verbs correctly. Then give them about five minutes to work on their own and learn the irregular verbs from the list.
Five minutes later, ask the students to work in pairs and go through the grid line by line and say the past tense and past participle of the verbs. Stop them after three minutes and tell them to turn the cards with the verbs face down.
Now they play crosses and noughts. The rules are simple. Players take turns, and they draw a cross or a nought (one player draws one symbol all the time). Their aim is to have five symbols in a row. If they achieve this, they win. In this game, however, they can draw their symbol only if they say the past tense and past participle of the verb in the square. If they fail to do this, they have to play somewhere else.
Let the students play for four minutes. If they finish earlier, tell them to play on the other sheet.
Once they finish, students turn the cards with the verbs face up, and take a pen or pencil. Now, they have four minutes to fill in as many columns as possible with the past tenses and past participles of the verbs given. They must not skip any square. If they do not know the verbs, they can have a look at their cards.
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Irregular verbs games – Sprint
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You need the worksheet again. Follow the instructions above, till the moment when students stop learning the verbs.
Now students choose one line each. One starts from the right side and the other from the left. When you say START, students have to say the past tense and past participle of all the verbs on their line. They must not skip any. Their aim is to be quicker than their partner. The winner is the student who gets to the end of their line first. If they do not know any of the verbs, they can have a look into the card.
It is a bit noisy, but it is fun.
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Irregular verbs games – Ski Jump
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This is a zero preparation activity. After learning the irregular verbs for some time, ask one of the students to come in front of the class. Tell them that they have 30 seconds to say as many irregular verbs and their past tenses and past participles as possible. Stop them after the 30 seconds and count how many verbs they produced (each word counts as one point).
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Then ask other students to do the same. Reward the winner.
In my experience, the best are able to get over about 100 points.
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.
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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.
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Irregular verbs worksheet – infographic
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The worksheet starts with a simple 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.
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Irregular verbs worksheet
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Print the following worksheet for each student. (Use a duplex print to save paper).
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Irregular-verbs-worksheet-001-complete.pdf” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Irregular verbs worksheet 1[/su_button]
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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.
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Irregular verbs worksheet – online quiz
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The following quiz can help your students practise the irregular verbs at home. The quiz consists of two parts. In the first part, students should complete the sentences with the past tenses of the ten verbs. In the second part, students have to complete the sentences with the past participles of the ten verbs. The students will be rewarded with a game after each part of the quiz they pass. The quiz is in HTML5, so it will play on all desktops and mobile devices.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/irregular_verbs/worksheets/Irregular verbs worksheet 001 (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Irregular verbs quiz[/su_button]
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.
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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.
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Irregular verbs in English with rhymes – infographic
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Go through the infographic with your students. Read the words aloud and explain that the words in the pictures rhyme with the past tenses and the past participles.
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.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Irregular-verbs-in-picture-rhymes-2.pdf” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Irregular verbs in picture rhymes – worksheet[/su_button]
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Irregular verbs in English with rhymes – games
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The first game is called Penalty Shootout. In this game you should choose the correct past tense and past participle of each verb and then try to score a goal. Good luck.
As the game is in Flash, it will only play on desktop computers.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/irregular_verbs/irregular verbs rhymes/Irregular verbs in rhymes Penalty.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Irregular verbs in picture rhymes – Penalty shootout[/su_button]
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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.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/irregular_verbs/irregular verbs rhymes/Irregular verbs in rhymes fling.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Irregular verbs in picture rhymes – Fling the teacher[/su_button]
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Irregular verbs in English with rhymes – other posts
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- 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.
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Irregular verbs in pictures – infographic
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Print the following infographic and explain that students should have a look at the pictures and find words for the pictures which rhyme with the form of the irregular verb above it. For example: sent – ant, paid – eight, went – vent etc.
Put simply, the pictures do not represent the irregular verbs, they rhyme with them.
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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.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Irregular-verbs-in-pictures.pdf” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Irregular verbs in pictures – pdf file[/su_button]
The 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.
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Irregular verbs in pictures – games
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The first game is called Penalty Shootout. In this game you should choose the correct past tense and past participle of each verb and then try to score a goal. Good luck.
As the game is in Flash, it will only play on desktop computers.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/irregular_verbs/Irregular verbs in pictures/Irregular verbs in pictures penalty.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Irregular verbs in pictures – Penalty[/su_button]
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.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/irregular_verbs/Irregular verbs in pictures/Irregular verbs in pictures on target.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Irregular verbs in pictures – On Target[/su_button]
The 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.
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[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/irregular_verbs/Irregular verbs in pictures/Irregular verbs in pictures (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Irregular verbs in pictures – quiz[/su_button]
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Irregular verbs in pictures – lesson plan
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- Print the pdf file.
- Hand out the first page.
- Students find the rhymes.
- Check the answers.
- Hand out page two.
- Students complete the tables.
- Play the game Penalty.
- Play the game On Target.
- Hand out page three.
- Students complete exercise 1.
- They check their answers on page one.
- Students complete exercise 2.
- Check their answers.
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Irregular verbs – links
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You can find some interesting materials to teach irregular verbs at British Council site.
Here is a great video on irregular verbs by my friend Fluency MC.
Irregular verbs are an evergreen in TEFL. There are a lot of them and students have to memorise them. There seems to be no way around it. However, I still try to come up with something that will make this hard work easier for my students. And this time I try to teach 31 irregular verbs in two lessons using simple rhymes.
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In this post you can find a worksheet with the short rhymes, an interactive quiz where students can practise their knowledge of irregular verbs, an interactive game and a worksheet with two exercises. I hope you find the activities interesting, useful and effective.
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Irregular verbs – rhymes
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Start the lesson with the following rhymes. The verbs are organised into rhyming sets and a simple short story is added. This should help the students remember the irregular verbs.
In the lesson, ask the students to read the rhymes aloud. Then translate the stories and tell them to memorise 4 of them. In the following lesson check that they have learnt the rhymes and ask them to memorise the rest of the rhymes.
Here you can find the pdf file with the rhymes for easier printing:
Irregular verbs rhymes
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Irregular verbs – worksheet
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Once your students learn the rhymes, it is time to concentrate only on the irregular verbs. Print out the following worksheet:
In the first exercise students should complete the mind map with the verbs they remember from the rhymes. They have to write the verbs only on the branches belonging to the appropriate rhyme. Check their answers.
In the second task students have to write the past tense and past participle of the verbs given.
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Irregular verbs – quiz
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The following quiz can help your students practise the irregular verbs either at school or at home. The quiz consists of two parts. In the first part, students should write the past tense and the past particples of the verbs. In the second part, students have to drag the correct verbs into the sentences. The students will be rewarded with a game after each part of the quiz they pass. The quiz is in HTML5, so it will play on all desktops and mobile devices.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/irregular_verbs/Irregular verbs rhymes quiz (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Irregular verbs – quiz[/su_button]
I think that your students will love usind the following game. Their task is to click the correct past tense and past participle. While the first round is easy, the others are very difficult indeed.
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[su_button url=”http://www.classtools.net/widgets/quiz_77/Vocabulary_game_iqBGs.htm” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”6″]Irregular verbs – games[/su_button]
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Irregular verbs – links
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You can find a list and several interactive activities at British Council site.
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Irregular verbs – your opinion
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Which post on irregular verbs is the best?
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.
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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.
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English irregular verbs – vocabulary
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First ask your students to translate the following list of words into their mother tongue. If you teach an international group of students, ask them to use their own dictionaries and elicit or demonstrate the meaning of the words.
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English irregular verbs – reading
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Ask the students to read the following story and answer the comprehension questions below.
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
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English irregular verbs – Listening drill
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Watch the following video and then listen and repeat the sentences.
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English irregular verbs – Grammar Up
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Here is an unusual exercise for your students. It is called Grammar Up. The students should read the text and add the missing grammar to it. All the verbs are CAPITALISED, and students should put them into the past tense. Instead of articles asterisks * are used, and all the prepositions are replaced with dashes -.
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.
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English irregular verbs – crossword
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The next task is very popular with students. They should solve the crossword using the past tense of the missing verbs.
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English irregular verbs – word order
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In the following exercise students should put the parts in bold into the correct order.
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English irregular verbs – wordsearch
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The following task is quite simple. Students should find the past tenses of the verbs in the wordsearch.
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English irregular verbs – speaking
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In the last task of the series students should retell the story, using the clues. They have to tell the story in the past tense.
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.
Recently I have published 4 posts on teaching irregular verbs. The posts were based on a rap song by Fluency MC. This post is different.
This time I am introducing a new method of teaching the past tense of irregular verbs. The method is called the Visual-Audio Method, and I think it is completely new. I have managed to try it out with only with one class so far, but I can say that it worked.
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Irregular verbs – video
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Here is the video for the Visual-Audio Method. It consists of three parts. In the first part the students listen to, read and repeat the sentences. In the second part they listen to the sentences and repeat them, but the words don’t appear on screen. In the third part they see the picture of the action and they have to supply the sentence before they hear it.
You should play the video at least once in each lesson for one or two weeks to ensure that the students remember the phrases.
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Irregular verbs – infographic
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The following infographic should help the students revise the words. You can ask your students to translate the phrases.
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Irregular verbs – quizzes
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Your students can test their knowledge of the past tense of the verbs in the following HTML5 quiz. The quiz will play on all mobile devices and desktop computers.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/irregular_verbs/Irregular verbs VA method (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f8d23c” size=”6″]Irregular verbs Quiz[/su_button]
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The following two games are in Flash and will play only on desktop computers. They are really fun. I often play them with my classes at school.
[su_button url=”http://www.envocabulary.eu/irregular verbs vame/Irregular verbs AV invaders.html” target=”blank” background=”#f8d23c” size=”6″]Irregular verbs Invaders game[/su_button]
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[su_button url=”http://www.envocabulary.eu/irregular verbs vame/Irregular verbs AV half.html” target=”blank” background=”#f8d23c” size=”6″]Irregular verbs Half a minute[/su_button]
This is the last post in which we try to teach the irregular verbs mentioned in the rap song by Fluency MC. This time there are 15 irregular verbs and to help you teach or learn them there is an infographic, a quiz and a game.
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Irregular verbs – song
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]First, listen to the following song and complete the lyrics. Start at 2:45.
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The lyrics worksheet:
Irregular verbs song lyrics 4
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Irregular verbs – infographic
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]Display or hand out the following infographic and go through the irregular verbs with your students. Explain the meaning of the more difficult verbs if necessary or ask your students to use dictionaries.
To print ot the infographic, use the following pdf file:
Irregular verbs with fluency 04
Irregular verbs – online quiz
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]The following online quiz consists of two parts. In the first part the students should match the irregular verbs and their meanings, and then complete the sentences with an appropriate irregular verb in the past tense.
In the second part the students should drag the irregular verbs to the appropriate spaces in the sentences. After they pass each part of the quiz they will be rewarded with a game.
The quiz is created in HTML5, so it will play on all electronic devices and computers. [su_button url=”https://engames.eu/irregular_verbs/withFluencyMC/Irregular%20verbs%20with%20Fluency%20MC%204%20(Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f8d23c” size=”6″]Irregular verbs Quiz[/su_button]
The second game is called Goose Science Quiz, and your task is to click the dice in the upper right hand corner and then answer the questions. If you manage to get to the finish first, you will win the game. The game can be played by multiple people at the same time.
Once again, the game is in HTML5, so it will play on all electronic devices and computers.
Irregular verbs – all irregular verbs with Fluency MC posts
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]As I wrote above, this is the fourth post we have prepared together with Fluency MC. You can find the previous posts here:
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As I wrote before, irregular verbs are the most important thing for all students of English to learn. However, it is not easy to master them. That is why Fluency and I started to collaborate on a series of posts that deal with teaching just the irregular verbs.
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In this post we are going to introduce another set of 15 verbs. To learn them there is a song, an infographic, a quiz and a game. If you go through all the activities you will meet each word at least 6 times. We hope you will like our work and share the post.
Irregular verbs – song
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]Listen to the following song and try to complete the lyrics. To complete the lyrics start the song at 2:05.
You can find the lyrics here:
Lyrics part 3
Irregular verbs – infographic
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]Here is the infographic with all the irregular verbs, you should learn in this post. For each word there is a definition (in either word or picture form) and two examples of usage.
Display the infographic and go through the verbs with your students. Explain the meaning of the difficult words.
Irregular verbs – game and quiz
[/su_heading]Here is a two-part online quiz. Your task is to choose the correct answers and pass the quiz. You you will be rewarded with a game after each part of the quiz if you pass.
This game is in HTML5, so it will play on all mobile devices as well as desktop computers.
Irregular verbs – other sites
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]You can find more irregular verbs practise at https://grammarlane.com/irrverbs/irrverbsen.html . Choose the irregular verbs you want to practise and choose the mode (speaking or writing). Then write or say the past tense and the past participle of the verbs you see.
Irregular verbs by British Council.
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A song by Fluency MC on irregular verbs:
In my opinion, irregular verbs are the most important thing one has to learn in English. Therefore, it is absolutely essential that students know them. However, teaching them is not easy. There are no rules, and the number of new words that students manage to commit to memory is quite low. Thus the teaching materials have to be interesting enough that students would return to them.
And one of the best materials for teaching irregular verbs is this song, which was created by Jason R Levine from Fluency MC:
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In this post we are going to deal with the verbs mentioned in the second verse of the song. Below you will find an infographic, an online quiz and a game to help your students learn the irregular verbs.
[su_spacer] [su_heading]Irregular verbs – infographic
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]Display the following infographic and go through the words with them. Use the pictures to explain the meaning or ask your students to use their dictionaries.
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Irregular verbs – an online quiz and a game
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]Start with the online quiz. The quiz is in HTML5 so it will play on mobile devices too. In the first part, you should drag the words to the correct spaces. If you pass, you will be rewarded with a game called Angry Farmer. In the second part, you have to look at the picture and complete the sentence. Use the past tense of a verb that best fits the sentence. [su_button url=”https://engames.eu/irregular_verbs/Irregular verbs with Fluency MC 2 (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f8d23c” size=”6″]Irregular verbs quiz[/su_button] [su_spacer] [su_heading]
Irregular verbs – links[/su_heading] [su_spacer]
You can practise the irregular verbs in sentences in the following video.
Irregular verbs by British Council.
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A song by Fluency MC on irregular verbs:
I have already published 10 posts on teaching irregular verbs. You can see the list of the posts down here:
- Irregular verbs again
- Irregular verbs again 2
- Irregular verbs – third time lucky?
- Irregular verbs in context 1
- Irregular verbs straightforward
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- 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
But I still cannot say that my students know the verbs. That was why I joined forces with Fluency MC, and this time we would like to teach the irregular verbs together.
To achieve this, we have prepared a song, an infographic, a game and an online quiz. We believe that if you go through all the activities, you will know the 20 irregular verbs we would like to teach in this post.
Irregular verbs – song
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]Listen to the song and complete the lyrics.
Irregular verbs lyrics first part
[su_spacer] [su_heading]Irregular verbs – infographic
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]Show the following infographic to your students and ask them to go through the example sentences. If you teach a monolingual class, ask them to translate the more difficult sentences. Note that the print version of the worksheet looks different than the infographic here:
You can download the print version of the infographic here:
Irregular verbs with Fluency MC 1
[su_spacer] [su_spacer] [su_heading]Irregular verbs – online quiz
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]Now it is time to test your students knowledge. Ask them to complete the following online test. If they pass they will be rewarded with a game.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/irregular_verbs/Irregular%20verbs%20with%20Fluency%20MC%20%28Web%29/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f8d23c” size=”6″]Online quiz on irregular verbs[/su_button] [su_spacer] [su_heading]Fluency MC – more videos
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]You can watch more videos by Fluency MC here: