Tag: Learn irregular verbs

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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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.

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.

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:

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.
Desktop – Windows 32 bits Desktop – Windows 64 bits

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.
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[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 is a simple piece of software which asks me to translate a word. If I get the word right, it disappears, if not, it gets repeated once or twice after a while. The following day, the programme asks me to translate the words from the previous day and adds 20 more words to learn. It goes on like this till day 5 when I have to translate 100 words. On day 6, the software offers the same 100 words again. But on day 7, I have to translate just 80 words as the oldest 20 disappear. In this way, the words disappear and on the tenth day I translate just 20 words.

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).

Snowball 1 Snowball 2 Snowball 3 Snowball 4 Snowball 5

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Snowball 6 Snowball 7 Snowball 8 Snowball 9 Snowball 10

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.

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.

Irregular verbs in pictures – pdf file

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.

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.

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 Target

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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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.

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.

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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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.

The following infographic should help the students revise the words. You can ask your students to translate the phrases.

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.
Irregular verbs Quiz 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.

Irregular verbs Invaders game ADVERT:
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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.

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

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

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.

Irregular verbs Quiz

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.

Goose Quiz on irregular verbs
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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• Irregular verbs with Fluency MC 1
• Irregular verbs with Fluency MC 2
• Irregular verbs with Fluency MC 3

It is much more memorable to teach or learn irregular verbs in a story. The verbs, especially their meaning, are easier to remember and retrieve from memory. Moreover, teaching verbs in a story is fun.
In this post there are several activities: a mind map, a worksheet, an MP3 drill and an interactive quiz. These activities will make the teaching and learning enjoyable and fun.
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Here is the picture of the story:

Print version of the story and tasks:
past simple story_fishing full

Here, you can print out the mind map with all the irregular verbs. All the verbs are used in sentences.

Once you think that you know the verbs you can try out the following interactive quiz. The quiz is in HTML5 and you can play it on all mobile devices.
Irregular verbs – full screen quiz

MP3 drill
Listen say the word that belongs there instead of the beep.

Irregular verbs – mp3 drill

The worksheet contains the grammar up activity. To do it correctly here is a simple explanation:

If you like this activity and you would like to use in either on your website or in a classroom without an internet connection, you can do so by downloading the files here:

irregular_verbs_incontext#2

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I have already tried teaching irregular verbs in many ways. I have tried irregular verbs associative method, irregular verbs listening drill, irregular verbs in context and many others. However, the results were not very good. Only about half of the students know the verbs.

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That is why in my next four posts I would like to present 100 irregular verbs straightforward. I will provide the pronunciation of all the verbs and several simple activities for students to practice the verbs. No miracle cure, only hard work.

First, watch the video and repeat the words. At the end you can stop the video or play the game and guess the verb the man is drawing. If you guess the verb you have to supply the past tense and the past participle of the verb.

The second half of the verbs is presented in the following video:

The first worksheet contains all the verbs in a table.

Irregular verbs 01_all

Then there are two worksheets containing activities to practice the irregular verbs from the two videos. The activities for the first video are here:

Irregular verbs_worksheet
Irregular verbs_worksheet_key

The activities for the second video are over here:
Irregular verbs 2 _worksheet
Irregular verbs 2_worksheet_key

The first two quizzes test the knowledge of the first thirteen verbs presented in the first video. The first test is in HTML5 so you can play it on your mobile device. If you pass the quiz you can play a game at the end.

Irregular verbs – simple quiz

Then you can try the following crossword and wordsearch. Once again both of them are in HTML 5 so they will play anywhere. Again write both the past tense and past participle:

Irregular verbs – crossword Irregular verbs – Wordsearch

You can practise irregular verbs in the following app. Choose the set or sets of irregular verbs, you want to practise and then choose how you want to practise them:

Irregular verbs – Revision

The next games concentrate on the irregular verbs presented in the second video. Once again there are four different activities to help you remember all the irregular verbs. The first one is a simple HTML5 quiz:

Irregular verbs – Quiz no. 2

Then there are a crossword and a wordsearch. Remember to write both the past tense and the past participle:

Irregular verbs – Crossword 2
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Irregular verbs – Wordsearch 2

In my latest post on irregular verbs I tried to teach 33 irregular verbs. In this post, I would like to add other 30 verbs which I hope you will learn through either the associative method or by using the spaced mp3 recording.

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You can learn the irregular verbs by using the so called associative method. I have already explained the method in the previous post on irregular verbs, but I will do it again here.
Look at the picture. There are the verbs with pictures and under each of the forms, there are two cells. Complete the cells with words in your mother tongue (or any other language you know) which are similar to the English words. For example: RODE – óda, rod RIDDEN – rýt, den. Don´t be afraid to split the words or jumble them. Write each of your associations into the cells and then you will see that it is much easier to remember the words.

You can download all the worksheets for all the 30 irregular verbs in pdf here:
Irregular verbs_part2

Another very effective method of learning is described in a book by Baddeley on Brain. I call it random repeat because you learn a small number of words and then you are asked to repeat them in a random order. You can try it here.
Listen to the recording and in the pauses try to say the past tense and the past participle of the given word.

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If you want to listen to all the verbs again and again you can use the following recording:

If you want to download the files and listen to them for example in your car you can do this here:

Irregular verbs_part2 Random repeat recording
Irregular verbs_part2 listening mp3

If you think that you know the irregular verbs, you can test your knowledge in the following games. The first one is called Irregular verbs _ Angry farmer. Your task is to drag the irregular verbs into the correct spaces and if you pass the test you will be given a chance to play the game called Angry farmer. The test and the game are in HTML5 so you can test your knowledge anywhere using your mobile phone or tablet.

To have a better experience on a mobile device, we recommend that you play it on a full screen. Click below

Irregular verbs – Angry Farmer full screen

In the second game you should complete the sentences using the correct verb. If you pass this quiz you can play the game called Indiara. Good Luck!!!

Once again if you view this post on a mobile device, use the full screen mode by clicking the button below.

Irregular verbs – Indiara full screen

I have already published several posts on irregular verbs: Past participles – divided according to the pronunciation and Present perfect tense. However, a week ago a student of mine contacted me and asked me if I could create a way for him to learn the irregular verbs. He spends a lot of time driving so he asked me to prepare something to listen to in his car. So I did. In this post there are 33 irregular verbs presented in an associative matrix, in mp3 for listening, in mp3 for learning and two games for practising them.
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Here you can find two ways to learn the irregular verbs. I have tried both and both work. The first one is called associative learning and you should write two words in your mother tongue under each verb. The words should be similar to the English words and at the same time they should emphasize the differences between the forms. For example Drive – Dr, Iveta DROVE – Dr., ovce, DRIVEN – Dři, venku. Create your own associations and you will see that you will know the verbs quickly.

Here is the pdf version of all the irregular verbs:

Irregular verbs_part1

In learning there are only a few methods which work for everyone. One of them is called Random repeat. You are presented with something new and then after a short time you are tested. Then another new thing is presented and you are tested again. This is repeated several times and at the end you know a lot. You can try this method here. You will here three irregular verbs and then you will hear just the infinitive and you have 3 seconds (quite a lot of time actually) to supply the past tense and past participle. After the three seconds you will hear the correct answers and another verb. I hope it will work for you:

If you need just the correct pronunciation of each of the verbs presented above, here is the mp3 with all of the verbs:

You can download the files here:

All the irregular verbs
All the verbs learning mp3

Once you believe that you know the irregular verbs, it is time to practise them. Here there are two games for your mobile phones to practise the irregular verbs:

If you want to enjoy the game on the full screen click on the button:

Irregular verbs – Tower defence

In the second game you should fill in the sentences with the correct words. If you pass the test you can play the game called Math pop and practise your maths at the same time.

If you want to play the game on a full screen, click the button below:
Irregular verbs – Math pop

You can find several online exercises at our new site grammarlane.com to practice irregular verbs.