One of the things my advanced level students hate the most is irregular verbs.  Well, actually all my students hate them.  I don’t make them memorize them, but the Korean teachers do.  They have a huge list of base/simple past/past participles that they have to memorize.  In all fairness, I don’t think I’d do too well on one of their verb quizzes.  Sky class had a bit of leftover time the other day so I decided to try to find a fun way to help them recall the verbs.

What you need:  a list of irregular verbs (example pdf), a soft ball (or something soft that can be thrown back and forth) and a die.

What you do:  Start by passing the ball to a random student.  The teacher then rolls the die.  If it comes up 1 or 2 they have to give the base form.  If it comes up 3 or 4 they have to give the simple past.  If it comes up 5 or 6 they have to give the past participle.  The teacher calls out a verb and the student with the ball has to give the form dictated by the die.  Obviously the teacher should say a form other than the one the student should give.  If the student is wrong, then have the class figure out what the correct answer is.  Then the student with the ball tosses it to another student and the game continues.

Simple, less.  But much more fun than drilling.

I’ve also found that many students can go in one direction easily (eat – ate – eaten, for example), but given the past tense, they can’t get to the past participle without going through the all three.  In other words, given ate, they’ll think ate – eat – ate – eaten.  Part of the point of this game is to make the associate between word and form more solid.

If anyone tries this, please let me know how it goes.  I think the throwing the ball around part is the most fun for the kids.  In fact, I’ve found that doing any sort of drill this way makes it a lot more fun for the kids.