Facilitate the Acquisition of Irregular Verbs

For many ESL students, irregular verbs present a challenge. This week, I would like to offer a couple tips for making the remembering of the irregular verbs a breeze.

First, stress that irregular verbs are not to be feared. Monosyllables characterize the vast majority of irregular verbs. Besides, these are your everyday words that English speakers use so often that chances are your students are not going to find much difficulty listening or scanning for irregular verbs if they keep their eyes and ears open. In addition, there are ways to group similarly patterned irregular verbs together, such as sing-sang-sung and swim-swam-swum. The point is that not only are such verbs short, they are also easy to learn.

Second, make the learning fun. I've seen colleagues using the technique of quick listing at the start of the class where students write down as many irregular verbs as possible that they can remember within 2 minutes. Then they check the winner's results and review. This kind of a bingo game also promises to be everyone's favorite. ESL practitioner Dr. Suzanne Medina's Singing English Irregular Verbs is yet another very entertaining innovation in teaching people how to memorize the pesky irregular verb. Check out a sample here.