Irregular Verb Games & Activities, Worksheets & Lesson Plans for ESL

If you’re looking for some of the best ESL irregular verb activities and games, then you’re certainly in the right place. Keep on reading for all the details you need to know about ESL irregular verbs, including these lesson plan ideas, worksheets, and more.

Irregular Verb Games

Let’s get to the top ideas for ESL irregular verb activities and games.

#1: Irregular Verb Board Game

I love to play board games in real life, which is why I also use them in my English classes! For this particular one, I make up the board with either questions or answers. Then, students have to make the question or answer the question. For example:

• What did you eat for dinner last night? (I ate_____).
• (_______? ) Tony went to bed at 10:30 last night.

Just choose verbs that are irregular and it’s a great practice exercise. Find out more about how easy it is to make your own:

ESL Board Games.

#2: Dialogue Substitution

Maybe your students are kind of like mine? When I ask them to read a dialogue from the textbook, they just blow through it in two seconds, without really paying attention to what they’re reading. A way to combat this is to remove some of the key words. This turns it from a simple reading exercise into one that deals with meaning as well.

This is a super-versatile ESL activity that works well for past tense verbs, including irregular ones. Remove the verbs and include a word bank. Students have to fill in the blanks when reading the dialogue with a partner. For slightly higher level students, consider listing the verbs in the present tense and then have students conjugate them to the past tense on the fly. Find out more here:

ESL Dialogue Substitution.

#3: Vocabulary Auction

This is one of my favourite activities! It does require a bit of preparation but it’s totally worth it if you can recycle it for at least a couple of classes.

Make up a bunch of questions and answers, with a mix of irregular past verbs and present tense verbs and cut out all the words. Then, students have to bid on words that they think will help them make sentences. After that, there’s a trading time where students can exchange words with other groups.

Finally, they try to make as many grammatically correct questions or answers as possible. The winner is the team with the most of them. Check it out here:

ESL Vocabulary Auction.

#4: Error Correction Relay Game

#5: Running Dictation

This is a classic, 4-skills ESL activity that lends itself well to just about any topic, vocabulary set or grammatical point, including this one. Find, or write a conversation between two people talking about something in the past. Then, students have to work together to dictate the conversation and then put the pieces into the correct order. Find out more about it here:

ESL Running Dictation Activity.

#6: Dictogloss

This is a challenging listening activity for higher-level students. Find (or write) a passage of someone talking about their experience of something in the past. For example, someone talking about a past vacation or what they did on the weekend.

Then, read it out at a faster than normal pace for the level of students. Students can take notes and then compare them with a partner to try to recreate what they heard. Read it out again and students do the same. Finally, they can check and see how close they are to the original.

This can easily lead into a lesson on irregular verbs. Find out more about it:

ESL Dictogloss.

#7: Role Plays

Certain kinds of role plays lend themselves extremely well to the past tense. For example, someone explaining how an accident happened. Or, a student talking to a teacher about why he couldn’t complete his homework. Find out more about them here:

ESL Role-Playing Activity.

#8: Just a Minute

Try out this speaking fluency activity with higher-level students. Select a number of topics that lend themselves to the past tense. Some examples include:

• best vacation
• embarrassing moment
• childhood memories
• last summer vacation

Put students into small groups and throw a paper ball at the board, selecting one of the topics. One student in each group has to talk about that for an entire minute without stopping. The other people in the group have to ask one follow-up question. Repeat with another topic until everyone has had a chance to do it.

Find out more details:

Just a Minute ESL Activity.

#9: Telling a Story, the Better Way

In many ESL/EFL textbooks, on the unit on the past tense, the free practice exercise is telling a story of some kind, perhaps something like a best vacation or most embarrassing moment. It’s possible to turn this kind of throwaway activity into something far more engaging and useful! Find out more about that here:

Telling a Story ESL.

#10: Conversation Starters

If you say something like, “Talk to your partner, using irregular verbs,” it’s not going to go well! Instead, a better strategy is to give students a bunch of conversation starters that lend themselves to using the target vocabulary. Find out more about this here:

ESL Conversation Starters.

#11: Chain Spelling

Try out this simple activity for students who are new to irregular verbs. All the students can stand up. Then, the teacher says a verb in the present tense (eat) and the students take turns spelling out the irregular past tense verb, letter by letter (a-t-e). If someone misses a letter, they sit down and are out. Check it out:

ESL Chain Spelling Game.

#12: Got to Hand it to You

I love to use this activity because it takes something old (error correction) and makes it new again by turning it into a team game. Write a passage that contains errors with irregular verbs. Then, students work in teams to make the required corrections.

Find out more about it here:

ESL Error Correction Race.

#13: Post-Reading Activities

A nice way to introduce past tense irregular verbs is to have students do a reading activity first. Then, as part of the post-reading work, they can examine the verbs in more detail, including finding the past tense ones. From there, you can focus on these verbs in more detail.

Check out even more ideas for how to get the best value out of a reading passage:

ESL Post-Reading Activity Ideas.

#14: 120-90-60

This is a nice activity to help students work on their speaking fluency and is a nice fit for this unit. Select a topic that lends itself to the past tense such as talking about a previous vacation. If I want to focus on irregular verbs, I’ll write a few of them on the board that would fit with this, including:

• ate
• went
• bought
• etc.

Find out more about this activity here:

120-90-60 ESL Speaking Activity.

#15: Is this Sentence Correct?

A simple time-filler review that works well at the end of class is to write a sentence on the board using irregular verbs. But, make an error or two. For example:

• How do you come to school this morning?
• I didn’t went to school because I was sick.
• I eat pizza on my way to school this morning.

Students have to make the required changes. If I have a big class, I put students into pairs and let them work it out together for a minute before discussing together as a class.

#16: Irregular Verb Ball Toss

Try out this simple irregular verb activity. Get a beach ball and write down a bunch of base form verbs that have irregular past tense conjugations. Students take turns tossing the ball around the class.

When a student catches the ball, they have to see what’s under their right thumb and then say the past tense verb.

#17: Concentration

Try out this simple matching game for beginners. Write down the base form on a piece of paper and then the irregular conjugation on another. Make up approximately 8 matches (16 cards total).

Put students into groups of four and they can place these cards face down in an organized fashion on desk. Then, they play a matching game. The student with the most sets is the winner. This can lead into further work such as having students make sentences with their matches.

#18: Get Active

This is a nice irregular verb game that gets students out of their seats and moving around the class. It’s best for kids. Make some flashcards with irregular verbs written on them (or pictures of actions that lend themselves to irregular verbs). Place them at various points around the classroom, showing students where they are. I like to have a large number of them, perhaps 20.

Students have to stand up and then I’ll say a base form verb. Students have to race to get the correct card. Once they do, they say that word and get one point.

#19: Drilling Games

Irregular verbs can be a bit tricky for students to remember. A nice way to help them with them is to do some drills. For example, say the sentence in the present (I eat pizza). Students have to repeat the sentence using the past irregular verb (I ate pizza).

#20: Irregular Verb Bingo

Create bingo cards with various irregular verbs in their base form. Call out the past tense forms randomly. Students mark the past tense forms on their cards. The first one to get a row or column marked shouts “Bingo!”

#21: Verb Race

Write a list of irregular verbs on the board. Divide the class into teams. Call out a verb randomly, and the teams race to write the past tense form of that verb on the board. The team that correctly writes the past tense form first earns a point.

#22: Verb Pictionary

Similar to charades, but in this game, students draw the base form of an irregular verb on the board while their classmates guess the past tense form based on the drawing.

#23: Sentence Completion

Provide students with sentences that are missing the correct past tense form of an irregular verb. They need to fill in the blanks with the appropriate verb forms.

#24: Irregular Verb Jeopardy

Create a Jeopardy-style quiz game with categories like “Past Tense Forms,” “Present Tense Forms,” and “Complete the Sentence.” Assign different point values for questions of varying difficulty.

#25: Verb Swat

Write irregular verbs on the board or on flashcards. Divide the class into two teams and give each team a fly swatter. Call out a tense (base form or past tense), and the first student to swat the correct verb earns a point for their team.

Irregular Verbs Worksheets

If you want to give students some extra practice opportunities with this, here are some of my go-to sources for worksheets:

ISL Collective

English for Everyone

English Worksheets

Irregular Verb ESL Lesson Plans

If you’re a teacher, then you already know how much time it can save you to use a lesson plan that another teacher has already made. Here are some of the top options:

ESL Kids Stuff

Games 4 ESL

Irregular Verbs Practice

If my students want some extra practice, here are the sites that I refer them to:

Perfect English Grammar

Khan Academy

English Hilfen

Did you like these Ideas to Teach Irregular Verbs?

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Irregular Verbs FAQs

There are a number of common questions that people have about these verbs. Here are the answers to some of the most common ones.

What are irregular verbs ESL?

Irregular verbs ESL are ones that don’t follow certain rules for the past tense or past participle version. For example: go, went, gone.

How do you teach irregular verbs to ESL students?

The best way to teach irregular verbs to ESL students is to start by teaching regular verbs first. Once students have a grasp of this, introduce irregular verbs as ones that don’t follow the rules. Give some common examples such as go-went and eat-ate. Students have to memorize these conjugations.

Are there any rules for irregular verbs?

There are no rules for irregular verbs and the other tenses of them must be memorized.

How do you know if a verb is regular or irregular?

The way to tell if a verb is regular or irregular is to take a look at the conjugation of it in the past. If it’s regular, it will follow a certain pattern. If irregular, it won’t follow any pattern at all.

Have your Say about Teaching Irregular Verbs for ESL

Do you have any tips or tricks to teach irregular verbs? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think about them. We’d love to hear from you.

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Last update on 2024-08-04 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API