Teaching is a process that involves a lot of work and creativity from the part of the teacher. The teacher needs to understand that students need to get involved as much as possible into the process and to some extent, they need to be entertained. Teaching grammar has always been a part that neither teachers nor students like, and if it is in a foreign language, it is even more difficult. So, teachers do their best to find new ways of making students learn grammar.

One of the most difficult part in teaching grammar is to make students memorize past forms of irregular verbs. Try as they might, only few students are those who can easily learn them. But at least we try and I have used in my teaching process a game called Tennis. In fact, students pass verbs to each other in this way: three students work together. One tells a verb, the second student tells the second form of the verb, while the third student tells the third form of the verb. I use this game with books open at first, then I use it to assess students. It is a game that made all students learn something and feel positive about themselves, as the weakest students were able to give some good results.

Another exercise that I use is the bingo game. Again, students can keep their books open the first time they deal with irregular verbs. From a list of verbs i ask students to pick nine and write them into a bingo table. They need to write the second form of the verbs. Then, I read the infinitive form and if they have the second form of the verb, they cross it out. During the game I also ask students to say the second form of the verbs aloud.

The game can then be continued into a group activity. Group students in four and ask them to write a story. There can be just one student writing the story or no writing can be involved. The story begins with the first verb on the bingo card of the first student. It goes on with the first verb on the bingo card of the second student and so on. Students say just one sentence and then they need to make some logic out of the story. Nevertheless, nonsense stories are allowed as long as you sense that the students know what they are saying.

Hope you like the activities and...enjoy them!