In the Catch And Conjugate ESL game, students throw a ball around, conjugating irregular verbs as they go.



Setup
Students stand in a circle.
Game
- The students throw the ball to each other, in a random order.
- The first student says a verb, and then the one/two students that follow have to conjugate that verb.
- When that verb has been conjugated, the next student has to say another irregular verb and the process repeats.
- If a student makes a mistake or takes too long, they could be required to do a challenge or forfeit. Try our ESL Challenge Generator for suitable pre-made English challenges.
Target Language
The Catch And Conjugate ESL game is great way to practise the past and/or past participle forms of irregular verbs with beginner or low intermediate students. Use it as a warmer or review activity when teaching the past simple or present perfect simple.
If you want to practise the past simple only, there would only be one conjugation, e.g. eat – ate – fly – flew – go – went etc. For the present perfect, three students would conjugate each verb e.g. eat – ate – eaten – fly – flew – flown – go – went – gone.
If you’re looking for other ways to make irregular verbs practice more interesting, try Connect Four and Irregular Verbs Rap.
For a similar game to practise numbers, see Catch and Count.
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