Process Essay: How to make your English students memorize and learn verbs

Have you ever had to teach verbs to your students? Have you ever questioned yourself about how boring it can be for the students to memorize all those verbs? I have been through the same situation,but about one year ago, I experienced a game that changed the bore into fun. Having students learn and memorize verbs may seem to be complicated, but it is actually an easy task if the teacher plays a game, which I call “boys x girls” with the students.

When you are teaching verbs, you can first introduce the verb. I usually do this with miming or drawings. Once the students are familiarized with the verbs, two or three classes after the introduction, I start to play the game. First, I explain how the game works. The teacher writes a verb on the board and the group has to say a verb that starts with the letter that the word on the board finishes with. For example, if the teacher writes “walk”, the next verb has to start with K, and so on. The teacher has to write all the verbs on the board.

The second step is to divide the class in two groups, a group of boys and a group of girls. The game works really well with teenagers. After dividing the class, I write a verb on the board. I ask students to call odds or evens. The winner starts. So, if the girls start, they have to say a word that finishes with the last letter from the word on the board. Then, if the verb was ‘walk’, they can say ‘kill’. Meanwhile, the next players start thinking of a verb that starts with ‘L’, they might say ´love´, and so on.

The game ends when the team doesn´t know a verb that starts with the last letter from the last word. I usually give them one minute to come up with a verb. If they don´t know, the point goes to the other group. When this step is finished, I play another round, if there´s time. It´s important to leave the results marked on the board, so that every class they can continue the battle. 

As a result of the game I could see students studying new verbs, searching for verbs that start or end with “y”, for example. Therefore, as time goes by, students enrich their vocabulary and get excited about learning new and interesting verbs to beat their opponent in the game. It´s really fun and amazing to see your students so engaged in learning and memorizing new verbs.