Verb Patterns

  As mentioned earlier, our example sentence has used a regular verb 'to play'. With the regular verbs we simply add '-ed'. This spelling pattern changes for words that end with a consonant and a Y: 'cry' goes to 'cried', 'try' to 'tried'. Another spelling pattern we have to be aware of is our consonant plus vowel plus consonant. In these instances, we double the consonant used: 'shop' needs the double P; 'ship' needs the double P. With these spelling patterns, and most spelling patterns in general for the English language, there are always exceptions to the rules. So we have to be aware of those exceptions. We also have to impart those exceptions on to our students. We can do so through various exercises and various activities to end our class. To form the negative sentence here,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas There are many different types of peculiarities when concerning the English language, and this essay is aimed at the difficulties in teaching those peculiarities to learners that are not fluent in the English language. It can be difficult for native English speakers to progressively learn the subtle nuances as children graduating to young adults and navigating complexities of the language as adults; deciphering whether or not these peculiarities warrant further investigation or retention based on usage and context. These oddities of the English language can be exponentially more difficult for those attempting to learn the English language as a second language, having fully grasped the complexities of their own language only to have to navigate the...  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This is a simple worksheet for drilling the verb to be.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

  It also helps us form our tenses. Many of the tenses will use these auxiliary verbs; particularly we have our continuous tense and our perfect tense. There are additional tenses that use auxiliary verbs. We'll get into that when we talk about our individual tenses. Another important aspect of our verbs is that they generally tell us what tense the sentence has been formed in. Take for instance the verb "to live." We could use it as live, lives, living or lived. "I live" or "she lives in Bangkok," meaning the present. "I am living in Bangkok," still the present or "I lived in Bangkok," meaning the past. Another difference with our verbs has to do with whether or not the verb is regular or irregular. With the regular verbs, in order to conjugate the verb into the past, we simply add...  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This is a fun board game to practice verbs. You can modify this to all different kinds of tenses or grammar patterns.     Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Here is a fun worksheet to practice recognizing the different tenses in English with your young students. Students simply have to color by past, present or future tense.     Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This is a useful worksheet for EFL students to practice using the verb "to be" in affirmative sentences.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This is a great activity to practice speaking skills, grammar patterns, prepositions and even writing skills. Super versatile!   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This is a fun worksheet for practicing the verb to be. Print it out and work on it with your students or hand it out for homework.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Here is an overview of all the different verb tenses in the English language.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!   Here's a useful infographic showcasing the different verb tenses in the English language.   = used for an action that was completed before some point in the past, for example: "I had written a book."   = used for an action that occurred in the past, for example: "I wrote a book."   = used for an action that was completed over a period of time before some point in the past, for example: "I had been writing a book."   = used for a continuing action that began in the past, for example: "I was writing a book."   = used for a completed action or an action that began in the past and continued until the present, for example: "I have written a book."   ...  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Complete the following sentences. Choose an appropriate verb from the box below and transform the verb to the present continuous form.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Here some verb cards to practice the "going to" future with your ESL students.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This is a great worksheet to help your ESL students understand phrasal verbs with get. It contains a picture dictionary and an exercise where students must fill in the gaps with the correct phrasal verb.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This is a great worksheet to help your ESL students understand phrasal verbs with go. It contains a picture dictionary and an exercise where students must fill in the gaps with the correct phrasal verb.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Here's a great worksheet about the verb "to be" for elementary ESL students.     Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This worksheet is great for practicing the past continuous tense. Students need to use a verb in the simple past and a verb in the past continuous.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

  Another point that students find difficult to understand is that modal auxiliary verbs have no tense. Some modals cannot be used to talk about the past or the futures. Watch this video to find out more about this topic. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next. Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! I found this unit to be extremely helpful. I learned in more detail the different possible structures of covering content, i.e. EAS and the related...  [Read more]

  This video is a sample EFL lesson in a real-life classroom setting abroad. In the engage phase of the lesson, the teacher elicits vocabulary from the students and gets them talking and thinking in English. It is important to always complete an engage phase before getting started on the study phase of a lesson. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next. Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This unit focused on the use of course books through...  [Read more]

  As mentioned earlier, to form this tense, we have to use a special form of the verb. Technically it's called the past participle form with irregular verbs. Of course these past participle forms change quite a bit from its base form of the verb. Here are a few examples 'go' moves to 'gone', 'be' moves to 'been', 'write' to 'written', 'speak' to 'spoken' and 'read'. Although very confusing for the non-native speaker, doesn't change its spelling, but does change its pronunciation, resulting in 'read' going to 'read'. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured...  [Read more]

  This video is a sample EFL lesson in a real-life classroom setting abroad. In the video, you can see an engage phase of a lesson about the modal verb "have to". The teacher uses a lot of gestures and objects to demonstrate the grammar point. This is especially helpful for English students abroad to be able to grasp the content of the lesson quickly and effectively. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next. Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! ...  [Read more]

  This video is a sample EFL lesson in a real-life classroom setting abroad. After eliciting key vocabulary from the students, the teacher starts with the study phase of the lesson, which focuses on modal verbs. The teacher is using the modal verbs ?have to? and "can" when teaching the students how to form questions with modals. Note how the teacher also writes all the information clearly on the board so that the students can copy it down. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving...  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This is a fun worksheet to practice conjugating the different forms of the verb "to be".   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This is a printable worksheet for reading comprehension. The students revise the verb "to be" in the present simple and prepositions of place.   Read the text and write the missing words (is or are). Think about what present could be in the box and write it down. Students may also color the picture when they have completed the worksheet.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Complete the sentences with can or can't and the correct verb in the list. Then match them to the pictures.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! Students look at Matt's routine and match the verb with the correct picture.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This is a fun animals exercise for beginner ESL students focusing on the verb can and can't.   Register now & get certified to teach english abroad!  [Read more]

  This video focuses on the modal auxiliary verb "can". In the classroom, you probably initially introduce the word "can" in the context of ability. However, there are more usages, such as possibility, permission, request and advice. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next. Register now & get certified to teach english abroad! This unit was interesting, and I felt really challenged by the EP method of teaching, as I've only been exposed to the ESA method of...  [Read more]

  This ITTT video is the second part of a lesson looking at the structure of the Present Perfect tense. It reviews an example of the structure with a regular verb -- played. I/you/we/they have played. She/He/It has played. The video then examines some of the spelling patterns that are used with irregular verbs. For example, verbs ending with a consonant + y. cry changes to cried, try changes to tried. Another spelling pattern with irregular verbs ending with a consonant + a vowel + a consonant Shop changes to shopped, ship changes to shipped. When teaching this particular point, as with other grammar points, it is important to explain to students that there are exceptions to most rules in the English language. Where specific patterns exist we need to introduce them to our students. A...  [Read more]

  Moving down our list of parts of speech, we have our verbs. The first big difference between verbs that we need to look at is whether it's an action verb or a state verb. Our action verbs, as the name suggests, mean that we typically can see these things in action. We can see people working and we certainly see people going to various places. Now, we have our state verbs. These are basically indicating a state of being. Two examples would be "seem" and "have" or "own". We have a sentence such as "He seems angry." and "I own my house." You can't actually see the action happening, even though those words are used as verbs. A very big differentiation between the two here as well is, state verbs typically don't take the progressive or continuous form. That form is the verb "+ing". As I...  [Read more]