May 12

TPR for Irregular Verbs

Firstly, explain to students that there are four types of irregular verb:

AAA : those which are said the same in infinitive, past simple and past participle, e.g. put, hurt

ABB : those in which the past simple and past participle are said the same, e.g. sit, find, read

ABA : those in which the infinitive and past participle are said the same, e.g. come, run

ABC : those in which all three parts are said differently, e.g. swim, forget

You may also like to reinforce the different forms with a TPR activity, adapted here from the version proposed by Mario Rinvolucri at the ACEIA conference in Sevilla, 2006.

In this Spanish version, A = abdomen, B = brazos and C = cabeza

With AAA verbs, students would touch their abdomen three times whilst saying the verb forms

(put, put, put = abdomen, abdomen, abdomen)

With ABB verbs, students would touch their abdomen once then brazos twice

(find, found, found = abdomen, brazos, brazos)

With ABA verbs, they would touch their abdomen, then brazos, then abdomen again

(come, came, come = abdomen, brazos, abdomen)

With ABC verbs, they would touch their abdomen, then brazos, then cabeza

(swim, swam, swum = abdomen, brazos, cabeza)