Fun Controlled Practice of Verb Patterns

The fact that the verb “afford” makes “afford to go” not “afford going” is something that students can spend a lot of time trying to learn. The activities in this article give students exactly the kind of intensive practice they need to quickly and efficiently memorise these kinds of forms. There are also more communicative practice activities available here.

Verb patterns tennis/ volleyball 1

One student “serves” with a verb that can take another verb after it, and another student or team “returns” with the form of a verb that can go next, e.g. responding to “enjoy” with “enjoy doing” or “enjoy going”. This can be played with or without a ball going backwards and forwards, and with the rules of any sport where a ball goes over a net such as ping pong or badminton.

Verb patterns tennis/ volleyball 2

The same games as above can also be played with a return being a verb which takes the same verb pattern as the verb that was served with, e.g. another verb which takes infinitive with to. For example, one student serves with “intend” and another student or team returns with “plan”, because they can both take “to do”.

Verb patterns list dictation

Students listen to a list of verbs and shout out whenever they are sure what that collection of verbs all have in common, e.g. that they all take both infinitive and gerund but with a change in meaning, or that they can all only take someone plus base verb.

To make this activity more fun and challenging, it’s best to mix in some categories that have nothing to do with verb patterns like “All positive verbs” and “All state verbs/ All not actions”. To stop students shouting out random guesses, you could give points for correct guesses but take points off for indirect guesses.

Verb patterns pelmanism

Make a pack of cards with at least four examples of each of the verb patterns that you want to practise, e.g. twenty four cards with eight that take verb+ing, eight that take to + verb, and eight that take someone + to + verb. Students spread the cards across the table, then take turns trying to find pairs of verbs which are followed by the same verb pattern, e.g. “want” and “would like” because they both take “to + verb”. This is more challenging and fun if it is done with the cards face down. If you include verbs which can take more than one pattern like “want” and “forget”, those cards can match with words which take any of the suitable verb patterns for those words.

Before or after playing pelmanism, students can work together to put all the cards into columns by which verb patterns each verb is followed by. They could also put verbs with similar and opposites meanings together (as they tend to take the same verb pattern).

Verb patterns snap

This is a faster game that can be played with the same cards as pelmanism above. Students deal out all of the cards but don’t look at their pack. Students take turns putting one of their cards face up on the table, and race to shout out “Snap!” whenever the last two cards to be put there can take the same verb pattern. For instance, they should quickly shout “Snap!” if the last two cards are “like” and “enjoy”, because they can both take “+ doing”. If they are correct that they match, they get all the cards on the table, and play continues. To stop students shouting out random guesses, you can have a punishment for shouting “Snap” when the last two words don’t match such as having to give two cards from your pack to each other player. The winner is the person with most cards when the teacher stops the game.

Verb patterns pairwork matching

Write between ten and twenty example sentences for the verb patterns that you want to teach and split them between the two verbs in each sentence, e.g. “My parents used to force + me to hoover my own bedroom”. Put the beginnings of the sentences on a Student A worksheet and the mixed endings of the sentences on a Student B worksheet. Without showing their worksheets to each other, students work together to match the two halves of the sentences, writing the missing in each correct place.

Verb patterns dominoes 1

This is similar to the pairwork matching activity above, but with cards. Write some useful example sentences for the verb patterns that you want to teach, split them between the two verbs, then put the beginning of the sentence on the right-hand side of a domino and the ending of the sentence on the left-hand side of the next domino (e.g. one domino says “having tests./ I plan” and the next one says “to set up my own business./ I refuse”). Students work together to put all of the dominoes into a big circle with all of the sentence halves matching and/ or they deal out the cards to play a game of dominoes with (but with each domino only matching one other possibility on each side, unlike a normal game of dominoes).

Verb patterns dominoes 2

You can also make a pack of dominoes that has several matches for each half and so is more like the original game. This can mostly easily be done by the left-hand-side of the dominoes just say “doing”, “to doing”, “someone do”, etc, with any extra more specific details.

Verb patterns sentence transformations reversi memory game

Collect ten to twenty sentences with verb patterns that can be rewritten with the same or different verb patterns, e.g. “My parents let me watch horror films = My parents allowed me to watch horror films” and “Remember to buy eggs! = Don’t forget to buy eggs!”). Make two sided cards with one version of the sentence on each side, perhaps with a key word to give a hint on how to rephrase it. Students spread the cards out on the table, either side up, and take turns trying to guess or remember what is on the other side of any many cards as they can, stopping whenever they make a mistake. They can try the same cards again later, but perhaps the other way up if the last person turned them over to check and left them that way.