Saint Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patty’s Day! Today is a day to have some fun so I played a game with my students. We made a set of cards of which one color contains present tense verbs and their forms in the past are written on a different color card. The irregular verbs in the past tense are difficult for English learners as they have to memorize all of the irregular verb forms. This game worked well to give the students an interactive way to practice with these verb forms. I passed out a past tense card to each student and then said, for example, “I have go, who has went”. The student who had the matching card would then stand up and say “I have went.” The next thing I did was pass out both the past and present tense cards to the students and have them find their matching card. With their new partner they then practiced using the past tense form by writing a sentence in their copy books. The students then presented their words to the class by taking turns in the front, using the microphone (glue stick) and saying their phrase and words to the class (they really like taking turns using the “microphone”). After that the students had drama class and after drama we recommenced our work on the past by writing about their last birthday. I had some green balloons and put them at the top of the board to generate some excitement about the birthday party topic (this worked well). After the students were done writing their paragraphs, and some were read out loud, we underlined all of the past tense verbs with colored pencil. Just before the end of the day I explained the real reason why I brought the green balloons, Saint Patrick’s Day! I explained quickly what this day means to the Irish and gave away some of the green balloons as the students went home for the day. The lesson went well and the students are really doing a great job of learning these irregular verb forms, a difficult aspect of our strange language to master. I wish that I could go to get a boiled dinner tonight but there are no Saint Patty’s day dinners in sight, so I think I may just have to settle for the Argentine staple once again, Pizza.