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• Do you teach irregular verbs in the old traditional alphabetical order?
• Would you like to provide your students with a more logical classification which they’ll remember with ease?
• Don’t you have such a list?

No need to worry

Here I am providing you with what I consider a very logical classification of English irregular verbs.  

• Easy to remember because it has been classified into logical groups which follow similar patterns. 
• Inspired by Quirk & Huddleston, it has been drafted with EFL learners in mind. Here comes a short version.

Would you like to receive the full list based on the one originally published in 2016, but including now further subclassifications within 4 of the groups?

In that case, you need to be registered on the Poppies blog first or be a current or former Poppies’ student and have a password. Then, click on this link and enter the password.

English irregular verbs – Group 1: Same form

English irregular verbs – Group 2: Same form in infinitive & Past Participle

English irregular verbs – Group 3: same form in Past Simple & Past Participle

The group above and the one below are the most numerous.

English irregular verbs – Group 4: 3 forms different, vowel change and –en/ne/n past participle

English irregular verbs – Group 5: 3 forms different, vowel change

Learning the lists

Hope you find this a more logical classification of English irregular verbs and serves you for the classroom! Vernon gives students two tips:

1. Learn 5 verbs per day, every day, rather than a large number at one go.
2. Learn them to the rhythm of jazz  (Or the beats of rap, I add!)
3. Design regular short exercises where they have to fill in the blanks (you provide one form or its Spanish equivalent, and they have to fill in the rest).
4. Vary the gaps, so that they are done frequently.
5. Give students ample opportunities to use them in context.
6. Have them write a brief text where they use a set of irregular verbs with blank spaces for their team group to guess.