- Below you will find our complete list of printable irregular verbs worksheets. Lists are arranged in several different formats so that you can use the one that best suits your needs. Irregular verbs are difficult to understand, because they do not follow normal verb tense rules.
- Helping verbs actually are found right alongside other verbs or the primary verb within a sentence. Helping verbs greatly aid writers in maintaining sentence structure and setting the mood for the story they are writing. The worksheets on this page will help your students understand the placement and proper tenses to use with helping verbs.
Free printable flashcards and board games to teach action verbs. Download and use in class today. Make learning English fun with Games4esl.
Whether you're making your own irregular verb worksheet or looking for one that's already done, you're in the right place. Below, you'll find activities to use and/or tailor to your students' own unique learning needs. Irregular verbs can be a bit of a tough subject for some learners, so having some great worksheets for practice can really help with the process.
Mother taking child's temperature
Developing an Irregular Verb Worksheet
When you first introduce irregular verbs to your students, it will probably be within the context of simple past tense verbs. You might show them how 'take' becomes 'took' and not 'taked,' for example, and how you would convert 'run' to 'ran' and not 'runned.' That's because irregular verbs don't follow standard formulas for conjugating into the past tense form.
If that's as far as you've gotten, then your irregular verb worksheet should only include activities that pertain to past simple verbs. It may be easier to focus only on the past tense before moving on to more complex subjects.
With more advanced students who may already be working on past participles, you'll need to include activities that allow them to practice using the past participles of irregular verbs, as well as with the past tense.
No matter how advanced your students are at this point, try to include some easy, medium and hard activities on your worksheet, relative to how much they already know. You can use these activities as they are, or you can use them as inspiration to come up with your own learning activities.
Easy Irregular Verb Activities
Identifying Nouns And Verbs Worksheet
The activities in the following worksheet are considered easy because they simply require students to fill in blanks with specific instructions on how to do so. They can be made more difficult by requiring the students to fill in the blanks from memory (without using an irregular verb list or chart).
For a little more fun, you can also make a word search or cross-word puzzle where the clues are the base form of the verb, and the students have to either find or fill in the past or past participle form.
Medium-Difficulty Irregular Verb Activities
You can make any of the easy activities harder by taking away your students' irregular verb lists/charts and dictionaries. But the medium-difficult activities in the following worksheet add an extra challenge to the easier ones in the above worksheet.
Hard Irregular Verb Activities
You can make any of the easy or medium activities in the above worksheets into hard ones by taking away the word bank, taking away the students' irregular verb lists/charts and dictionaries, and mixing in some regular verbs as well.
If you're teaching your students to differentiate between past simple and past participle, an activity like the one in the following worksheet is also very challenging.
More Practice
For even more practice with irregular verbs, check out Activities for Past Tense of Irregular Verbs in ESL and Speaking Activities for Intermediate ESL. With the latter, 'Whodunit' and 'Amnesia' are both especially great for practicing past tense.
Certified teacher
Please Note…
This page contains just one section of the FREE 47-page Giant Verb List PDF found here. The PDF version contains the Giant Verb List, the Giant Irregular Verb List, a Helping Verbs List, and a Linking Verbs List. Also, if you teach beginning writers or struggling writers, be sure to check out Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay on the homepage. I hope you find the verb list to be a valuable resource and tweet it, Pin-It, and tell others about it!
Two Version of the Same List:
1. The Venn Diagram (above)
2. The Two-Column Memorization List (below)
2. The Two-Column Memorization List (below)
![Free Printable Verb List Free Printable Verb List](/uploads/1/1/9/8/119853122/664798341.jpg)
The Two-Column Memorization List
The following two-column list is divided up in order to help with easy memorization. Also, notice that the first eight words on both lists are the same exact words.
Helping Verbs (Also called auxiliary verbs) | Linking Verbs (Also called state of being verbs) |
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The Simplest Fact in all of Grammar: There are just 23 helping verbs. Memorize them. ** Please see the irregular verb section in the FREE 47-page Giant Verb List PDF in order to understand the verb column system I use for making sense of verb suffixes, verb inflections, and verb tenses. | Most lists of linking verbs contain around 20 words. However, some lists contain a variety of common verb phrases (helping verb + verb). Here are a few common linking-verb verb phrases: 22. can be 23. could be 24. had been 25. has been 26. have been 27. may be 28. might be 29. might have been 30. should be 31. will be AND MORE! |
Overlap between Helping Verbs and Linking Verbs
Can you tell how a word functions in a sentence just by looking at it? No. Let’s take a look at two sentences:
1. The damaged board fell from the fence. (board = noun)
2. We board the plane at 2:20 PM. (board = verb)
2. We board the plane at 2:20 PM. (board = verb)
Not only do these two words have different meanings, but they also function as different parts of speech. This concept is very important to understand when learning linking verbs and helping verbs. Let’s take a look at three sentences:
1. Sue is happy. (is = linking verb)
2. Sue is riding her bike. (is = helping verb)
3. Sue is happy when she is riding her bike. (1st is = linking verb; 2nd is = helping verb)
2. Sue is riding her bike. (is = helping verb)
3. Sue is happy when she is riding her bike. (1st is = linking verb; 2nd is = helping verb)
As the Venn diagram visually illustrates and the Two-Column List clearly indicates, the first eight words on each list are the same words—the eight forms of BE or to be. Although these eight words look alike in a sentence, they do not function the same way. Put simply, when the words are used differently, they are different words.
Helping Verbs: IS, AM, ARE, WAS, WERE, BE, BEEN, BEING
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Linking Verbs: IS, AM, ARE, WAS, WERE, BE, BEEN, BEING
You will notice that all of the linking verbs are on the Giant Verb List or the Giant Irregular Verb List PDF. Why? Because linking verbs are main verbs. In contrast, none of the helping verbs are on the Giant Verb List or the Giant Irregular Verb List. Why? Because helping verbs are not main verbs. Once again, if the word is used as a helping verb, it is a helping verb (i.e., it is not a main verb, and it is not on the lists). However, if the word is used as a linking verb, it is a linking verb (i.e., it is a main verb, and it is on the lists). As I always say, it doesn’t matter how the word looks; it matters how the word acts.
Helping Verbs: HAVE, HAS, HAD
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Irregular Verbs: HAVE, HAS, HAD
Another confusing area of overlap is with HAVE, HAS, HAD. As the helping verb list indicates, HAVE, HAS, HAD are all helping verbs. However, HAVE is also an irregular verb (i.e., irregular main verb) with both HAS and HAD serving as inflections. Let’s take a look at three sentences:
![List List](/uploads/1/1/9/8/119853122/953986613.jpg)
1. Sue has a bike. (has = main verb)
2. Sue has been riding her bike. (has = helping verb)
3. Sue has a bike and has been riding it all day. (1st has = main verb; 2nd has = helping verb)
2. Sue has been riding her bike. (has = helping verb)
3. Sue has a bike and has been riding it all day. (1st has = main verb; 2nd has = helping verb)
Free Printable Worksheets On Verbs
Two Sentences with a One-Letter Difference
Free Printable Verb List Printable
Let’s take a look at one final example. Surprisingly, everything in these two sentences is the same except for one letter. However, as you can see, that one letter changes the way that one word acts, which changes everything.
Free Printable Verb List Chart
1. - Helping Verb = has - Main Verb = broken - Complete Verb or Verb Phrase = has broken | 2. - Linking Verb = was - Main Verb = was - (Note: It's the same was!) | |||||||
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1. The window has broken. | 2. The window was broken. | |||||||
The | window | has | broken. | The | window | was | broken. | |
article | noun | helping verb | main verb (past participle) | article | noun | main verb (linking verb) | adjective (predicate adjective) |