Types of verb
As mentioned in the Types of Words lessons, verbs are words that describe an action or state of
an object – whether physical or mental.
With such a wide range of uses, verbs can be organized into the following categories:
● Action
● Stative
● Transitive
● Intransitive
● Auxiliary
● Modal
● Phrasal
● Regular
● Irregular
●
In this section we’ll cover the above types of verbs along with approaches that can help you to
teach them to your students.
📝 Exercise: Before starting – write out a list of 5-10 different verbs. As you read through the
next few pages, try to identify which category (or categories) they fall into.
01. Action verbs
Action verbs are used to describe actions and movements. They’re also known as ‘dynamic
verbs’, and are often the first ones people think of.
Examples include:
Speak, play, work, eat, go.
When introducing action verbs to beginners it can help to start off simply, beginning with
teaching a few basic actions. Such lessons can be livened up with dances or games such as
Simon says.
As students get comfortable with using basic action verbs, there are some key points that you
can start to introduce to them.
Teaching notes:
Negative sentences which use action verbs are usually constructed with “don’t” or “do not”
followed by the action verb. For example – “Don’t go”, “Do not speak to him”.
When using the third person (‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘it’) an ‘s’ sound is added to the end of the word, so “I
play” but “He plays”. For words with a consonant sound, the written form takes a simple ‘s‘ at the
end. However, verbs with a vowel sound can become more difficult – for example “go” becomes
“goes”.
Once students are confident with using action verbs in the present tense, for example “eat”, you
can then show how to use these verbs with other tenses – such as “ate, eaten”. If you’re not
As mentioned in the Types of Words lessons, verbs are words that describe an action or state of
an object – whether physical or mental.
With such a wide range of uses, verbs can be organized into the following categories:
● Action
● Stative
● Transitive
● Intransitive
● Auxiliary
● Modal
● Phrasal
● Regular
● Irregular
●
In this section we’ll cover the above types of verbs along with approaches that can help you to
teach them to your students.
📝 Exercise: Before starting – write out a list of 5-10 different verbs. As you read through the
next few pages, try to identify which category (or categories) they fall into.
01. Action verbs
Action verbs are used to describe actions and movements. They’re also known as ‘dynamic
verbs’, and are often the first ones people think of.
Examples include:
Speak, play, work, eat, go.
When introducing action verbs to beginners it can help to start off simply, beginning with
teaching a few basic actions. Such lessons can be livened up with dances or games such as
Simon says.
As students get comfortable with using basic action verbs, there are some key points that you
can start to introduce to them.
Teaching notes:
Negative sentences which use action verbs are usually constructed with “don’t” or “do not”
followed by the action verb. For example – “Don’t go”, “Do not speak to him”.
When using the third person (‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘it’) an ‘s’ sound is added to the end of the word, so “I
play” but “He plays”. For words with a consonant sound, the written form takes a simple ‘s‘ at the
end. However, verbs with a vowel sound can become more difficult – for example “go” becomes
“goes”.
Once students are confident with using action verbs in the present tense, for example “eat”, you
can then show how to use these verbs with other tenses – such as “ate, eaten”. If you’re not
