Irregular Plurals Reversi

Irregular plurals reversi memory game

 

Instructions for teachers

Cut up one pack of cards per group of two to four students, leaving the two halves of one card with the singular and plural still joined to each other (i.e. don’t cut out each individual square of the table). Give out the cards and ask students to fold them so that one side has the singular and the other side has the plural and put them anywhere they like on the table, either side top.

One student chooses a card and says what they think is on the other side, perhaps saying “One…” with the singular version and “Some…” with the plural version to help them check. They turn the card over to check, leaving it the other way up. They continue doing this with other cards until they give up or make a mistake. If they make a mistake before they give up, then they can’t take any of the cards that they guessed correctly and all those cards stay on the table for the next person to try (but the other way round as they are now upside down). If they give up before making any mistakes, they can keep score one point for each card that they correctly guessed the other side of. The next person then does the same (with cards that other people tried before, new ones that anyone hasn’t tried yet, or probably a mix of both kinds). Each time, they can quit after just one card or (theoretically) continue until the whole table is cleared in one go, but they lose all the points from that round if they make a mistake. After all the cards have been taken or you stop the game, they can write “one” and “some” on the right side of each card and/ or test each other on the plurals orally using an un-cut-up copy of the worksheets.

 

Cards to cut up

Elementary and Pre-Intermediate

man	men	woman	women
people	person	child	children
feet	foot	postman	postmen
schoolchild	schoolchildren	teeth	tooth
mice	mouse	goldfish	goldfish

 

Intermediate and Upper Intermediate

loaf	loaves	deer	deer
millennia	millennium	series	series
media	medium	crises	crisis
alumni	alumnus	axes	axis
sheep	sheep	steelworks	steelworks
means	means	aircraft	aircraft

 

Advanced

innings	innings	analyses	analysis
phenomena	phenomenon	theses	thesis
bacteria	bacterium	stimuli	stimulus
species	species	lice	louse
spacecraft	spacecraft	oases	oasis
wild boar	wild boar	biceps	biceps
moose	moose	corpora	corpus
faux pas	faux pas	larva	larvae
neuroses	neurosis	nuclei	nucleus
strata	stratum	vertebra	vertebrae
rendezvous	rendezvous	loci	locus
ox	oxen	swine	swine
starfish	starfish	errata	erratum
salmon	salmon	reindeer	reindeer
woodlice	woodlouse	tuna	tuna
squid	squid	mackerel	mackerel
cod	cod	criteria	criterion
diagnoses	diagnosis	caribou	caribou
prognosis	prognoses	koi	koi
samurai	samurai	synopsis	synopses
otaku	otaku	automata	automaton