As time has gone on, I have realized a couple of things: 1. Irregulars should just show up naturally in conversation. As I mentioned earlier, in the Musicuentos blog, Sarah Cotrell explains that it's silly to tell students that we'll "learn it later." As things come up, we should teach them. The students will start to see patterns and such, and it will be a much more natural acquisition of language than "Here - I got some -errrr- preterite irregulars for you. Fill out this worksheet."
Since I had already kind of failed with my poor little guinea pigs, I decided to make a way of remembering the irregular preterite verbs. I remember that for me, there always seemed to be seven-hundred-gajillion preterite irregulars, and I had a hard time finding consistent grouping for them. So, being the absolute weirdo that I am, I decided to give the irregular preterite verbs weird names so that my students would remember them, be able to identify them, and be able to conjugate (somewhat) quickly. For instance, We have our YoYoCarGarZars (Words that change g--gu, q--qu, z--c in the preterite yo form). Get it?? YOYO?? :) We also have our J-Dawgs (decir-- dije; traer--traje, conducir--conduje). There are lots of Dawgs and Plain Old Weirdos and Vowel-Changin' Prets and Stem-Changin' Prets (8 different ones, to be exact). There are lots of rules to remember, and it can be frustrating.
My students don't get really excited about anything, but it did seem like (after grumbling about my weirdo names) they started to understand and be able to identify similarities between certain irregular preterite verbs. They still say to me, "Oh yeah! That's a J-Dawg!" And in my head, I think "VICTORY!!!"
If I were to do this again, I would have waited to give them this resource. I would maybe even wait until the very end of Spanish 3 or the beginning of Spanish 4. This way, the students have more of a grasp on Spanish in the past tense and so they are able to identify these verbs instead of experiencing for the first time in this isolated kind of way. That being said, knowing the differences and similarities between these preterite irregulars can be really helpful!
Question for all of you Spanish teachers out there: How are you teaching irregulars? Do you slowly work them into your curriculum? Do you introduce them with a name, or do you just say that it is irregular? I want your input!
You can find this Preterite Regular & Irregular Extensive List at my TpT store (it's only $1!).
There is a sidekick to this list, and it is an Irregular Preterite Packet (also only $1!) (basically just an extensive explanation of all of the different kinds of irregulars.)
AAAAANNNNND finally, what you've all been waiting for... THE FREEBIE: Preterite Verb Game or Review