While some aspects of a new language are fairly easy to teach, tenses can pose a challenge because they vary so much from one language to another. ESL teachers - particularly new ones - tend to struggle a little with teaching tenses, because it’s not always easy to explain exactly how a given tense works in English; or how it contrasts with other, similar tenses. Throw in the problem of teaching tenses in ways that keep students active, interested, and learning, and you’ve got a recipe for a difficult lesson on your hands.
Not all teachers handle these issues in the same ways. The classic approach would be simply to drill students on grammar until they get it right - but that approach has fallen out of use, in favor of a more integrated teaching method that combines speaking, reading, activities, and other forms of learning. The challenge for the modern ESL teacher, then, is to find ways of presenting each tense that enable the students not only to learn it correctly, but also to be able to produce it and use it dynamically in sentences.
That’s exactly where BusyTeacher.org’s 4,456 verb tense worksheets come in. They’re designed by real ESL teachers to help students see how each tense is used, see examples of different applications for it, and practice using it in all kinds of different exercises. With these worksheets, teaching tenses turns from a dull repetitive process into an engaging series of learning activities, that’ll inspire your students to take what they’ve learned out of the classroom and use it in their actual English conversations.
Our 4,456 tense worksheets cover each tense in the book, from present simple to future perfect continuous - and all things in between. They cover singular and plural verbs, irregular verbs, active and passive verbs, positive and negative verbs, and every other form of a verb you want to teach. In combination with the more rigorous rules laid down in your school’s textbook, these worksheets will give students the practice they need to understand every way in which English verbs can be formed.
In addition to all the verb forms our worksheets cover, they’ll also help you introduce variety into your classroom in another way: by giving you a wide variety of different exercises for practicing verbs in various situations. Some of our worksheets, for example, include simple examples and fill-in-the-blank exercises - while others will help your students organize little drama presentations, play games like “pronoun dice” or a quiz show, or read silly stories and lyrics to popular songs - all targeted at teaching the rules for using one particular verb tense or set of tenses.
These worksheets have been proven to work in classrooms of ESL teachers around the world - and in fact, that’s exactly who contributed them to this site. They’re all free to download and use without any registration, and you’re even free to submit your own worksheets if you’d like - just click the “Submit a worksheet” button at the bottom of this page, and join our international community of English teachers helping English teachers!
All our worksheets can be previewed in thumbnail view before you click and download them - so just take a scroll down this page, see what catches your eye, and try out anything that looks interesting in your classroom. We guarantee you’ll love the results!
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A verb tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place. Some typical tenses are present, past, and future. Tense can make finer distinctions than simple past-present-future; past tenses for example can cover general past, immediate past, or distant past, with the only difference between them being the distance on the timeline between the temporal reference points. Such distinctions are not precise: an event may be described in the remote past because it feels remote to the speaker, not because a set number of days have passed since it happened; it may also be remote because it is being contrasted with another, more recent, past event. This is similar to other forms of deixis such as this and that.
This 40-minute lesson plan practices Simple Present Positive grammar form and structure. Students watch the animated video and complete an individual or group comprehension activity followed by ...
Young learners watch an animated video and then work in small groups to order the story cards. The exercise helps to improve their cooperation and communication skills. When the activity ...
This ESL grammar lesson plan begins with an explanation of the past continuous tense and when to use it. It includes six exercises where students will learn how to use the tense correctl ...
Young learners watch the animated video and then work in small groups to order the story cards to improve their cooperation and communication skills. When the activity is complete, simpl ...
A speaking-based lesson for beginners to talk about rooms and things around the home. It includes visual aids for brainstorming and identifying rooms and common household items. Identify ...
Young learners watch an animated video and then work in small groups to order the story cards as a way to improve their cooperation and communication skills. When the activity is complet ...
This fun and engaging intermediate video-based lesson on Bad Habits features visual aids for brainstorming vocabulary and phrases and talking about bad habits. It includes activities suc ...
This worksheet on the Present Simple Negative is used in conjunction with an animated YouTube video. Young learners can watch while they do their language lesson, then have fun practicin ...
This ESL Kids lesson about jobs includes activities such as matching the words and pictures. Students can interactively learn new vocabulary by filling in the answers and checking their ...
Young learners watch our animated video and then work in small groups to order the story cards as a way to improve their cooperation and communication skills. When the activity is comple ...
This song worksheet features "Good Ones" by Charli XCX. Students choose the correct tense of the words that are in bold, then complete the sentences with the missing words found in the w ...
This animated video is for Young learners to watch and order the story cards to help reinforce their understanding of each aspect of the Present Simple tense. When students have complete ...
This animated video is for Young learners to watch and order the story cards to help reinforce their understanding of each aspect of the Present Simple tense. When students have complete ...
This background is designed to be used in conjunction with an animated YouTube video. Young learners can watch and 'do' their language lesson, then have fun coloring and finally ...
This worksheet is designed to be used in conjunction with our animated YouTube video. Young learners can watch and 'do' their language lesson, then have fun practicing writing and finall ...
There are lots of visual aids to get your students talking, retelling, and telling stories about Going to See the Doctor. Students watch a fun and engaging YouTube video with voc ...
There is a picture of a busy train station in a small town. Fourteen people are doing various things (talking, checking the time, reading a newspaper, etc.). The picture is partly colore ...
Young learners watch an animated video and order the story cards as a way to help reinforce their understanding of the Present Simple tense. When students have completed the worksheet, s ...
This worksheet is designed to be used in conjunction with an animated YouTube video. Young learners can watch and complete their language lesson They can then have fun writing and creati ...
This background is designed to be used in conjunction with an animated YouTube video. Young learners can watch and do their language lesson, then have fun coloring and finally cr ...
This listening activity based on the popular song "Rain on Me" by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande can be used as a warmup for a lesson with students that have already studied the Simple Past ...
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This worksheet about monkeys is used in conjunction with an animated YouTube video. Young learners can watch and complete their language lesson, then have fun writing and creating their ...
This background is designed to be used in conjunction with an animated YouTube video. Young learners can watch and 'do' their first lesson, then have fun colouring and finally creating t ...
This worksheet is a revision lesson for Pre-Intermediate level 12-14-year-olds of personality adjectives, past simple vs past continuous and used to, in the context of popular cartoons. ...
This worksheet focuses on sentences using the verb tenses providing that / provided that / as long as, and the correct way to use them. It also includes identifying main and su ...
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