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!
Create awesome-looking custom word searches in seconds!
Make A Word Scramble:
Instantly create custom word/sentence scrambles for your class!
Make A Double Puzzle:
Generate double puzzles your students will love - hours of fun!
ESL Articles
View our latest knowledgebase articles that will help you become a better English teacher. Learn from
professional teachers and put a bit of your own creativity into it!
This worksheet consists of 24 pictures and 24 sentences with gaps. The students have to fill in the gaps with the correct auxiliary verbs: do, does, have, has, is, are, was and were. They also hav ...
This worksheet is about cartoon characters. You can use this worksheet to teach simple present and some adjectives with several pictures. There are some exercises that you can use to make students ...
This is a worksheet for revising future forms with going to. There are 4 different activities in which students are asked to look at the picture and write sentences, put the verbs in brackets int ...
A fill in the blank worksheet with questions and answers to practice the verb "to have" in positive, negative and question forms. The student must fill in have and has, do and don't and does and d ...
It is a reading worksheet consisting of three pages. The aim of the first two questions is to arouse students' interest to the topic and make them aware of what the worksheet could be about. Then, ...
It is a good worksheet which helps students to use their language skills as well as cognitive skills. Firstly, the students fill in the blanks and then find the right people and write down their n ...
It is a nice worksheet which enables students to get familiar with the daily routines verbs; furthermore, it helps students to revise their 'present simple' knowledge. It is an excellent workshee ...
Version with sentences. Very popular game created to practice formation of Past Simple sentences. The worksheet contains regular and irregular verbs. Rules: each player throws the dice and moves ...
This is an example how a simple picture story can make a real fun lesson. I use it for teaching Past Simple. There is a picture story about a boy who found a dinosaur with some strange berries in ...
It's a Valentine's Day episode with a twist. This worksheet is perfect for teachers that want to steer away from pink hearts, but still want to incorporate this Holiday in the lesson. It takes fro ...
This is an easy exercise to practice the daily routines words. Students should look at the pictures, read the words carefully and then match them. It is excellent for elementary students and begin ...
In this worksheet, I share some of the ideas I always use for conversation classes. The ideas are presented into 30 different topics concerning the subject of the class or the grammar lesson, such ...
This is a picture worksheet which enables you to practice words denoting daily routines.Also,it is good for practicing the present simple tense in third person singular.Students should put the ve ...
Very popular game created to practice formation of Past Simple sentences. The worksheet contains regular and irregular verbs. Rules: Each player throws the dice and moves than has to create a cor ...
Snakes and ladders Procedure: Divide the class into groups of four students. Give each group one game board, one die, and four tokens. Position all the students' tokens on the square marked " ...
A colourful PowerPoint presentation that leads students through the formation and use of this tense, with prompts to assist teachers in eliciting sentences from students. Illustrations of correct ...
Practical worksheet presenting basic differences between Present Simple and Present Continuous. The worksheet contains three exercises. The first is a chart and students have to put the time exp ...
This a worksheet for teaching the future forms: will, going to, present continuous and present simple. Suitable for intermediate students who are asked to go through the pairs of sentences in the ...
In this worksheet you will find to activities with the same song: unscrambling the stanzas and filling in the gaps. This is a very nice song that you can use either to introduce or reinforce the ...
You can play a board game using dice and asking and answering the questions. Or you can cut this worksheet into squares, hide them in a cap and let your students choose a random question from ther ...
You can use this exercise to practise + - ? sentences in the Present Perfect tense form. It will be helpful when practising structures as well as when inspiring students to talk (write) about them ...
For this worksheet the teacher must bring some cards to the class and these cards will guide them through the conversation. The teacher puts the cards and makes a circle with the students. E ...
Grammar worksheet with fifteen sentences to complete with the correct form of Present Simple or Present Continuous. Totally editable. Hope you and your students like it and find it useful. Have a ...
A speaking practice sheet for elementary students. They look at the chart and have to say the sentence properly. If there is a "yes", the sentence is affirmative. If there is a "no", the sentence ...
Let's face it, the seemingly endless list of irregular verbs in the past simple never excites students and they basically just have to learn them so...make it fun and play bingo! This is a fun way ...
19 33,525ElemPre-IntInt
Got a great worksheet on
Verb Tense Worksheets?
Tell us about it and become a BusyTeacher contributor!