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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I saw a similar worksheet on the site, and I had an idea: this time the Simpsons are at home, doing their activities. Students can practice the present progressive and some home vocabulary items, ...
This is my first worksheet:) there may be some mistakes but I hope you will find it useful! This worksheet mainly focuses on past continuous and uses of ''when and while''. This is a classic open ...
This is a two page worksheet for teaching regular verbs. There is a picture dictionary which can also be used as a study sheet followed by a simple activity in which students are asked to write t ...
Form and use of the “going to future” followed by 2 different activities in which students are asked to make sentences with going to ,make questions and give the short answers accordi ...
How to introduce the past continuous to your students? Here is a MP3 file and the worksheets that go with it. It's a complete lesson. Your student will hear a text, will discuss it, will add deta ...
This worksheet consists of some sentences fro the students to complete by using the present simple of the verbs in brackets in the affirmative, negative and interrogative form. The key to the sent ...
Exercises on Present Simple that can be used with the group of Beginners or Elementary level. It can be used as a revision or as a control test. In this worksheet you can find tasks on the word or ...
A legendary song by The Queen, which was requested by my students - proves to be still interesting to the teenagers. presented as a gap filling exercise. Abundant in adjectives, Future Simple form ...
This is a communicative game for reviewing past tense.Divide the class into teams. Brainstorm past tense verbs (get a lot). Explain the rules on the right. Model the exercise. The idea is that the ...
It is a worsheet of 4 exercises about the future time. In the first exercise, students have to fill in the gaps with the Future Simple; in the second, they have to fill in the gaps with the Presen ...
This worksheet is usually done after the introduction to the present simple and before the achievement test. The students do the exercises without any kind of help and then they themselves correct ...
This worksheet will help your students practice speaking and describing pictures using Present Continuous. The students must describe the picture of the Simpsons family using the words and express ...
You can use it to practice all the forms of TO BE and a/an. There are pictures to illustrate the meaning of the sentences. There is an example to illustrate exactly what should be done. I use this ...
It's a worksheet that I prepared for my A1 level preparatory school students. I used it during my revision week before the final exam. There are mixed verb tense and target vocabulary exercises in ...
This is a set of cards for teaching or revising the structure ´How often do you...?, frequency adverbs and household chores related vocabulary. Students take it in turns to pick up a card ...
This is a worksheet for teaching the simple past tense irregular verbs. Students are asked to put the letters in order to find the past tense of the verbs in the box, write the past of the verbs ...
Practice the superlative adjectives, the past of to be and questions with "who" with this reading worksheet about the Guinness Book of Records. It contains easy exercices of reading comprehension ...
I used this worksheet as warmer after the lesson in which we systematised and practised the Present Perfect. I used it with an adult class, but as it is so short, it can be easily adapted to ...
As teachers we all know that students especially the new learners are having difficulties with the difference between present simple and continuous. You can use this workseet as a revision or a qu ...
This is a 2-page worksheet for elementary students on verb to be interrogative form. There is a brief explanation followed by 4 different activities to go with it. The worksheet is available in b ...
A worksheet for teaching the present simple tense. Students are asked to read the text, answer the questions, fill in the blanks with wh-questions words and complete the sentences with the correc ...
Kids have to complete the worksheet using there is or there are. I hope you like this worksheet and it will be useful for you, and thank u to all of you for sharing wonderful worksheets - I really ...
This is a very easy worksheet which can be used in several ways. I usually give a copy of the worksheet to each student (if the level is low, a translation session will be of help), then I let the ...
This worksheet is to review the use of Simple Present Tense and Progressive. Part I Students have to ask questions and answer them, Part II Students have to choose the correct tense to complete ...
Reading comprehension to revise the present simple and rooms in the house related vocabulary. Students are asked to read the text, answer the questions and then write a small composition describ ...
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