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 created this material for my intermediate students who have already studied present perfect to revise and summarise the information about the situations when this tense is used. In the first tab ...
A presentation with 37 animated slides to revise/ learn vocabulary about daily routines. There are 4 additional slides with a speaking acticivty (2 slides)& a grammar+ vocabulary to fil in the ...
This is a PPT presentation in which the affirmative, negative and question forms of verb To Be are introduced and exemplified.
It can be used with students from all levels, even though there are ...
This worksheet aims at testing the elementary/beginner level of students on 'to be verb'(present tense), simple present tense as well as telling the time. Module I is about the present form of to ...
Worksheet about various topics for 3rd grade kids. We can see present simple vs present continuous as well as means of transportation vocabulary. Also the use of there was\ there were. The use of ...
This is a worksheet on Present Simple auxiliary verbs (do-does and their negative forms). There are sixteen sentences, which will provide great practice for your students. You can also use it as ...
present-simple-continuous-t-1.docx [85.1 Kb] (Count: 3244) This is a pretty easy worksheet contrasting the present simple and the present continuous tenses. There are 2 different activities in which students are asked to join the sentenc ...
4 exercises to revise or reinforce the past simple. The studnets have to fill in the gaps with the correct affirmative, negative or interrogative form of the verbs in brackets in the past simple ( ...
Listening comprehension activities on Keane's beautiful song "Somewhere only we know". The focus is on the past simple tense (regular and irregular verbs), unscrambing letters, putting lines in or ...
This is a worksheet for revising the past simple tense. There are 3 different tasks in which students are asked to fill in the blanks with the correct form of the verbs in brackets, ask questions ...
FIND SOMEONE WHO IN HIS/HER CHILDHOOD. . . This interactive worksheet was designed in order to put into practice the use of "used to ", so students read the sentences & ask questions to their ...
We HAVE… WHO HAS… VOCABULARY GAME How to play the game: ● Distribute the cards randomly to your students. Some students may get more than one card. ● Select a student to ...
This is the second worksheet related to patterns of formation of irregular verbs ([i:]-[ept]-[ept]). Verbs keep, sleep, sweep, leave, feel are included. For pre- and intermediate level.
This is a chart where some irregular verbs are grouped according to the way they change. As it is a bit tricky for student to learn verbs in alphabetical order, I usually suggest my students to re ...
Useful worksheet, it includes the following: PAST SIMPLE, PAST CONTINUOUS, PAST PERFECT SIMPLE, USED TO. Explanations, examples and differences between each past tense. Useful for students to prep ...
This is an exercise in the form of a dialogue between a detective and a Mr.Peterson whose wife has been found dead. Though tragic as it might seem there is some point of humor in it! My students r ...
Games are so popular with language learners, so here´s an adorable boardgame, designed for students who are studying irregular verbs. It is played in groups or pairs with dice and counters, ...
Young students will love this adorable set of Flashcards. They can be used for teaching the most common irregular verbs, play games such as memory games or to decorate or classroom as posters.
This is an evaluation test. Students must read the text and do exercises on the comprehension of the text. Then they have to complete blanks on several subjects, like activities, Possessive Determ ...
This is the second worksheet for beginners. Here you'll find 9 simple sentences. Verb to be is used with the corresponding pronouns (I, you, he-she-it, they, we). There are also pictures. Pupils ...
This exam includes three grammar exercises and one vocabulary exercise. Grammar exercises include: complete the sentences with the present simple, name each activity (daily routine) and describe y ...
With this file students can learn the Past tense of the verb To Be. There are all the subjects and it is explained where to put the subject, the verb to be (past) and the rest of the words. They ...
Three future forms and first conditional - all in one song. Let your students fill in the gaps with the appropriate future form as they listen to the song. Or you can ask them to predict the futur ...
This worksheet is useful as an introduction to the future tense with "will". Use it with the following song by The Zutons. Have the children listen to the song first, and ask them if they can gue ...
This is a very simple worksheet for beginners. They will practice the verb "to have got" with different pronouns. Pictures are also provided. Pupils will put the numbers of the sentences to the c ...
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