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 is a 2-page worksheet with a variety of written activities on present simple tense. Students are asked to fill in the blanks with the correct form of the verb, underline the correct option, ...
It's a simple powerpoint tutorial to review the present simple of the verb to be. It's essentially addressed to elementary students A1. It is useful for reviewing the verb before a test or when yo ...
In this worksheet students revise the past simple by doing 4 activities. In the 1st one, they have to fill in the text writing the verbs in brackets in the correct past simple form. In the 2nd the ...
Revision of Tenses 1. print the game 2. cut the sheets 3. stick the sheets of paper to a blackboard facedown. (the square 4x4) 4. let your students choose a sheet (the rules of Sea Fight: A1, B3. ...
A reading focus on a traditional religious believe in Perú which is the main Catholic festivity here and it is one of the biggest processions around the world. It all started in the early m ...
Should be fairly easy for intermediate or upper-intermediate students. Contains 20 sentences with the infinitives in brackets to be used either in the Simple Past or Present Perfect tenses. The do ...
Here´s a pretty easy worksheet for elementary students on the verb to have got. There are two pages with 6 different exercises where students are asked to write the short form of the verb t ...
This is an easy practice of regular and irregular verbs where students have to put them into past. It is also a reading activity where the teacher can ask students some questions about the te ...
This is a present continuous board game with easy verbs, I normally use it with my 10 year old children. Students say a sentence according to the picture and also its symbol (tick or cross) which ...
This is a speaking and writing worksheet. This worksheet will provide students with the chance of asking questions using the cues, and writing their partner's answers using since/for.
Example: st ...
You can use this card game for groups of 12 students or less. Each student has to finish the sentences on their card. After the first student finishes, the second student asks the first a question ...
This is a 2-page worksheet contrasting the present simple and the present progressive tense. There are explanations at the top of the page followed by a simple exercise in which students are aske ...
A PowerPoint presentation with audio for teaching or revising the present simple tense. Students are asked to fill in the blank spaces with the most suitable option. Suitable for elementary stude ...
Some sentences to revise both the structures and the uses of the past simple and the past perfect. The students have to fill in the gaps with the correct form of the past simple or perfect in the ...
There are 25 pictures and a sentence under each sentence with a verb in brackets. The students have to fill in the gaps with the present simple in the passive voice. The heading can be changed to ...
In this worksheet there are 24 pictures with daily routine activities and their names + a wordsearch activity. The students have to match the pictures and the names and then find out the words in ...
A PowerPoint presentation, with audio, for teaching the simple past of verb to be (affirmative, negative and interrogative forms). Recommended for elementary students.
I decided to make a set of worksheets related to irregular verbs of some patterns. This is the first one - the pattern "ow-ew-own" (6 verbs and 3 exercises). Hope you'll find it useful )
There is a worksheet which consists of 3 exercises:
Transform the sentences from Present Simple into Future Simple;
Make general questions in Future Simple;
Put the verbs in brackets into corr ...
I've used this to practise Simple Past in an oral exam. It can be used as a dialogue between two ss being evaluated (one asks some questions and the other answers them) or as a monologue in which ...
Some sentences to practise both the structures and the uses of the present perfect and the simple past. The students have to fill in the blanks with the correct form (affirmative, negative or inte ...
This is a lovely and colourful set of cards for teaching daily routines and the present simple tense. Suitable for elementary students, these cards can also be used as conversation cards or to pl ...
A worksheet, suitable for upper-intermediate students, on used to. There are 2 exercises in which students are asked to go through the sentences and rewrite them where it is possible to change th ...
There are 25 pictures and 25 sentences with blanks to complete with the verbs given in a list. The students have to choose a verb from the list and fill in the blanks under the correct picture wit ...
Some sentences to practise the present perfect in the affirmative, negative and interrogative form. The students have to fill in the blanks with the correct form of the verb in brackets in the pre ...
16 33,117ElemPre-IntInt
Got a great worksheet on
Verb Tense Worksheets?
Tell us about it and become a BusyTeacher contributor!