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 worksheet for teaching or revising the simple past tense. It includes 2 different activities in which students are asked to fill in the gaps with the simple past of the verbs in bracket ...
This worksheet has an interesting topic for 8th grade (videogames) and also high school. You will need to look for those keywords which are in the text ...
I showed them in a ppt presentation. B ...
There are 3 activities:
- find the actions in the wordsearch,
- complete the sentences using the verbs from the pictures and write them in the simple present form,
- complete the sentences usin ...
Worksheet to practice different skills: speaking - giving directions, vocabulary - shops and place prepositions, reading - definitions. First, as an individual activity, make students read the def ...
This is a simple worksheet contrasting the past simple and the past perfect tense. It includes explanations and example sentences at the top of the page followed by 2 exercises in which students ...
A little introduction to the "star interview" theme, here's an oral comprehension for intermediate EFL students, linked to a video available on Youtube "evian roller babies interviews". The kids l ...
This is a 2-page worksheet with Asterix and Obelix. The first page is an opportunity to practise present continuous/present BE-ING with the description of a picture (adapted) from the comic book A ...
This worksheet is about the use of "used to ", so students read the sentences & decide if they are true or false. This activity could also be used as a feedback to check ss' understanding. so ...
This is a simple game for lower level students. Make sure to have dice, and place markers for students (I used small stickers cut with the backing still on them). It can be adapted for many uses. ...
This is a short worksheet for elementary students on present perfect tense. There are 3 different exercises where students are asked to write the irregular past participles of the verbs given, fi ...
This is a 3-page worksheet for teaching or revising the simple past tense. It includes a study sheet with detailed explanations and example sentences followed by several exercises in which studen ...
A simple worksheet in which students need to compare how some famous people were in the past and how they are now. Practice present and past forms of verb To Be. May be used to present the structu ...
A song worksheet to practice Present Perfect. First, students give the Past Participle of the verbs contained in the lyrics, then they listen to the song and fill in the blanks. It`s also a g ...
A simple song worksheet to practice the past form of verb To Be. Students need to fill in the blanks in the lyrics with present or past forms of verb To Be. For complete beginners and elementary: ...
It is a simple present tense grammar practice for young learners.This gap filling activity will help your students to understand present tense better. There are four exercises. Also, the students ...
It is a worksheet that provides a lot of practice in using these two tenses. There are 17 sentences, most of them are complex sentences, in which one part is in Past Simple and the second - in Pas ...
This is another picture description about this family. There are 2 exercises. This time there are also true or false questions, and the second exercise is about inserting some basic prepositions. ...
This is a simple worksheet to provide further past continuous practice. It includes explanations of the tense to use, example sentences and two exercises where students are asked to fill in the b ...
A 2-page worksheet contrasting the past simple and the past continuous. It includes a brief explanation followed by 4 different exercises in which students are asked to look at the picture and wr ...
This activity will help your students practice the present perfect and vocabulary related to natural disasters. This worsheet contains exercises where your students will choose the best answer, d ...
Here is a two-page worksheet with a variety of written exercises about there is, there are, prepositions, bedroom related vocabulary, some and any and describing places. The worksheet is suitable ...
This is a power point activity that I used with my beginner students when they were learning the vocabulary about occupations. Before anything we talked about professions and the characteristics n ...
This is a wordsearch puzzle, suitable for elementary students, for teaching or revising the past simple tense, irregular verbs. Students are asked to complete the infinitive form of the verbs wit ...
This is a reading comprehension about Nessie's daily life. After the text you'll find some questions. The text is in Past Simple and is suitable for pre-intermediate and intermediate learners of ...
This worksheet combines all the skills through watching a video about a mysterious dj who fell from the sky! In the warm-up phase of the lesson, students practice their speaking skills through som ...
14 10,598IntAdvExam
Got a great worksheet on
Verb Tense Worksheets?
Tell us about it and become a BusyTeacher contributor!