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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With this game students will practise Past simple tense while playing! Every square provides a question. Every time a correct answer is given, the game can be used as a communicative activity wh ...
This worksheet is an exercise of Present Continuous Tense for primary students. It includes three exercises. Using the pictures, this will ease the students to form the Present Continuous Tense. T ...
This worksheet was made for elementary students to practice the Present Continuous Tense. Here students should finish sentenses using the positive form of Present Continuous. The worksheet is colo ...
The worksheet presents three different exercises - 1) rewrite the sentences in Present tense into the Past tense; 2) insert the verbs in Past Simple (both regular and irregular); 3) choose the ...
A set of exercises for there is there are. it includes such lexical topics as My room/food/zoo and animals. Suppoosed to be used by students of elementary and preintermediate The positive, negati ...
This is a worksheet to refresh Past Simple form with a complete grammar chart and 3 different exercises in which students complete the sentences with the past simple of the verbs in brackets, put ...
This worksheets contains nice sentences to have a further and deeper practice in using these two tenses. The level of the exercise is rather high and there are some doubtful sentences, which will ...
This is a worksheet I made for my elementary students to review the simple past tense. Students look at the pictures and complete the sentences with the interrogative, negative and affirmative fo ...
A worksheet to make clear the difference between Future Simple and be going to for future actions. There are several exercises in which students look at the pictures and make predictions about wh ...
This is a test for students who are in their 1st year of English ( A1 level). The test includes reading and comprehension, present simple gap filling exercise, personal pronouns and possessive ad ...
Worksheet to practice the present continuous tense. There are two different tasks in which students choose a verb and complete the sentences and build dialogues using the present continuous. Reco ...
Includes a short summary of the usage of this expression, together with how it is formed in the affirmative, negative and interrogative. The exercises consist of ordering sentences (with "used to ...
This is a boardgame to consolidate the differences between past simple and past continuous. It includes verb cards and instructions. The students are asked to complete sentences with the correct ...
A set of cards to encourage conversation. Students will learn or reinforce the use of the past continuous tense. They have to look at the card and make sentences using the affirmative, interrogat ...
This worksheet could be used as a review or a test for simple present, it includes activities to practice present simple affirmative, negative and question, every day use questions, task to descri ...
It's a speaking and reading activity for our students. It's a little bit difficult for my students to use have got and to be when they describe people. That's why I've made this ppt for them. They ...
A worksheet on the future tense that covers 25 questions. Students are asked to use the correct form of the future tense (to be verb + going to, or will-future), as well as the verb given in the b ...
It's a new speaking activity for your students. They can work in pairs and ask each other using have got or has got. They will need to look at the pictures and make affirmative and negative senten ...
I use this worksheet as a follow-up for teaching the past continuous. The first day I present the grammar point and practice along with the book exercises, and we play the board game "Clue." The ...
A worksheet on the simple past tense and past continuous tense. The worksheet is divided into 2 parts. Part I is composed of 10 questions in which the gaps in conversations are asked to be filled ...
This is an activity on the verb to be and wh-question words. Students are asked to join both beginnings and endings to form a correct question.
Great for elementary students.
How to use the ca ...
This is a PowerPoint presentation on the Past Continuous Tense. It contains a very detailed explanation of the form and uses of this tense, including examples, some important notes and audio. Exc ...
This material contains a grammar guide and three types of exercises - one on present simple, another on present continuous, and one on both tenses.
Hope you find it useful!
Read about a day in the life of Arnold. Number these pictures in the correct order. It is an interesting activity where your students will need to match the pictures after reading the text. You c ...
It is a lovely song by The Beatles. I used it to practise the Past Simple form of regular and irregular verbs and to finish a lesson on London and England. It also includes vocabulary on Daily act ...
9 14,180ElemPre-Int
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