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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This worksheet is an easy way to improve your students' accuracy with Present Simple negative and affirmative forms. Students are asked to complete the sentences according to their own opinion. E ...
This boardgame is a great way to review the verb to be and wh-question words. Every square provides an answer. Students are asked to make the correct question for the answers. It can be played in ...
Text comprehension about the famous celebrity, followed by a comprehension chart for the most important data about her life and career, a link exercise with the most relevant facts of her life and ...
Song to work with pre intermediate level. Sts have to listen and tick the word as they hear it. They also work with prepositions after verbs completing lines. They identify verb tenses in differen ...
Grammar guide explaining the formation and use of the present perfect tense followed by three different exercises in which students complete the sentences with 'for' and 'since', answer the questi ...
The worksheet contains the rules of formation and four exercises - to write the "-ing" form of the verbs, and three other exercises - use the verbs in affirmative, interrogative and negative cont ...
Worksheet to practise past simple tense, regular and irregular verbs. It's simple, but very effective. Students look at the pictures and complete the sentences with the past simple form of the ver ...
You will find some activities based on the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. You will be able to work on grammar (Present simple & present continuous, can/can’t), vocabulary (the ...
Worksheet to provide further practice and to help elementary students understand the use and formation of the verb to be (affirmative, interrogative and negative forms), including 7 pages with se ...
This is a mixed-tense worksheet which is meant to integrate many of the grammar topics intermediate students are expected to handle properly. It is designed for intermediate students who need to p ...
This is my new ppt for your students. After my speaking activity (Peter's Family 1) they can play and practise family vocabulary using possesives. I usually use it when they work in groups. One of ...
This worksheet explores topics such us youth, music and urban tribes. It contains lots of excercises to work with young students. In the first part, students will explore different music styles a ...
This worksheet can help your students to once again train one of the present tenses - the present perfect one. You can give it to your students after the revision of the rules of this tense usage ...
Five different exercises to practice the present continuous tense. Students Look at the pictures and write sentences using the present continuous, fill in the blanks with the correct form of the p ...
This worksheet is great for practicing the Past Simple tense. There are lots of different activities, including reading and writing. This worksheet is ideal for elementary-level students and it c ...
A set of cards to help students memorize the structure ´How often do you...?, leisure activities vocabulary and to practice adverbs of frequency. Procedure for playing the game: 1. Copy an ...
Worksheet about the construction and usage of the past simple, with both regular and irregular verbs. Five different exercises: filling in blanks in sentences with a verb conjugated in the past s ...
Catchy tune, lots of tenses. This song is very popular in Chile. It's the official jingle of a mobile company my students enjoyed so much and is really easy, because is only a multiple choice acti ...
This is a set of speaking cards to get your students to talk about themselves and to help them to develop their communication skills. Cut out the cards and give them to your students, they must lo ...
A worksheet on the verbs to be and have got for elementary level. Students read the text on personal identification and complete it with the Present Simple of the verbs to be and to have got, ans ...
Fill in the blanks activity with the present continuous using the Tom's diner's lyrics! There are the Teacher's and student's sheets that you can use in the classroom with the meaning of specific ...
Bookmarks to help your students memorize the simple present of the verb to be. Laminate for long-lasting use, cut them out and give to your students as a present. Recommended for beginners or elem ...
Exercises on the present simple, past simple, present continuous and past continuous. How to identify these tenses, make these tenses, make different sentence structures (negative and interrogativ ...
Typical crossword puzzle created to look like the ones you see on newspapers. The clues are all past simple of verb, and all the verbs asked for are irregular, helping the students memorize those ...
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