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 ppt is a good game for your students to review past simple and directions. Divide your class into 2 teams. Students are going to choose letters by chance. Each question has got a point and if ...
The song is a cover of the Christmas classic by the Pogues, performed by Christy Moore on the Jools Holland show. The song begins and ends with a short anecdote giving some background to how the s ...
A reading comprehension about the 'golden age' of Hollywood and the cinema of the past. There's a true-false exercise and some open questions mainly for the simple past tense. It can be used to te ...
This presentation can be used for elementary students to practice the present continuous tense. First children revise the verb to be. The dragon helps them to do it. The kids easily remember the f ...
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This is a test for grade 8. The answer key is included. Here you can find questions about some grammar like simple past and the past continuous tense. Also there are some questions about suggestio ...
I give students the worksheet with faces/no description face up and we try to identify the feelings. I photocopy the sheet with feelings identified on the back. We go through a number of feelings ...
This is a great worksheet for practising questions with elementary students. They have to create questions with given words and tips. Print it on the color paper, cut it, make it one column ...
Prepare a list of main texts you want to practice. For example if you want to practice making sentences using the simple past tense, choose a number of verbs as your main text, e.g., read, e ...
This game is appropriate for reviewing time, daily routine and present simple. It's suitable for young learners. Divide the class into 2 groups ask them to choose a number, back of each number th ...
This worksheet is appropriate for improving students' listening skills. It's suitable for elementary students. This is based on the story book called "Anne of Green Gables". Hope you find it ...
This worksheet is appropriate for improving students' listening skills. It's suitable for elementary students. This is based on the story book called "Under the Bridge". Hope you find it usef ...
This worksheet is appropriate for practicing listening and daily routine activities. This is based on the book Tactics for Listening, Basic, unit 4. It's suitable for elementary students ...
This worksheet is helpful for practicing speaking skills in class and also it's appropriate for practicing present simple. It is based on the book: "Oxford Word Skills"- Basic, unit 48 and 50.&nbs ...
This powerpoint slide is excellent for teachers to explain the difference between simple past and past continuous (progressive). The slides are detailed with interesting animations, pictures, soun ...
This powerpoint slide provides a detailed and complete explanation of the format, sentence structures and examples of past continuous (progressive). It makes explaining the rules much easier ...
This powerpoint provides complete explanation and examples of the sentence structures. It also provides pictures and differences between past simple and past perfect so students are ab ...
I have created this worksheet to help my students to develop elementary speaking skills. There are 2 activities. In the first activity students are asked to describe their day looking at given pic ...
This PDF document allows children to practise the "there is/there are" sentences with fill-ins. There are also drawings beneath the sentence practice for the child to then draw the object, e.g., a ...
This is a simple listening activity addressed to Brazilian learners, but of course it can be applied to all students. I adapted this activity from a book, called Take Over, by Denise Santos. The a ...
I have decided to prepare this song acitivity to get basic students more engaged. It is a great song, and they will fully understand some verbs and expressions, for they are not so complex. As men ...
Tips: -Ask the students to rearrange the pictures. - You may ask them to draw the lines to connect the sentences. -The questions can be asked like : What is the boy doing with spade? (They should ...
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