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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A simple but effective way to study and to practise Affirmative, Negative and Questions forms of Simple Past regular verbs including a complete grammar guide explaining the rules, form, spellin ...
Easy exercises for beginners to practise Present Simple Tense: affirmative, negative and interrogative forms. Including 16 illustrated sentences in which students have to complete sentences with ...
This document contains 4 short exercises that will help your students practice past simple tense, including questions and negative forms. Students' task is to put a right form of verbs in past sim ...
A Worksheet including 96 ACTION VERBS illustrated with the corresponding picture to teach Present Continuous. Use them according to the age and level of your students as picture dictionary, class ...
A good way to present, practise or consolidate grammar. This is a PowerPoint game on Past Simple and Continuous. First, students have to fill in the gaps with a proper form of Past Simple or Past ...
A simple text i've made for one of my junior students. We were making a workbook built around a knight story, so the main character was Sir Arthur. This text describes his daily activities. Also c ...
Yet another small easy text for reading. Some basic information about summer and the most popular summer activities. Also includes some description of Russian weather and nature that can be easill ...
Two short stories about Nasreddin. Nice easy reading with new words and phrases marked in bold. Nasreddin is a satirical Sufi figure who is believed to have lived during the Middle Ages (around 13 ...
A small simple text i've made for my 11 yr.o. student. Makes nice easy reading, some phrases and expressions are written in italics. The text describes autumn in Russia although the 'Russia' part ...
16 sentences to practice the Past Simple tense in which students have to fill in the blanks using the Past Simple of the verbs in brackets. The worksheet includes negative, affirmative and inter ...
This is a board game for practising positive, negative and question forms in the past tense. Students should say the Past Simple of the verb in the space in the affirmative, negative and interrog ...
Form and use of the “going to future” followed by 5 exercises in which students look at the pictures and say what they are going to do, complete sentences with questions tags, order th ...
A set of 20 conversation cards to encourage Present Perfect conversations. Each question is illustrated with a colourful picture to help students understand and talk about their experience. Lami ...
It's always very difficult for students to learn and memorize irregular verbs. A set of 80 verbs illustrated with funny and colourful pictures might help them. This document includes five pa ...
An editable Present Perfect board game, includes easy questions to make students talk about their experience... You can change the questions according to your students’ level. Recommended f ...
Irregular Verbs Boardgame to consolidate the topic. Students advance on the board, when they land on a square they have to make a correct sentence according to the verb. Every verb provides a pic ...
Some simple explanation and exercises about verb to be, possessive adjectives, demonstrative pronouns, articles, possessive case and interrogative pronouns. You can also find some simple vocabular ...
Grammar exercises about simple past and complete beginner vocabulary. You can find also some preposition exercise and simple present questions. It can be used as a review for a test or even to tes ...
Worksheet on verb have got, clothes, patterns, colors and order of adjectives. Including a study sheet and several exercises: 1. Write the short form of the verb have got 2. Complete these quest ...
Worksheet to learn and to practice Past Simple ( irregular verbs), including a complete grammar guide with the most common Irregular verbs illustrated with pictures and several tasks: A) Write the ...
Present Perfect Tense with for and since activities for beginners. There are 5 easy tasks to practice affirmative, negative and Interrogative forms. Students have to complete the sentences with t ...
Everyone enjoys watching movies. But did you ever think we could make our own movie today? Let's go for it! This is a good exercise in practicing Present Continuous and daily activities. It is a g ...
This a worksheet to practice Food vocabulary, verb to like, some/any, and Indefinite pronouns containing 3 pages with 8 different tasks: Reading comprehension, answering questions, matching, com ...
A complete worksheet to make clear the difference between Future Simple, be going to and Present Continuous used for future actions, including a complete grammar guide / study sheet on the use of ...
This a worksheet for practicing the Present Simple Tense and Family vocabulary through reading. It was specifically designed for beginners or pre-intermediate students, therefore all the exercises ...
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