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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Here's is another mini book. This time the topic is The Verb To Be, following the same layout of the previous ones, it was designed for elementary students in order to teach them grammar in a si ...
A worksheet dealing with bedroom and furniture vocabulary and some grammar topics such as prepositions of place (on, under, in, next to and in front of), there + To Be, etc. Especially designed ...
Make your students learn the verb To Be in an amusing way with this game with great graphics and sounds. Divide them into groups or pairs and give one point for each correct answer. The winners r ...
This is an intermediate level Past Participle wordsearch. There are 28 participles hidden in it. Hope you enjoy a break while your learners are working on this puzzle! :) List of words used in th ...
Ice age - an activity for kids/teenagers. They answer questions about the cartoon, fill in the blanks and have fun. It's also used for convesation. The students match the pictures to the words too ...
There are pictures where students have to write sentences using action verbs +ing. It's a good and fun way to practice verb recognition for beginner level students. Can be used as a warmer, revisi ...
Four simple exercises to practise Present Simple of the verb "To Be". Students must fill in the blanks with the correct form of the verb To Be, make negative sentences and write questions.
This simply and small exercise helps your students whose L1 is Polish to practice simple past forms. It is designed so that they fill in the gaps with a correct form of the verbs. The activity in ...
This is a worksheet which students are usually fond of because of its nice pictures. It helps practicing daily actions as well as time expressions. Students are also required to use the Present Si ...
The aim of this activity is to help your students learn 30 different Irregular verbs. It has a picture dictionary on the first page (which can also be used as classroom poster or a study sheet) t ...
In this worksheet students must fill in the gaps to complete two songs lyrics using the Present Perfect tense. Here are the songs:
- Nothing Compares to You - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Look ...
Great activity for young learners who are being taught basic grammar, spelling and numbers whilst having fun. This find-a-word activity helps to distinguish between There is and There are by ...
The last page of the Past Simple Speaking Cards set. Includes general and special types of questions. Good for a speaking activity in class. Have a nice week!
The second part of Past Simple speaking cards set. Aimed at the formation of speaking and parallelly focuses on past simple. Includes both regular and irregular verbs.
Put the following verbs in the infinitive form on the board: be become begin catch cut do eat feel fly get go have know leave lose make read run see send sleep swim teach think wear.
Now tell th ...
This worksheet explains the present simple form in an easy way. It shows when to add -s, -es, or -ies in the third person singular. There are two exercises. These exercises will help you to check ...
This is just a word search for ing verbs, can be useful when teaching/revising Present Continuous. Hope you like it. List of words used in this word search: COOKING, DRAWING, LYING, HIKING, SITTI ...
This is a quick time-filler to review daily routines and time. Every square provides a picture clue. Every time a correct answer is given it can be used as a communicative activity.
This is a reading comprehension activity. Students read the text and complete it with the past simple tense of the verbs in brackets. Then they answer some questions with the information found in ...
Here you can find rules and exercises with pictures. I hope it will help your youn learners to improve their grammar skills. There are six interesting exercises. These exercises will help you to ...
This worksheet includes a test on Present Simple vs Present Continuous. It's very simple and will work well for absolute beginners or elementary students. The last exercise is on the verb 'to like ...
This worksheet deals with using for & since with the Present Perfect tense. It explains when to use each one & gives examples. Students also have to complete some sentences with for or sin ...
This worksheet helps to revise daily routines and everyday activities of the students together with time expressions used in Present Simple. They should put ticks under the necessary time expressi ...
Brief explanation and several exercises to practice the Present Perfect tense including a word search puzzle, complete sentences with for and since, ask and answer questions, build up sentences , ...
Students have to read a text about the things "Javier" did on Friday from waking up to go to bed. They have to identify verbs in past tense from the text, complete either the past or present form ...
9 12,972ElemPre-Int
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