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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Four pages to explain and to practice Daily Routines, Present Simple and Frequency Adverbs including a grammar guide / Study Page and 6 different tasks.
Song "I'm blue". The first page contains the lyrics for the teachers to check, and in the second page there are different exercises for the same song. The students will recognize the vocabulary an ...
The song worksheet contains two pages: the first with the lyrics and another page with different exercises for the same song. The students will have to fill in the blanks, match, and compare the l ...
A set of 18 cards to encourage conversation. Students will learn or reinforce the use of the Present Continuous tense. They have to look at the card and answer the question. I hope it´s useful!
It's a Complete Beginner/Elementary level game on Past Simple played by 3-4 people. The students' task is to throw the dice one by one to answer questions. The first person to finish wins. There ...
Song class (PowerPoint presentation worksheet) to practice simple past. Students listen to the song and complete the spaces with the missing words.
Happy teaching!
Grammar guide and five different exercises with different levels of complexity, negative forms, affirmative forms, questions and question tags. Hope you like it!
It is a set of a few easy Past simple exercises for young learners. The pupils have to fill in was/were, form interrogative and negative sentences with was/were and use the auxiliary verb did. It ...
Everybody knows the importance of teaching English with songs, that's it, to make our classes more exciting. So, this song worksheet provides a joyful way to teach the Present Continuous Tense and ...
This is a very simple worksheet for young learners which is aimed to practise there is/there are, some / any, and prepositions of place. There are 5 different tasks and a brief explanation. The p ...
An activity to practice the distinction between the use of these two modal verbs. Ten sentences, not so much as to get bored. May be used as homework. Keys are included.
This is a worksheet to be used to consolidate the use of demonstrative pronouns "this", "these" and to recapture the usage of plural form. I ask my kids to brainstorm the names of zoo animals. The ...
A worksheet designed to provide Verb To Be and Have got practice with 8 different and easy tasks . Including negative, affirmative and Interrogative forms. - Read the text and fill in the gaps wit ...
This 14-page booklet is a combination of grammar handouts, worksheets, and a game/activity. It reviews the rules of using the past perfect tense. It includes affirmative and negative statements, ...
The worksheet contains listening and watching exercises to the 2006 John Tucker Must Die movie. The exercises include True/False, answering some questions, filling in past forms of verbs, as well ...
This is the 7th part of my worksheets "Let´s read and write about..." In this worksheet students read the text on the given topic, then they do some post-reading tasks to check comprehension ...
A worksheet designed to provide Past Simple practice. It includes 5 different tasks to practice negative, affirmative and interrogative forms of Irregular Verbs.
A worksheet designed to provide present continuous practice with 4 different and easy tasks. Including negative, affirmative and Interrogative forms . 1. write the -ing form of each verb in the c ...
The first set of speaking cards will be helpful when presenting or practicing the use of Past Simple tense. Regular and irregular verbs may be used in the answer. This easy speaking activity help ...
Funny small text about Sponge Bob and his friend Patrick Star. They come to the cinema and meet there a beautiful squirrel Sandy Cheeks. Focused on grammar - Present Simple vs. Present Continuous. ...
This is an eleven page ESL handout and worksheet about the present perfect tense. The grammar rules are clearly presented and are accompanied by photographs and graphic organizers. There are man ...
This is the second part of a movie guide. I used with pre teens. At first they find it a bit difficult but since they really like the story, they are willing to put up with the hard work. Pay clos ...
It's a good movie to watch with pre teens and teens. You might have to explain specific vocabulary, especially if they are kids. I made this worksheet for 10-11year-olds. They could grasp the mean ...
This is the third part of my worksheets "Let's read and write about...'. Student have to read the text on the given topic, then they do some after-reading tasks. First they have to decide if the s ...
This is the second part of my worksheets "Let's read and write about...'. Student have to read the text on the given topic, then they do some after-reading tasks. First they have to match the word ...
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