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!
Create awesome-looking custom word searches in seconds!
Make A Word Scramble:
Instantly create custom word/sentence scrambles for your class!
Make A Double Puzzle:
Generate double puzzles your students will love - hours of fun!
ESL Articles
View our latest knowledgebase articles that will help you become a better English teacher. Learn from
professional teachers and put a bit of your own creativity into it!
This is the first part of my worksheets "Let's read and write about...' Student have to read the text on the given topic, then they have to do some tasks connected with the text. First they have t ...
I am a Peruvian english teacher and I created this worksheet for my 2nd grade students (primary). This worksheet explains the present simple form in an easy way. It shows when to add -s, ...
Here's a nice practice worksheet where your learners will practice past simple and past continuous. This activity may be used as a part of homework or as a form of a test in class. Happy teaching!
This pairwork can be used as a follow-up activity after you have seen with your students the vocabulary you need to hire a car. It enables to review question forms. I used it here in the past si ...
This is a cut-up Tarot card game. This can be used for practising the future tenses. Give out one deck of cards per a group or pair of students. Students then take turns to predict each other's fu ...
This worksheet can be used with young learners that you want to teach the difference between have or has in affirmative, negative, yes/no question and short answers with yes or no. I hope that yo ...
This is actually a PPT presentation that I've converted into a PDF file. Its contents aim to foster ss awareness of Present Progressive for present actions. By showing students contextualized exam ...
In this worksheet one can practise present simple tense. There are two groups in the worksheet and it can also be used as a test. The level is evementary and I used this practise in the fifth grad ...
Students can practice past simple tense and also irregular verbs. This worksheet can also be used as a test where among the rest students have to correct the mistakes. There are two groups A and B ...
A simple exercise for beginners to practice Present Simple. The exercise helps to distinguish the use of this auxiliary with nouns in different number and persons.
Exercises on the present continuous and present simple forms including stative verbs. This kind of activities helps students to focus their attention on the structures of both the Simple and Conti ...
This is a set of very nice and easy exercises for younger studets who start pracising have got/has got. Here they have 5 different tasks to practise these verbs. They have to fill in the blanks wi ...
3 short tasks to practice Present Perfect and the words that indicate this tense. The worksheet will be useful for students who need to understand the distinction between 'for' and 'since'. You ca ...
Several exercises to practice future simple / continuous / perfect / perfect continuous. Created based on the materials from the book Total English Intermediate and Upper-intermediate (student's b ...
Several exercises to practice past simple / continuous / perfect / perfect continuous. Created based on the materials from the book Total English Intermediate and Upper-intermediate (student's boo ...
Several exercises to practice present simple / continuous / perfect / perfect continuous. Created using some info from the book Total English Intermediate and Upper-intermediate. Just a document t ...
The worksheet is based on the film Deep Impact. It aims at showing students the use of will, might, going to structures for predictions about the future. It also includes a task on practicing the ...
Drilling present perfect continuous use and formation (affirmative-negative and interrogative). Stressing then on indicating careful discernment between present perfect continuous and present perf ...
A table describes the main difference between Present tenses. It has the main meaning of each tense, the markers, the grammar formation. For Russian students. I hope it can really help in understa ...
Present perfect formation and practice (structure), covering a variety of drills which tend to enhance the learners grasp the specificities of this tense. They come to understand the difference in ...
An exercise sheet with a number of sentences to practice am-is-are. May be used as a homework exercise or a test in class for elementary students. Hope it will be useful!
It's a simple worksheet to practice the Past Continuous tense. It's basically a series of cute action images. Students need to fill in the verbs in Past Continuous in the sentence (there's one for ...
I prepared this worksheet to enable my students to learn these verbs easily and it really proved to be not only useful but also enjoyable. I put them into groups according to the changes occurring ...
This is a filling in activity to train the use of Present Simple and Present Continuous. The infinitives of the verbs are given in a box in the upper part of the worksheet. The song contains diff ...
This is an easy worksheet on verb "to be" It is better for elementary student as a revision worksheet. Students have to fill in 5 exercises. they practice all the forms of verb to be as well as fu ...
13 31,321BegElem
Got a great worksheet on
Verb Tense Worksheets?
Tell us about it and become a BusyTeacher contributor!