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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Conversation boardgame You need a die to play. Students have to talk for 30 seconds about the topic their counter stepped on and try to reach the finish before the others. Very fun activity and i ...
Worksheet to practice future perfect and its continuous form,worksheet could be used with various levels. its easy to understand and it includes the formation of such tenses. students can easily i ...
This powerpoint presentation systematizes the usage of both tenses in a simple and easy-to-understand explanation. At this level, some uses (not so common) were deliberately omitted to make the ...
The worksheet will help your students practice to distinguish the usage of Past Simple and Past Continuous. You can give it as a worksheet to practice in class or at home.
With this short text I want to teach the very beginners the verb To be and the Verb to have, not only the difference in meaning but also the way in which it is made the affirmative, the negative a ...
This worksheet focuses on Present Continuous. It's simple but efficient for beginners. It's just the grammar part. It contains a first part with pictures to match to the sentences and a second par ...
Movie worksheet : EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.
Pupils will have a great time watching the movie and answering the different questions.
Questions include :
1- Match the following Characters with their d ...
The worksheet is aimed at practicing the usage of the construction There is/There are for students of elementary level. There are about 20 sentences to pactice.
It's a general revision of tenses (simple present / present progressive / simple past / past progressive / future) and prepositions.
Tasks include:
1- Classify the following words and expression ...
This is a worksheet for elementary students and it is aimed at practicing the usege of the verb to be in Present Simple and Present Continuous. More that 30 sentences for you, have a good practice ...
Using this pack students can revise Past Simple, parts of speech, travelling and holiday vocabulary avoiding ‘How I spent this summer’ compositions. This pack contains two sets. 1. Our ...
It is a worksheet on celebrities. The aim is to be able to present someone (name, age, nationality, place of residence, pets, brothers and sisters ..).
Note: The first exercise needs a photo of O ...
This pack contains three sets. 1. Wonderful World Listening (based on a song ‘Wonderful World’ by The Flying Pickets) 2. Summer Holiday / Identity Show game (students should tell about ...
It's a nice ppt that explains basic rules of past tense. Especially useful for Turkish learners, it is really useful and colorful. You can find exercises in it and Turkish explanation of the ru ...
This worksheet consists of making students complete the conjugation of the verb to work in the Present Perfect. It points out that the past participles of regular verbs follow the same spelling ru ...
This worksheet is meant to work on the form of the present progressive. It has two parts: - One where students have to complete the conjugation of the verb to work in the Present Progressive - An ...
This worksheet + follow-up activities deals with the students' leisure time activities. There are four steps which cover both individual and pair work activities: A) The students check the freque ...
This document contains two worksheets to work on the form of the simple present tense. The first worksheet has two parts: - One where students have to complete the conjugation of the verb to work ...
Some exercises about there to be (there is and there are) in affirmative form. It can be used in classroom as a extra activity for the students practice the new topic. I use it to help students to ...
This archive contains one introduction file (PDF) and four game sets (4 PDF documents). 1. A Secret Message 2. Revision Board Game 3. Spymania 4. Meeting at the Airport Aim: revise reading, speaki ...
This reading comprehension activity is about Hiram Bingham, the man who discovered the ruins of Machu Picchu. The students must find the word in the text to choose the correct alternative that has ...
This worksheet is about the last hours of the Titanic- the unsinkable ship. This reading comprehension activity includes answer in English, complete with the verbs, what do numbers represent, true ...
This a concise lesson plan on the use of "Will" for future predictions based on a Futurama episode - including a short speaking and writing activity. In terms of grammar progression it is ba ...
Hello, I chose to use 'Leaving on a Jet Plane' to practice past simple and past continuous (the target language of the lesson) despite the fact the song contains present simple and present contin ...
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