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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This worksheet is aimed at intermediate students who have just learned this tense and need some exercises to practice it. Here are 15 sentences. Hope the exercise will be useful.
This is a nice speaking activity that Ss can do in groups. The teacher cuts up the cards and Ss put the pile face down in front of them. S1 takes a card with the tense and reads out the questions ...
This worksheet contains a reading passage, in which you will find past tenses and some activities for comprehension. There are some other tasks to reinforce the use of the Past Continuous and some ...
The worksheet presents the song of Stacie Orrico - I promise I will, with completing, joining, ordering and question activities. It's not a very popular song but it was nice to introduce the topic ...
This is an introduction to the past simple tense. First students read and answer some questions about Mata Hari, the famous spy, then they are asked to reflect on grammar rules based on the bio an ...
An interesting exercise to practice Present Simple. Mistakes are generally made in using 3rd person singular (adding -s). May be used in the classroom or as homework.
Another worksheet of the kind. Here irregular verbs are presented in past simple, past perfect and passive voice. Have a good time practicing irregulars ;)
I think this is a very interesting idea to learn irregular verbs - students are to find an irregular verb (they are in past simple here) and then write three forms of it. Hope you will give this ...
This worksheet is aimed at pre-intermediate and intermediate learners of English, and it comprises 14 sentences to use irregular verbs in Past Simple. Hope you will find it useful.
This worksheet can help when you start the first week revision with elementary class. It is easy to follow and contains funny images. At first you find the task on everyday activities, an easy one ...
This is a review of contents about language and grammar for levelling pre-intermediate and intermediate students. There are gap filling exercises, word selection exercises, writing exercises in wh ...
Students have to listen and find their way to follow the song as they listen to it. It is a good listening practice since they already know this song but they are not familiar with the lyrics. I h ...
This list is to help your students learn the most common irregular verbs in English., e.g. do, did, doneIt's in fact a table with some basic rules of how different verbs change or not change in th ...
It will definetly be an attractive way to finish studying Present Perfect Continuous.
You should do the presentation and all the necessary drills. After understanding the use of this rather diff ...
Present Simple - All types of sentences - Revision. This worksheet is very useful when revising Present Simple.
P.S. You do not have to give your students all of the exercises given in this works ...
The situation:
You are going to play a conversation game about the future. You must make a natural conversation about different topics in the future. You may talk about yourself or about anyone e ...
Present Continuous - All types of sentences - Revision. This worksheet is very useful when revising Present Continuous. It has got 11various exercises from adding- ing ending to making sentences. ...
This is a true-life story that happened to me while travelling to the seaside in my native Ukraine. The worksheet presents a nice share of summer vocabulary and the task that follows it can be cre ...
This worksheet was made last years for students from Elementary to Intermediate levels. As an English teacher I came to conclusion that my students usually mix regular and irregular verbs, their f ...
One page of elementary level exercises to practise the future tense. Students exercise the use of will, will not, or won't depending on the type of sentences. They also pay attention to the right ...
This worksheet has 2 pages and 6 exercises. The exercises are on matching, numbering the lines, filling the empty spaces.
They are about Past Simple - regular / irregular verbs. Also about aspect ...
This is an exercise to be used after the introduction of Present Perfect Simple. Students must know the structure of the tense in order to do it. It contains pictures to be matched with sentences ...
This worksheet consists of two pairs of pictures for finding differences. Topic is food and clothes. With the help of this worksheet children can practice there is and there are, some/ any/ no. Ch ...
This worksheet consists of two parts: reading and writing. Student's practice body parts vocabulary, verbs, have got/has got, can/cannot, Present Continuous. There are questions after the text. In ...
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