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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A very helpful thing to practice food vocabulary, there is/there are (also questions and negatives), some, any, no.
You can use it in different ways: for an individual description, pairwork - for ...
It's a questionnaire. The aim is to practice Present Simple and House vocabulary. Each one from the group gets it. Students are to gather information about their classmates asking them questions a ...
These cards are designed to practice questions and answers in Present Simple. Divide children into pairs. Give one child a card with prompts for questions, another one - for answers. The pair whic ...
It is a very useful worksheet for those who would like to practise future tenses up to upper-intermediate or advanced level. I It contains exercises to learn the form and use of these tenses. I ho ...
How many verb do you know that have the same (or nearly the same) meaning as 'to say'?
This worksheet contains 81 (!) of such verbs - each on a separate card. It's up to you how you are going to ...
Use this WS to evaluate the simple past and present perfect.Your students can do this activity to let you know in what areas they might need help.The students choose the correct answer. If they ma ...
This worksheet will help your students to understand and to use the Present Continuous. The good thing about this worsheet is the approach given to the Present Continuous. Students will realize th ...
This is a nice worksheet with images of a few endangered species with information on how many of them are left on the planet. Your students are supposed to match the numbers to the pictures of the ...
Explanation and usage about simple past, ideal for students and it also includes mixed exercises about simple past with cute pictures and actions. I hope you find it useful.
This worksheet is used to practise the simple past of some irregular verbs and to reinforce the memorization of them. There are exercises to complete sentences with some verbs given, but in the pa ...
This is a worksheet I used with my 1st year teens group to contrast the present simple tense and the present continuous tense. In the first exercise they should use the present simple in the three ...
Students write down what they hear (from your dictation). At some points they should provide their own ideas/words, directed by you. In the end, that results in a funny story they enjoy a lot...a ...
This is a worksheet for elementary students to revise vocabulary and structures they should have learned before. It covers 5 areas: listening, reading, vocabulary, grammar and composition. The tex ...
A worksheet containing the past simple, past continuous, to be and present simple. Students have to write down the correct form of the verb and label the pictures. I think it's a great starter to ...
It is important to recall the use of the verbs and to note the difference between simple past vs. present perfect.This multiple choice quiz may be used for evaluation, or for review the present pe ...
Students can revise some verb tenses and some vocabulary with this song... There are some correct the wrong words exercise (sts listen and correct the words as they listen to them), they check the ...
This is a test for elementary students which contains the following topics: personal information, family, food, possessions and physical description. It could also be adapted and used as practice ...
'Have you ever?' by Brandy is the best song I have found so far with the continual use of the present perfect tense throughout the song. It is at a reasonable speed and sung clearly to allow inter ...
I've uploaded this sheet before but was not very pleased with the end result. I've changed it a bit and it looks much better now. Simple sheet about the present simple. Students have to
1 )read ...
Practice of pronouns he, she and they, through Q&A using Brazilian as well as foreign famous people. It can be done orally first, and written as homework assignment. Elton John / American. He ...
This worksheet is designed to practice the auxiliary verb "to be" in Present Simple for students of elementary level. May be used in a form of a quiz or as homework.
This worksheet is created to practice past simple of irregular verbs for elementary and pre-intermediate students (there are only most common and easy irregulars - for those who only started lear ...
Worksheet to practise present perfect and make your students read and answer abot someone's professional life. It's a good way to make them familiarized. Teachers can use this before introducing t ...
This contribution contains information about how contractions are formed, and exercises to practice the rules. Aimed at elementary students. There are three exercises on formation, recognition an ...
Do you know how many professions does a mother have? This is an activity to review present Simple tense as well as trades and professions that all mothers may have... Your students fill in the bla ...
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