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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I have designed this PDF for reviewing some vocabulary items about birthday, including a present, birthday cake, candle, balloon, etc. Have your students write complete statements for each picture ...
This worksheet provides nine role play cards. They contain information related to work and study, routine, family and hobbies. Students can simply ask each other questions and collect information, ...
Simple and continuous tenses scheme with examples (present, past, future, present perfect). It's a simple table aimed at revising and/ar learning present and progressive tenses (present simple and ...
This worksheet includes some cues about three famous people. Put the students into groups of three and have them tell other groupmates about them using past simple. It is appropriate for ele ...
This worksheet is useful to revise have got, has got and physical descriptions. Great for beginners. I made it for Unit 2 of the book Our Discovery Island 1, Me. Please feel free to download it an ...
Simple text on routines in the third person and vocabulary practice on daily actions. Reading comprehension through a true- false and questions. It can be used as a quiz to close up a unit or as a ...
This worksheet helps you to improve students' speaking skills. This is also related to simple past. It's appropriate for elementary students and maybe upper levels. Hope you find it use ...
Recommended to children between ages 9-10 . We can use it to recycle vocabulary related to animals, places and objects. It's also used to improve students' skills to observe details and give opini ...
A PowerPoint Presentation that can help teachers teach/revise the usage and structure of the present perfect. The teacher will be able to show the most common usage of this verb tense, as well as ...
This worksheet has been designed for young learners who have already been taught the past simple tense. It's a story of a boy having a new book with some illustrations for the purpose of motivatio ...
This presentation was made to review the present simple tense and its basic rules. There are 16 slides, odd ones (1,3,5 etc) are a bit more difficult than even ones. The students have to correct a ...
This is an English test where teachers can asses the present continuous tense with vocabulary related to places and activities in town. Firstly, the students have to do a matching activity. Then, ...
This worksheet is ideal to help students write about themselves using the present simple tense. Usually students struggle to brainstorm ideas what to write when asked to write about themselves. Th ...
This is a nice and meaninful song by Fastball. I find it very useful for my students. I use it to improve both spelling and pronunciation of past simple verbs. My students do not only comple ...
I showed the movie Maze Runner to the students and after it finished with this quiz. Students respod to questions on paper and whoever answers more questions correctly wins some candies or a ...
This is a useful lesson plan about the present continuous tense. It also has worksheets and games, and a nice warm up. Make sure students are using the correct form of present continuo ...
It's a nice speaking activity. Students are asked to mingle and ask as many students as possible. Tell students to write questions they will ask the rest of the students in advance to make su ...
It's a writing prompt to encourage students to write a story using past simple and past continuous. Students can read each other's stories after they've finished and suggest ways to make the story ...
This PDF includes some speaking cards for practicing the present perfect tense. Put the students into pairs or small groups and have them work together and share their experiences. It is designed ...
It is a nice song to revise past simple, will and be going to. Sts are asked to complete sentences with the correct form of the verbs. There are regular and irregular verbs and contractions ('ll/ ...
This is the worksheet I designed and used for teaching different tenses in passive voice. I found my students making mistakes in transforming the verb forms because in passive structures we s ...
This video activity is desgined for teenagers of pre-intermediate level. It is one of the animations videos UNICEF has created to show refugee children from the war in Syria. In this video, ...
It´s a sheet with the explanation on how to changeregular verbs into past simple, it includes a small exercise, and at the end it contains rules for pronunciation of regular verbs. It worked ...
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