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 song worksheet features "Good Ones" by Charli XCX. Students choose the correct tense of the words that are in bold, then complete the sentences with the missing words found in the w ...
This animated video is for Young learners to watch and order the story cards to help reinforce their understanding of each aspect of the Present Simple tense. When students have complete ...
This animated video is for Young learners to watch and order the story cards to help reinforce their understanding of each aspect of the Present Simple tense. When students have complete ...
This background is designed to be used in conjunction with an animated YouTube video. Young learners can watch and 'do' their language lesson, then have fun coloring and finally ...
This worksheet is designed to be used in conjunction with our animated YouTube video. Young learners can watch and 'do' their language lesson, then have fun practicing writing and finall ...
There are lots of visual aids to get your students talking, retelling, and telling stories about Going to See the Doctor. Students watch a fun and engaging YouTube video with voc ...
There is a picture of a busy train station in a small town. Fourteen people are doing various things (talking, checking the time, reading a newspaper, etc.). The picture is partly colore ...
Young learners watch an animated video and order the story cards as a way to help reinforce their understanding of the Present Simple tense. When students have completed the worksheet, s ...
This worksheet is designed to be used in conjunction with an animated YouTube video. Young learners can watch and complete their language lesson They can then have fun writing and creati ...
This background is designed to be used in conjunction with an animated YouTube video. Young learners can watch and do their language lesson, then have fun coloring and finally cr ...
This listening activity based on the popular song "Rain on Me" by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande can be used as a warmup for a lesson with students that have already studied the Simple Past ...
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This worksheet about monkeys is used in conjunction with an animated YouTube video. Young learners can watch and complete their language lesson, then have fun writing and creating their ...
This background is designed to be used in conjunction with an animated YouTube video. Young learners can watch and 'do' their first lesson, then have fun colouring and finally creating t ...
This worksheet is a revision lesson for Pre-Intermediate level 12-14-year-olds of personality adjectives, past simple vs past continuous and used to, in the context of popular cartoons. ...
This worksheet focuses on sentences using the verb tenses providing that / provided that / as long as, and the correct way to use them. It also includes identifying main and su ...
Students watch Episode 1, Season 1 of "Gravity Falls" until Part 4. It's about 20 minutes. This video activity is suitable for A1, A2 students. It includes comprehension and vocabulary a ...
Learning can be fun with mnemonics. Irregular verbs, as referenced on this list (colored edited version) of Mnemonic Rhyming Groups can be used to form rhyming songs and to help ...
A comprehension based on The Ant & The Cricket fable, this exercise promotes discussion. You can obtain the DVD, or students can watch the video on YouTube. The tense used in the car ...
This grammar practice and listening worksheet focuses on the use of the Past Simple tense. The video helps students to check their answers. They observe the use of the tense and practise ...
This question sheet focuses on the present simple tense to measure a beginner's understanding of the variable usage of this form of verb. It contains exercises such as filling in the blanks, r ...
This chart shows the structural differences between the Present Simple and Present Continuous tenses. It's suitable for 5th-6th Graders and beginner students, who are just introduced to ...
This song by Maroon 5 helps to practice verbs in the past tense and listening comprehension. It is suitable for A2-level students. After listening to the song and completing the activiti ...
This PowerPoint presentation helps students review the time tenses. It includes some warm-up examples (teachers should prepare their own explanations), and three grammar exercises (with answers) ...
This simple fill-in-the-blank exercise is perfect for students to practice the Past Simple tense. It is an extract from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling. Students fill in ...
This short worksheet is for elementary and pre-intermediate students to help them recognize the present and past simple tenses. It includes words that might sound alike or can be confusi ...
1 15,171ElemPre-Int
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