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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In this worksheet, students go through the vocabulary preparation, watch a video about two octopus friends, recall Past Simple verbs, then complete the summary of the story. If your stud ...
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Studenst listen to the song on YouTube and complete the lyrics with the instructions in the chart for each blank. The blanks correspond to verbs in the present simple (inc. to be) and pr ...
The presentation comprises teaching material related to Baroque Music and the personality of J.S.Bach a – the sort of dissemination for non-commercial purposes to the widest commun ...
The worksheet focuses on the use of Present Simple, Present Continuous, Future Simple, Present Perfect tenses. Students observe the use of the tenses in Queen Elizabeth’s address t ...
This worksheet is based on the song Landslide from Fleetwood Mac. The lyrics match The Chicks version better as they are easier to understand. Students listen to and watch the video and ...
This upper-intermediate worksheet covers the subject of hoarding. Students go through and discuss the questions carefully. Then they watch the video on YouTube through the provided link. ...
This listening comprehension activity is a fill-in-the-blank assignment. Students listen to and watch the video then answer the questions using the words from the word bank. It includes ...
This is a listening activity for elementary learners based on a section of the New English File Elementary book, page 19. This was made for those who perhaps have never tried listening t ...
This is a multiple way of practicing English from listening comprehension to grammar rules. There are a variety of methods to teach students by using songs. Students can watch and listen to ...
This worksheet is to practice the present perfect progressive forms of the verb using them according to the correct use, including the perfect progressive, interrogative forms, a ...
This resource covers Past Simple, Passive Voice, Regular/Irregular Verbs, Gender equality, and Questions in the Past Simple tenses. It's a listening activity that helps practice the Past ...
Students listen to the lyrics of Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi through the given link and fill in the verbs in the Present Simple and Present Continuous tenses, including the verb t ...
This worksheet was created for Elementary level adult students. They read the descriptions and match them with the photos on page 2. The sheet can be used to revise t ...
After watching and listening to the video of Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi, students then complete the lyrics by filling in the blanks. This sheet covers the verbs in the Present Si ...
This worksheet contains a simple song about friendship and is used to enhance listening skills and develop the vocabulary, including verbs and making it easy to identify certain verb tenses.
There are multiple way of practicing English by using songs – from listening comprehension to grammar rules. Students listen to the song and complete the three defined activities t ...
Teaching students by using songs presents a variety of methods to practice English from listening comprehension to grammar rules. In this song A Whole New World By Peabo Bryson a ...
This worksheet to be used along with Brad Paisley's American Saturday Night is for intermediate levels of ESL learners. The song has several activities, mostly aimed at translating, usage ...
This worksheet consists of four pages with five exercises on Present Perfect Simple and Present Perfect Continuous tenses: Choose the correct tense, Complete the sentences, Choose 'for' ...
Practise future predictions with this fun video activity. Use different future tenses to describe the predictions from this movie clip set in the future and use future simple, future, continuo ...
This sheet consists of thirty-five sentences to practise the basic English tenses. It also contains most of the other tenses such as the Future Perfect, the Future Continuous, the Presen ...
This worksheet contains 6 cards with celebrities from the past. Students can research and fill in the personal information of each celebrity include complete sentences using the pas ...
This worksheet is for child-beginners to practise words sand speak on the topic of animals. It includes revision, spelling, reading exercises and the Present Simple tense. Pictures and simpl ...
This very short worksheet contains sentences about Thomas Edison. Fill in the blanks with the correct past tense forms of "to be," was or were. Students do not need knowledge of Thomas E ...
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