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 short presentation focuses on the different aspects of using the future simple tense and the structure 'be going to' to refer to future events. It is ideal for pre-intermediate students of En ...
Past continuous presentation was complied in order to explain students the differences in the usage of past simple and past continuous. The presentation also includes slides for Hungarian students ...
This short presentation helps teachers in explaining the past perfect tense to students at pre-intermediate or intermediate level concentrating on the pitfalls of using this particular past tense. ...
This is a speaking activity which helps students to revise formation of questions using past simple. They need to get information from each other to acknowledge the discovery of the first chocolat ...
This is a reading comprehension worksheet for teaching or revising the verb to be and have got at elementary level. Students are asked to read the text, say if the statements are true or fals ...
A worksheet is dedicated to future simple usage. There you can find a dialogue about planning a birthday party, all sentences with future simple are highlited. It can help students to understand i ...
111 irregular verbs in different versions: there are colour and black and white versions and a version with the Spanish translations for Spanish speakers and another one without the translations s ...
I use this song with high school levels as it has good social lyrics to generate discussions around inequality and problems with current day US. The lyrics can be used to generate present continuo ...
This is a variation on classic mingle "Find someone who..". I used it at the first lesson after the summer break. I like this lively activity much more than just teacher-student type of &nbs ...
Can be used to practise present simple statements and job vocabulary. You can give it to students as a whole paper to complete or cut it into separate cards to match. Students can be asked to add ...
This is a reading comprehension worksheet for teaching or revising the present simple tense and prepositions of place at elementary level. There are 3 different activities in which students a ...
A past continuous test: a test to revise this verbal tense. There are two questions. The first question is to complete the blank spaces with past continuous of the verb in brackets. The seco ...
This is a power point presentation with eleven useful question beginning with have you ever. The presentation has a lot of pictures related with each question. The aim of this is ...
The worksheet has been designed in order to assist pre-intermediate students while practicing through illustrations the question form of the past simple tense by creating their own questions ...
The" Murder story "worksheet is designed for elementary students to practise the past continuous tense. There has been a murder and an inspector is interrogating people about what they were doing ...
Unscramble sentences 5: fifteen sentences to revise the simple past tense with regular verbs. Students have to write these sentences into their correct order. The first sentences are easier but th ...
Unscramble sentences 4: twenty sentences to revise the simple present tense. Students have to write these sentences into their correct order. The first sentences are easier but then they get more ...
Simple past and past continuous test: a test to revise these two verbal tenses. There are three questions. The first question is to complete the blank spaces with the past continuous of the verbs ...
This exercise will help you revise question words and personal questions. Students will have to unscramble sentences and sort out difficulties finding grammar as well as spelling mistakes. ...
The worksheet is a simple children's story for young learners to practice the past simple, past continuous and past perfect simple tense. It is illustrated and each illustration shows a word that ...
Start by showing your students the opening for The Jetsons cartoon, perhaps asking them what they remember about it. Then with the sheet, students discuss predictions that the show made and if/how ...
The song worksheet aimed at intermediate students to practice phrasal verbs, opposites and verb tenses. Usually, for every exercise we listen to the song once. The first exercise is designed as a ...
This power point presentation is very easy to understand and share with your students for them to understand well the uses of the present perfect tense.
I use this with my basic class to teach simple present with a focus on habits and facts. The issue of homelessness is common enough for everyone to talk about and to have thoughts on. There is a c ...
This handout is focusing on the use of the simple past tense. Simple sentences are provided, each one supported with a relevant picture, where elementary learners are required to use the right ve ...
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