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 worksheet has been designed in order for learners to practise the use of the simple future form through an illustrated adventure story. There are unavoidable facts shown in the pictures so t ...
The worksheet is aimed to motivate elementary young learners to read an illustrated story about a brother and a sister by using the auxiliary verbs be, can and have got. Students must have been al ...
A simple reading task with direct questions starting with the standard question words. Contains graphics to help with comprehension. Also has possible new words (eg: ricotta) which could be delete ...
This is a fun game for beginners to practice yes/ no questions with "be". The purpose of this game is students try to guess the famous person behind the scene. My students really love this game!&n ...
Easy and understandable text talking about experiences. It is about the present perfect simple and past simple structures. This text contains comprehension activities and grammar activities in whi ...
It is a reading worksheet in which learners are informed about how the Smiths spend their working day. Ss are required to do a true/ false statement exercise in order for them to ensure they have ...
The worksheet is aimed at elementary learners to practise the affirmative and interrogative form of the present simple tense. A gap-fill story is written where students are asked to to put the rig ...
These worksheets can be used as a speaking activity. Students work in pairs and take turns in asking the questions. It's good if you as a teacher to circulate and monitor their work. At the end, h ...
A worksheet for practising using present continuous to talk about things that are happening now. It will help younger learners to familiarize themselves with the usage of the tense and to practise ...
Easy and interactive song worksheet: Invisible by U2 is slow enough for beginners to practice English. Have students unscramble the lines, circle the correct words and fill the blanks with missing ...
The following worksheet contains activities to help students practice three main tenses, simple present, simple past and present continuous. Students will identify different verbs and complete act ...
One of the things I love about using Mr. Bean videos is the varied topics that can be covered using them. We used this one for both past and present continuous, but it can also be used for the sim ...
This is a very simple worksheet for teaching or revising future forms: future simple and future continuous, at pre-intermediate level. Students are asked to fill in blank spaces by putting th ...
It is a worksheet for learners to practice the use of past simple and past continuous through misfortunes they had during their last last holiday. There are pictures and cues so that the writing c ...
It is a worksheet with an illustrated gap-fill exercise to facilitate and excite students. It practices there is/there are with what can be found in their town. There is also an exercise for ...
It´s an improvement of a power point presentation of another person, based on verbs from the book More!1 unit 1; Pupils love to play "who wants to be a millionaire" - the difference to the o ...
One of my students had a hard time learning how to pronounce the -ed ending of regular verbs in the simple past tense, as it varies. While watching the video (see link), have your students take no ...
This power point presentation explores the use of the verb "be" in an intuitive way. Helping the students to grasp the difference between "is" and "are" in the simple present. The presentation is ...
You can use this worksheet to help students to internalize the simple present rules, in both the affirmative, negative and interrogative form. Fast learners love this activity, as they are willing ...
You can work this poem with children and teens as a tongue twister. I have worked this activity with my group of students and they really have enjoyed it, in act it´s a nice activity to do i ...
This is a basic exercise for beginner kids who are starting to learn English. There are 4 profiles about people from different countries. Students must read the profiles and answer a good number o ...
Short answers activity: twenty-five questions using the verbs to be, to have got and there is, there are. Students must write true answers about themselves. It is a good revisión worksheet ...
Unscramble sentences one: twenty sentences to practice the use of present continuous in affirmative, negative and interrogative forms. At the beginning there are easier sentences that become ...
Unscramble sentences one: twenty sentences to practice the use of the verb to have got in affirmative, negative and interrogative forms. At the beginning there are easier sentences that become mor ...
Unscramble sentences one: twenty-five sentences to practice the use of the verb to be in affirmative, negative and interrogative forms. At the beginning there are easier sentences that become mor ...
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