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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Students will have the chance to see their self progress when talking about the present, past and future tenses, and have the chance to review tenses if necessary. This worksheet can be used indi ...
Using this worksheet students can practise both there is/ there are and present simple, the third person singular. First students read about people, then they choose the sets of furniture th ...
Verbal tenses activity: an activity to practice simple present, present continuous and simple past. There are some pictures and verbs and the students will write sentences with I, he o ...
Are you scared of horror films? Do they make you cry, so you can’t sleep at night? Then you shouldn't download this cartoon full of huge monsters who attack Mr. Bean even in his dreams! Stil ...
This worksheet was put together for Mother's Day. Besides honouring the mothers, students can practice the structures that are used to describe people (have/has got, to be) by describing the membe ...
A simple worksheet about the topic: verb to be - affirmative, negative and interrogative forms. Students are going to be tested on this topic with a multiple choice exercise. It can be used as a r ...
2 Word documents- student's worksheet and teacher's worksheet with answers and step-by-step instructions to carry out the lesson. The lesson was originally taught in a Greek classroom. Teenagers e ...
This worksheet is designed for training the vocabulary on the topic "Household Chores". Students should identify household chores they see in the pictures and then discuss the ones they like and d ...
This is a worksheet for revising present continuous at pre-intermediate level. There are 6 different activities in which students are asked to complete the sentences using present continuous ...
I've just prepared this worksheet based on Obama's speech on Nelson Mandela's death to work with one of my students today. It should be precedeed by some brainstorming on his life. You can find th ...
It is a crosword containing past participles and infinitives of some common irregular verbs. The solution is "You have to learn irregular verbs by heart." Good as a warm-up, revision, excercise. I ...
This worksheet contains vocabulary and questions connected to a short film called Validation. It contains pre-watch vocabulary activity and questions which should be asked while watching. It can b ...
This worksheet has specially been designed for Spanish students. There are some activities where students have to show that they can understand the present simple tense by doing different activiti ...
A simple worksheet that will help teach students one usage of the present perfect tense. I focus on already, ever and yet. They look at the posters and tell me which of the crazy things they have ...
Students have to choose between since and for, I have designed this worksheet specially for beginner or intemediate students who have difficulties with since and for and present perfect. They have ...
This is a present perfect survery that can be used as an introduction for the present perfect tense. I always start present perfect with a class survey. The students are asked to mingle around the ...
A worksheet about the topic: penfriend and friendship. Students read the letter from Susan to Ian. Then are asked to complete the gaps with two verbs: be and have got. It could be used to revise t ...
This worksheet covers exercises related to future continous, and future perfect tenses. It expects students to write sentences by using these tenses. Also students complete exercises by choosing t ...
This is a useful worksheet to use with primary school students and even adult beginners. The aim is to practise personal descriptions using "to be", "to have (got)", likes/dislikes and adjectives. ...
It gives the differences between present perfect and present perfect continous in brief explanations. It gives specific examples and relevant exercises. It is a powerpoint with colourful pictures ...
Three exercises: 1. Past simple vs. past continuous; 2. vocabulary (movies, stories, family themed ex. ghost, engaged etc.); 3. Past simple vs. present perfect. Based on my students' workboo ...
Listening practice - song by Joshua Radin "Brand New Day". It's quite easy to understand for students what he sings - his pronunciation is rather clear. A few gaps with present simple and continuo ...
It is a revision test no. 2 suitable with Project 3 3rd ed. coursebooks. It is concentrated on testing will and be going to, making questions with will, prepositions in and on, definitions of pla ...
A private student of mine is fond of "Monster High" dolls and cartoons, and can talk about it for hours. After having noticed that more and more children started watching it, I thought that they m ...
This activity is intended to help memorizing the verbs in the past. First, work with students base form x simple past by completing the table in the worksheet. Then ask the students to complete th ...
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