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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I used this worksheet as a test. It tests the knowledge of past simple, irregular verbs, past continuous, and in the last exercise the students have to decide which of the two tenses should be use ...
The worksheet contains an easy text about a schoolgirl. She describes her everyday activities, school, hobbies, family. Then two exercises follow. In the first exercise children have to find inco ...
Easy grammar! This very simple task will help your ss to practice using the structures: there is/threre are. Simple sentences and simple vocabulary let you use this task for younger ss. Tips and e ...
Glee, Season 1, episode 19. Great activity to introduce, practice or explore simple future tenses (present continuous, be going to, will/might). It was originally applied to advanced levels, but i ...
Activity to practice the pronunciation of the regular verbs in the past. Students are supposed to separate the verbs in the past according to the past -ed pronunciation. Teachers are supposed to p ...
Reading comprehension for beginner and elementary students 1, including work on comprehension, the simple present tense, vocabulary, and a key for teachers, it is about winter it might be us ...
This is a usual worksheet where your students have to put the verbs in brackets into appropriate present tense. There is a scheme that can help them understand the differences between the two pres ...
This worksheet is appropriate for teaching future simple (will) structure. Teachers can use it for teaching adverbials of probability (certainly - definitely - maybe - possibly- clearly - obv ...
Activity type: a role play based on a very old idea in which students have to act as criminals and police people. Level: Pre-intermediate and above.This is a very good review of the past simp ...
This is an entry test I used to evaluate first year middle school students on numbers, school objects, colours, basic questions, such as: How are you? How old are you? Students have to fill in the ...
In this file you can find the subjects used in English with the proper conjugation for the verb to be in present and past tense! Also yes/no questions are introduced! This is mostly for beginners ...
You can use this as a powerful tool, when you need to check what they have learnt. You can find exercises of present simple in affirmative, negative and interrogative form. You also will find freq ...
Great worksheet for practicing past continuous and past simple as well as for describing clothes and commenting on fashion during the 20th century. You can use this worksheet to introduce past con ...
This is a worksheet to practice some grammar points and vocabulary of unit 2 from the book "Stepping Up Starter". In activity 1 you practise demonstrative pronouns (that - this - those - these). I ...
In this worksheet the students are expected to match the sentences with their respective image, in which the main verb of the sentence is represented. The idea is that students can figure out the ...
Question and answer type of jokes to practise object and subject questions and wh- words, both in the present and past simple tenses. Divide the class in two groups A and B, choose as many jokes ...
This is a song I use as a round up activity when working with the past continuous tense. You may also want to make some questions about the song, here are some that might be useful: 1. W ...
Students have to write the past tense of the verb in the crossword blocks. It is very easy. After doing this, the teacher can walk around the class and ask the students to make sentences with the ...
This sheet contains six questions in present simple. Ss have to match the question with its answer and with the picture that represents the question. I used this sheet with my ss of fourth grade a ...
Busy teachers can use this worksheet to make their students talk about t present actions. They can also see how much their students remember about the picture they have just seen. This works ...
This is a worksheet to recall the present simple, present continuous and past simple tenses. Easy exercises to start a new school year. In this worksheet you will find different exercises to ...
Miscellanea 6: This worksheet has got four activities about some verbal tenses: simple present, present continuous, simple past and present perfect. Students have to complete the sentences using t ...
This grammar worksheet will help you to find the gaps in your student´s knowledge. The task is to correct the mistakes in the sentences below. This worksheet is really useful fo ...
You can use this game either to get to know the students in your first lesson, or to revise present tenses. How to play: you choose one volunteer to come to the black-board, he/she brings one slip ...
These speaking cards were designed to make simple controlled conversation using regular verbs in the past for elementary students. There are two cards labelled A/B and eight questions in each card ...
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