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!
Create awesome-looking custom word searches in seconds!
Make A Word Scramble:
Instantly create custom word/sentence scrambles for your class!
Make A Double Puzzle:
Generate double puzzles your students will love - hours of fun!
ESL Articles
View our latest knowledgebase articles that will help you become a better English teacher. Learn from
professional teachers and put a bit of your own creativity into it!
A basic reading comprehension exercise based on a famous film actor. It practises the simple tense of ' to be', personal subject pronouns, and some useful vocabulary like the family words. It can ...
The PPT presents Future Clauses using Before - As soon as - After - When. The first slide presents a situation and then a set of statements describing what the character needs to do step by step. ...
The PPT shows short conversations that introduce the future tense with WILL and BE GOING TO. BE GOING TO is used for plans already made and WILL is used for decisions made at the moment. The fir ...
This is a simple listening comprehension exercise. Students can enjoy this great song and practise past simple at the same time. Songs are a way of getting students involved into learning. I ...
This is a reading comprehension text.I used it as a test after teaching future plans,conditional type 1 and time conjunctions. My laerners are asked to read the text and to do some activities rela ...
This song is almost new and I think it's good to practise present simple with teens. This worksheet includes pre-listening activities, while-listening activities and post-listening activities.
Clear, direct and simple powerpoint presentation to introduce the subject. Slides with the main topics.Recommended for beginners or elementary students.
This is a readig comprehension text about a fifteen-year-old boy who disobeyed his parents. After reading the text my learners are asked to do some activities. It is suitable for intermediate stud ...
This is a selection of fun activities that you can do after watching Life of Pi. I've used this with 5th and 6th graders with great success. They can put themselves in Pi's shoes, they can cut a ...
To use the present simple. It's a worksheet where they have to use the correct form of the verbs and write correct sentences about someone's daily routine. It has pictures, verbs and they ha ...
The exercise is made for a beginner spanish speaking student It is for drilling and practicing simple present tense. 35 questions in total:20 conjugating present tense verbs,15 looking for conjug ...
It's time for some fun and educational worksheets. Identifying tenses in the given sentences! Watch this video to gather hints to complete the worksheet on changing TENSES! Learn more about Tenses ...
It was created in order to encourage young students to write a composition about their grandparents, with five simple questions as a guide. It may also reinforce the use of, he-she, his-her, can, ...
A song to work with the Simple Past. Students work with the past forms of certain verbs and also with some questions in that tense. They complete a chart with the correct form of the verbs.You can ...
This worksheet contains one mixed exercise based on the present and past tenses of English. The tenses are not specified in the instructions, therefore the students have to decide on their own whi ...
A simple play for Primary school children between nine and eleven years old. The play is for seven to nine characters and is mainly in the present simple, though there are some uses of the future. ...
This is a test on Passive voice and Present Simple vs Present continous. Basicaly it is a test aimed to evaluate grammar, but there's also an exercise on grammar and reading at first. You ca ...
This is a 2-page worksheet for teaching or revising the past perfect continuous.There are 4 different activities in which students are asked to complete the sentences with the correct form of the ...
A good worksheet to practice speaking and weekend/ free time / leisure time vocabulary . I have used this with Elementary, Pre-Int and Int, and it can be adjusted according to the level. I l ...
Revision or short test about constructing questions and negations in Present Simple. Very easy sentences. Then pupils are required to fill in the correct pronoun (personal, possessive, demonstrati ...
Ad Mad Worksheet - Identify the Tense used in these popular Taglines and write your answers in the space provided. To learn English Grammar visit Magic Pathshala English Resources. For follow up ...
There are two main exercises on this worksheet. First the pupils have to decide whether to use since or for. Then they must insert either the simple past form or the present perfect. The worksheet ...
This is a test based on the extensive reading "The Happy Prince" by Oscar Wilde.(level 2 or 3) It includes reading comprehension and vocabulary exercises and it can be used after the study of it ...
Worksheet about physical description for total beginners based on the trailer of Monsters inc. Teacher should elicit what students know of the movie, get them to tell the plot. Teacher then reads ...
This is a presentation based on a text in coursebook Project 3 to illustrate the use of Present Perfect and the difference from Past Simple. I used it with my 13-year-old students and it worked re ...
19 14,370ElemPre-IntInt
Got a great worksheet on
Verb Tense Worksheets?
Tell us about it and become a BusyTeacher contributor!