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 thought this video would be fun to show the students. It could be used to talk about informal speech, discussions about communication, teenagers...lots of things! Also, it should hopefully make ...
This is a worksheet for intermediate student on past perfect tense.There are 3 activities in which students are asked to match the columns,write the correct form of the verbs in brackets and fill ...
Not only for a group but private students will enjoy it too. So, if you want to lead in the present perfect continuous tense you can use this lovely song. Actually there is only one sentence ...
In this worksheet you can practise with your students all the future forms that are used in English language (except future perfect and future perfect continuous). It is a good way to practise and ...
This worksheet is created to work on present simple and the adverbs of frequency, and at the same time to learn about the everyday activities of a tennis player. Students must put the verbs ...
Verbal tenses: simple past and past continuous (complete the charts). With this activity, students will be able to practice the simple past and the past continuous tenses in English. They will con ...
This "worksheet" is a power point presentation dealing with the forms and use of the present simple tense - it's affirmative, negative, question, wh-question and short answer form. The examples ar ...
Here’s another fun and engaging strategy in teaching grammar. A very integrative approach level 2 grammar teachers can use in their review lesson. Contents in this activity were all taken ...
This "worksheet" is a power point presentation - explaining the grammatical forms of the verb "have got" - affirmative, negative, question, short answer and wh-question. There are also the example ...
It´s an oral activity for students to practice vocabulary on movies and make arrangements to meet.They can use expressions to invite, accept and refuse invitations. They have to improvise co ...
A.T. Shank & Son have a bad day at the parlour when a falling boulder flattens their hearse. Emotional and literal pitfalls lie in wait for the odd couple as they make their way cross country ...
This is a useful worksheet about Greek Mythology (Zeus). Students must watch a video, then they have to complete a chart with some information about Zeus. There is a second part where they will ha ...
This is a worksheet contrasting the past simple and the present perfect tense. There's a brief explanation followed by a simple activity in which students are asked to complete the sentences with ...
This "worksheet" is a power point presentation dealing with the forms and use of the present continuous tense - it's affirmative, negative, question, wh-question and short answer form. The example ...
This grammar "worksheet" is a power point presentation. It is explaining the forms of the verb "to be" (long and short forms) -affirmatives, negatives, questions, wh-questions and short answers. A ...
This is a listening worksheet that includes gap completion (with nouns and past tenses) and putting lines in the correct order. I chose this song as my teen students really like it! (The answers a ...
This file includes 12 daily activities, such as "Brush your teeth" and "Make some coffee". There is one activity per page. Page 13 is empty and page 14 is the answer sheet. I've included it as a ...
An interactive grammar table gap fill to help students practice the present simple forms. It can be used with pairs or small groups. The table has gaps which must be filled using the cards provide ...
This is a good song to illustrate the reductions of "going to", "want to" and "have got to" into "gonna" "wanna" and "gotta" in an easy-to-understand context. It also contains a few colloquial phr ...
I found this song on the internet and I noticed many teachers use it for teaching the present continuous. However, I adapted it a little bit by adding some pre, while, and post listening activitie ...
I really love Florence + The Machine and I noticed that in "Cosmic Love" a lot of verbs in the past appear. I divided this handout into three parts: "pre listening", to call their attention and ac ...
I have used the song "Mamma Mia" in order to introduce the past tense to my students. I have also attached a worksheet for the students to order the paragraphs from the song ( main ones). I ...
This 25 slide verbs/daily routine Power Point Presentation is animated with fun cliparts that is sure to amuse and entertain students, as well as get them excited about learning new vocabulary and ...
This 25 slide verbs/daily routine Power Point Presentation is animated with fun cliparts that is sure to amuse and entertain students, as well as get them excited about learning new vocabulary and ...
A quiz about some important facts from the past. There are five questions to complete and five pictures that illustrate the facts or people. First, students match the pictures with the facts. Then ...
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