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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These are cards that have to be cut before using them. Originally they were designed to practice certain verbs but they can be used to practice 'in the morning', 'in the evening' and 'at night' as ...
This is a set of pictures about a family to describe them. There is also a list of words that students should use. I don't give it to them, it should be part of the pre-teaching. I use these pictu ...
This is a charades game to practice the present continuous. The question to ask is "What are you doing?" and one of them has to pick a card (they can be cut up and laminated for best results) and ...
This is a two part worksheet with 26 sentences using subject verb agreement. On the second part, students write the numbers of the two sentences using the same pattern, label the pattern, and wri ...
I made this after one unit with a b1 class so we could see how they were getting on. Uses present simple tense and continuous. As well as past simple. Affirmative/negative/interrogative. Telling t ...
This presentation offers speaking tasks on inventions: giving opinions, making up sentences, predicting, describing. Past tenses are also revised here, Past Simple in particular. Useful phrases fo ...
This worksheet addresses the Valentine's Day topic with revision of past tenses and Passive Voice. It offers three activities: choosing the correct answer, putting verbs into the correct tense and ...
It is an integrated presentation for young learners. It contains speaking, writing, listening, grammar, reading and warm-up activities. There is a reading passage about Snow White and the seven dw ...
This is an easy worksheet contrasting the past simple and past continuous tense. Recommended for elementary students who are asked to complete the sentences with the past simple or the past contin ...
This is a worksheet for teaching the past continuous tense. Recommended for elementary students who are asked to complete the sentences with the past continuous of the verbs in brackets,complete t ...
This is a very useful presentation to introduce will and going to. You can use it with different level, by adapting it, adopting or creating a new one. I hope it would be very useful for you and y ...
This is a listening, grammar and vocabulary activity aimed at a good elementary class to pre-intermediate level. There are two versions in this attachment. The class takes between 1-1.5 hours depe ...
This worksheet consists of 24 pictures, 24 sentences with blanks and 24 verbs. The students have to choose a verb to fill in the gaps in the present simple. The aim of the exercise is to practise ...
I've created a test which consists of present, past and future tenses. It is suitable for pre-intermediate and intermediate students who would like to practise tenses. For some students it is ver ...
This PPT can be used to improve SS' speaking skills on the topic HOME. Students can match the words with the pictures. You can give grammar construction There is-there are in the affirmative, nega ...
This PPT presentation can help you to teach your students to use the prepositions of place -on and -in in a very short vocabulary activity: forest, house, zoo, farm. You can practise the 3rd perso ...
Hello, I created a worksheet to practise winter activities and Present Simple tense. It is a simple mingling activity. Hope you'll enjoy it! Your students will practise asking questions and also ...
This worksheet contains the biography of Mark Twain which is followed by a reading comprehension exercise and some exercises to practise the Past Simple tense - regular and irregular verbs; affirm ...
This worksheet consists of three forms of past perfect: positive, negative, and question. Each form has examples with different subjects. I think that this worksheet can give a clear picture to th ...
Hello :) this worksheet was prepared to practice "will". Students can learn the different usages of "will" such as making an offer, prediction, planning and also spontaneous decisions. There are ...
Hello :) You can find a short test which is written in very simple English and three other activities which are related to that text (reading comprehension). Activities are True or False, answerin ...
There are two tasks: in the first sts have to choose the correct option and in the second exercise students complete the sentences using the verb given in brackets using the past continuous tense. ...
This worksheet contains 7 exercises for elementary students. The tasks are concerned with the use of: the verb TO BE, the Present Simple tense, prepositions, adverbs of frequency and plural forms ...
This worksheet has a lesson on Past Progressive and Past Simple with exercises. The teacher can explain the lesson based on the given examples and the time lines, which makes the students understa ...
This is a speaking activity using present simple in which students survey their classmates about household chores. Students write their classmates names in the top row of boxes. With each classma ...
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