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!
This is a reading worksheet for teaching the present simple tense at elementary level. Students are asked to read the text, mark the sentences given as true or false, and answer the questions. Th ...
This worksheet was designed for the TED talk by Matt Cutts "Try Something New For 30 Days." I made it for my pre-intermediate students, when we covered the topic 'Lifestyle.' It includes the pre-w ...
In this worksheet there are 14 pictures, 14 sentences & a list of verbs. The students have to fill in the blanks with the suitable verb from the list. They have to write the correct form of th ...
This is a 2-page worksheet for teaching the present continuous tense. Recommended for elementary students who are asked to complete the sentences with the present continuous of the verbs in brack ...
Two exercises on past simple of "to be". First, students are asked to match nouns with verbs and places to make affirmative and negative sentences. Then there are a few sentences given. Each of th ...
I find that ESL learners often get confused between the present simple and the present continuous. They learn "skateboarding", "swimming", and "playing football" at school, but rarely the infinit ...
This is a great activity to get students using the simple present and simple past tense (depending on who they have to make 5 clues about). Students are given one of the 10 famous people featured ...
It's a worksheet with sentences to be transformed using different patterns, based on Present Perfect - Past Simple. The transformation patterns are repeated with a few examples of each pattern. A ...
Present Simple worksheet designed for beginners. Have your students practice the present simple in affirmative sentences and make questions with 'do' and 'does'. This may be used after a previous ...
I prepared 24 mixed questions to exercise past simple, past continuous and past perfect tenses. At the end of the worksheet, there is a joke which I took from one of my books. Wanted my worksheet ...
There are two exercises in this worksheet. First one is about ´past simple and present perfect´ and the second one is about´past simple and past perfect´. This is a useful ...
For and Since in the present perfect tense. We use for in the present perfect with a period of time, for example: a few days, half an hour, two years. We use since in the present perfect with the ...
This is a very simple worksheet for young learners which is aimed to practise there is/ there are. There are 3 activities in which students are asked to circle the correct word, complete the sent ...
I used this song for more practice of the past simple tense. Students put the verbs in parentheses in the correct form and then listen to the song to check their answers. Students were asked after ...
This worksheet deals with the present perfect, as well as listening exercises and irregular verbs. Pre-while-post listening exercises are included. The videos can be found here: With lyrics:  ...
This worksheet consists of exercises to practice these two verbal tenses which sts sometimes confuse. I hope it is a help for your lessons and for your pupils in the classroom. As a follow up acti ...
The worksheet helps student learn new vocabularies through a simple reading exercise. The vocabularies are highlighted in each reading exercise. This will not only help student remember the vocabu ...
This is a worksheet for revising the simple past tense at elementary level. There are 3 simple activities in which students are asked to rewrite the sentences given in the negative form, fill in ...
This is a 3-page worksheet for teaching or revising the present simple. Recommended for elementary students who are asked to circle the correct option, complete the sentences with do, does, don't ...
This is a practice of three pages. First of all you will find a part where children need to complete the sentences with the right auxiliary verb. Then you will find a part where they need to circl ...
This is a sheet for explanations. You can find the responses for Agreeing in Affirmative and Agreeing in Negative form. Also you can know likes and dislikes and how to use it. For Present Continuo ...
This is like a general exam that has excersises of verb to be, describing, prepositions and simple present. Also you can downloaded and take the excersises you need. Here you can describe people, ...
I made this using the text that goes like this "English is the most widely used language in the history of our planet...". I used pictures and dictionary definitions to make comprehension easier f ...
when I read this story for the first time I immediately thought that I should use it in my class. As preading or warm-up, I ask some questions about Nasreddin Hodga (a wise man in my culture) to m ...
you can use it to make the sts practice their pronounciations and listening & note taking. You may also use this to teach a grammatical pattern but you may have to make changes. I've done this ...
9 23,003Pre-IntIntAdv
Got a great worksheet on
Verb Tense Worksheets?
Tell us about it and become a BusyTeacher contributor!