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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Read about the new project from google, and learn the present perfect and some future predictions! It can be used to teach how to predict the future, also there are good items to complete. The te ...
This worksheet is about the Past Simple, you can find exercises related to the pronunciation of the -ed, exercises using regular verbs in the affirmative, negative and interrogatives. Also, there ...
With this game, students will work in a group of four to find out where various shops and people are placed on a imaginary town. Divide the class into groups of four students. Give them the blank ...
A great song to use for PAST TENSE practise, PHRASAL VERBS, TIME IDIOMS and CONTRACTIONS I haven’t included the full lyrics this time … do some of the work yourself with the students! ...
With this worksheet, students can revise the present simple and also practice some more of the future with Will and improve their listening skills. The song is very nice and it's an excellent vers ...
Hello again, this worksheet will help you while practicing Present Simple Tense. It includes pictures and time for each picture. You can ask your students questions. For example " What does Jonny ...
This is a simple worksheet contrasting the past simple and the past continuous tense. recommended for intermediate students who are asked to put the words in order and write sentences and fill in ...
This is a very nice song that can be used to teach the use of the simple future to make promises, especially in pre-intermediate or intermediate levels. It is also connected with love or true frie ...
This worksheet is about the difference between Present Simple and Present Continuous, in this sheet we are going to find verbs that cannot be used in the continuous form. In the second exercise, t ...
A great teacher-friendly speaking activity for low levels working on Time/ Questions/ 3rd person singular Simple Present. Teachers can choose the best question formation to suit. Expand by havin ...
As you can see, I love series! This worksheet is about physical appearance: height, build, hair and eyes... Also the usage of verbs TO BE and TO HAVE to describe people. It is based on NEW GIRL, S ...
This worksheet can be used for a listening activity based on the poem Ithaka by Cavafis. It includes a gap-filling activity and reading comprehension questions, after which you could engage studen ...
Students have to find mistakes in given sentences and pictures help them understand any unknown words (the words I thought would be unknown are in bold). Then they can practice questions in pairs. ...
In this worksheet you find pictures and some short texts. Students read them and match to the pictures. Vocabulary of colours and clothing, Present simple and continuous are practised. As a follow ...
This worskeet is based on the book NEF for beginners. Students practise asking questions about the basic things as name, surname, country, where in the country, what room number they have. It is f ...
This worksheet includes different exercises about past simple, present perfect simple, present perfect continuous and past simple. Enjoy! It also includes a question about for and since, and a que ...
This is a song I found on the internet. I used it with my students to practise the Simple Past of Be. Students have to choose between was and were as they listen to the song. You can always adapt ...
I've just turned one of my favorite songs into a worksheet to practice the present perfect tense... I haven't used it yet but I'll try it on my next class. I would first have ss read the lyrics an ...
This is a simple worksheet with a "fill in the blanks" exercise. The song is a new song by the teen group One Direction called "Little Things". There is also a key for the teacher. I hope your stu ...
There is a text describing a village and three exercises about it. In 1 the students are asked to say if the sentences are True/False and correct the false ones. In 2 they have to tick the buildin ...
This is a song I discovered long time ago. I was planning one of my lessons and I didn't know what to do for next class, so I played some music on my computer and, magically, as I listened to the ...
I'm a big fan of Harry Potter and I just remembered this scene from the movie. Students have to complete the handout by writing the correct verb as they listen to and watch the movie. You can alwa ...
This is a simple worksheet contrasting the present perfect simple and the present perfect continuous. Recommended for intermediate students who are asked to fill in blank spaces with the correct ...
This worksheet consists of grammar drills about there is, there are. You can use it during the practice stage of your lesson or give it as homework to your students. You can find various exercises ...
Hi :) I tried to prepare a worksheet which can be used while teaching Past Simple and Past Continuous. The students are given a short story about a robbery at a bank. After reading and examining t ...
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