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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The following text is related to the present simple. The text can be used as an introduction to the present simple. I think it is a funny text that will help the students to know when we can use ...
This is a present simple quiz that the teacher can use as an exam or as a way to check if the students understood the materials about present simple. Through the following quiz, students will be ...
This document is a short summary about ¨The Future¨. It also explains the difference between the future continuous and the present continuous. It's made for beginner students ...
This 1 page worksheet helps students to review the simple past tense with some regular and irregular verbs. It can be used as an intro to the past tense or as a simple review for students. I intro ...
This is a really good listening activity to use with lower level students after teaching simple past verb forms. These sheets have been set up for elementary level students - partner A and partner ...
It is an amazing simple past tense speaking activity for beginner to intermediate ESL learners. There are 24 past simple speaking prompts that designed like a quiz. They choose the number they wan ...
Simple worksheet to practice "My favourite ... is..." construction. Students complete the first sentence and then add their own ideas. Then they draw pictures to illustrate their favourite things. ...
Simple yet fun way to practice vocabulary related to countries, nationalities and languages. Divide your students into teams of 4 and have them compete against each other to complete the first wor ...
The exercise contains the basic expressions. The pupils have to write the correct questions e.g. how old are you? how are you? and afterwards give a short answer to each of the questions. There is ...
Future tenses worksheet in the song "Survival" performed by the British band known as Muse. This song is the official soundtrack of the Olympic Games in London (2012). This worksheet contains the ...
These two exercises provide students with some practice in the uses of the present perfect. The first one is ideal for a mingling activity in which Student A tells Student B what Juan has or hasn' ...
A 3-page worksheet for elementary students on have / has got. There's a brief explanation followed by 4 activities in which students are asked to fill in the blanks with have got or has got, ask ...
It is a worksheet with a grammar explanation on when to use the different types of future: will, going to or the present continuous. The worksheet also contains some exercises so students can prac ...
This song worksheet will help your students practice pronunciation and introduce the present continuous. Mixed exercise based on complicated by Avril Lavigne: Connected verbs in progressive with s ...
Present Continuous tense is the main topic for this very easy listening worksheet, that can be used with basic levels, since it mainly looks to reinforce the spelling rules of the present continuo ...
This activity was designed for kids. First of all you'll have to say the words and ask them to repeat. Then they can write the names of the images and color. Afterwards, they have to answer: "What ...
It is a worksheet of two exercises about the future tense. In the first exercise, students have to fill in the gaps with the will or the be going to forms + the verbs in bold. In the second exerci ...
Practice speaking using present perfect using vocabulary on housework. Students can practice the have you ever structure... It contains pictures of various household chores that students use to as ...
Through the following power point you can introduce the two tenses: present simple and present progressive or continuous and compare them. There are examples on how to use each tense in the positi ...
This worksheet consists of two exercises to practise/revise the present simple, past simple and past perfect. In exercise1 the students have to fill in the blanks with the correct present perfect ...
You can check the form al English tenses at a glance. It's a useful tool for students who are learning tenses, they can have it as a quick reference hand-out when doing exercises. Teachers can dow ...
In this activity the students have to write the correct form of the simple present's to be. On the board, I will go over the simple present form of "to be" and will make sure the students understa ...
This handout is for practicing pronunciation and speaking communication, it presents famous characters and some actions they could do well when they were younger, students are requested to repeat ...
Students report events while they talk about car repairs, sketchy mechanics and other issues in everyday speech. These dialogues provide vocabulary and model structures with which to build their ...
Hello everyone, this a simple review exercise of the past simple tense. There are two exercises. You can use it after you have finished explaining all the rules of this verbal tense. Have your stu ...
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