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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This worksheet contains some revision exercises with Present Perfect - rearranging the words, changing Past Simple into Present perfect using the correct time expressions, a chart with time expres ...
This is a chart comparing Present Simple and Present Continuous. Good for revising these two tenses with elementary to pre-intermediate students. The chart has some missing gaps for students to fi ...
This is a worksheet for teaching or revising the future perfect at intermediate level. There's a brief explanation at the top of the page followed by a simple activity in which students are asked ...
This is a True or False activity about Kung Fu Panda 2. This activity can be done after students had watched the movie.There are twenty statements about the characters and the movie's story. The ...
This worksheet contains brief descriptions of 12 situations to which students are supposed to react by using one of the verb phrases in bold. It practices verbs followed by infinitive or -ing form ...
This worksheet is to present or review these tenses in a straightforward manner I guess. Then, they make true examples. And as a follow-up you can do some conversation in small groups. Also, you c ...
I use 'Find Someone Who (Simple Present)' as a warm up or as an activity following a lesson on SIMPLE PRESENT with adult learners. The reason I specify 'adult learners' is that the questions mostl ...
This worksheet aims to help young learners pronounce the -ed endings correctly. It explains thoroughly the categories of the -ed pronunciation and has an exercise to practise. It is taught along ...
This worksheet contains questions about ORIGIN, PROFESSIONS, DESCRIPTION OF HOME, CLOTHES. It is perfect for students who have learned about describing houses/furniture and clothes. They can watch ...
students are guided to ask and answer questions for third person singular and plural .They are encouraged to practice the short dialogues in pairs. They can then be asked to write paragraphs about ...
It is suitable for young children who start learning English late. It contains both grammar and vocabulary exercises. It is in English but you can translate the directions to your students on how ...
This three--page class sheet works perfectly well in class and students grasp the use of Simple Past tense very easily. It could ideally be used as a practice sheet immediately after the presentat ...
Past Simple and Past Continuous Tense worksheet for intermediate ESL learners. It is divided into two sections: Vocabulary section to review past form of verbs, and Grammar Section to comprehend s ...
This is a 2-page worksheet contrasting the present simple and the present continuous tense. The first page is basically just a grammar guide and the second page has 3 different activities in whic ...
A simple and funny chart which presents Present simple (in the affirmative, negative and interrogative forms) in a nutshell. It can be hung on the wall in the classroom. It is especially useful fo ...
A short reading, and some activities to practice present simple. Also, a good way to introduce jobs, and review names of farm animals. It can be used as an introduction of different jobs, and also ...
There is a table that the students have to read first and then write questions using the structure 'have you ever....?' Later they have to give short answers to the questions.There is an example ...
I have used this worksheet as a warm-up to introduce the past. It is suitable for Spanish speakers as there are some dates that only Spanish speakers will know. It can be challenging because stude ...
The song activity is designed for students of pre-intermediate and intermediate level. It has three sections; in the first one the student will identify opposites and present perfect continuous ...
It's the short worksheet which contains tasks according to the video "Hot it's made. Frozen pizza". It has vocabulary, correct order task and simple questions about pizzas. I hope, it will be usef ...
Practise the PRESENT CONTINUOUS (affirmative, negative and interrogative forms), sentences to complete with CAN & CAN´T and vocabulary about CLOTHES (They find the words in the wordsearc ...
Present Simple worksheet talking about favorite day routines (some adverbs of frequency are used in the text) Part 1 of the worksheet: a reading comprehension exercise Part 2 of the worksheet: the ...
I used these pictures to hammer home the difference between 'going to' and 'will' predictions. Ended up cutting up the pictures and the students selected pictures to stick in their books and write ...
This worksheet includes a brief explanation of how we make verbal tenses in English and the related names (auxiliary verb, main verb, infinitive, gerund, participle, tense,...), a formulaic/synthe ...
This worksheet is about there is and there are. Reading comprehesion. Vocabulary about the house. In this worksheet students describe the house in order to use the vocabulary about the house, th ...
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