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 is a fully animated PowerPoint presentation for teaching or revising the differences between have and has at elementary level. Students are asked to fill in the blank spaces by choosing the ...
First, have your students filling in the gaps with the correct form (using the Simple Past) of the verbs given. Then, play the song, so they can order the sentences. It's a simple and yet fun acit ...
If you have some time to spend on it, you can play the song to your students before you hand them the worksheet. Have them trying to guess how many times they listen to "gonna" and "will". You can ...
This is a simple worksheet that will help you students to comprehend the use of Simple present tense in the third person singular. It uses inductive grammar to explain this topic in a clear, simpl ...
If you what your lower-level students to write, this is an excellent worksheet. The main theme is music and they will love that! This worksheet will help them to make comparisons between music gen ...
In this worksheet I have included some well-known musicians. This worksheet is intended to help the students interact with each other in pairs while they practice speaking in English with a guess- ...
This is a worksheet for teaching the past simple tense at intermediate level. There's a brief explanation followed by 3 different activities in which students are asked to complete the table with ...
Past Simple irregular verbs to get the target language with the song by Coldplay - Paradise. I worked this song with my students from 6th grade (primary). They had a lot of fun and it was a simple ...
Very Funny video from youtube! Listening comprehension & video watching Discussing New Year Resolutions & health matters! Anticipation, gap filling exercise, comprehension, vocabulary word ...
I used this to work reading comprehension in a basic young adult class, using only present simple. Very simple exercise that involves the students reading a text about a person and filling out a p ...
A beautiful song to practice tag questions for Intermediate students. The worksheet has blank spaces to fill in. It may also be useful for simple preent and the so called "imperative" structure; y ...
Students have to ask questions in the Present Simple Tense using the prompts in the cards. Teachers who are not from Brazil may change some words in the cards. E.g. Jundiai, Campinas. This activit ...
A power point presentation with pictures to teach occupations, the use of a/an, verb to be in the present tense (afirmative, negative and interrogative forms). The pictures illustrate the occupati ...
This Power Point presentation aims to present the different forms of this tense (affirmative, negative and interrogative). I've made it to explain through some animated pictures of familiar charac ...
This practical worksheet is about K-Pax movie. First at all, you MUST watch the film with your students. Target areas: vocabulary, multiple choice questions and writing. The worksheet is for ...
This worksheet can be used to review Simple Present tense and Prepositions In, On and At. Students must check if the sentences are correct or not, and must also correct the wrong sentences changin ...
Twelve questions with pictures to practice Present Continuous and Yes/No questions. Wonderful to help students remember everyday verbs. It can be used to start conversation topics among students. ...
Very simple to use, a students asks another student a number and a letter. Numbers are the pronouns I, you, he, she etc, and the letters are adjectives, such as happy, cold etc.. The other student ...
This is a speaking activity where students will practice the adverbs of frequency, specially always, usually, sometimes, never, once, twice… Students will work in pairs and they will ask qu ...
This is a 2-page worksheet for teaching or revising the verb to be at elementary level. The first page is basically just a grammar guide with clear explanations and example sentences and the seco ...
Looking for new interesting ways to teach or review the Future Perfect Progressive? You've come to the right place! Here's our latest grammar reference poster that contains 7 short activities to p ...
Looking for new fun activities to review the Past Perfect Progressive? Here's our latest reference poster from the 'Grammar' series that contains 7 short activities that your students will adore! ...
Looking for new (and fun!) ways to practice the Present Perfect Progressive? Here's our new reference poster from our new 'Grammar' series that contains short but very effective activities that y ...
Pair work speaking activity: Students A and B have different pictures. First, teacher elicits the needed vocabulary with the whole group. Secondly, students work on the questions individually, w ...
Three pages filled with activities for teaching or revising the past simple tense. Recommended for elementary students who are asked to read the text and answer the questions, write the past simp ...
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