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 set of activities based on the movie "Tangled". It includes vocabulary practice, mainly. The colouring activities are optional and there are 2 pictures (one of the princess for the girls ...
This a song activity to Practice Present Perfect and Past Simple, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (by U2). You can use it with teens and adults!!
Level: Elementary o +.
First, ...
Hey everybody. Well this is a worksheet I made for my ss to have something different and stop focusing only on vocabulary... It is interesting how they have fun and do their best to complete the s ...
This is a fully animated PowerPoint presentation for teaching the present continuous tense at elementary level. There are clear and simple explanations and example sentences.
This is a worksheet contrasting the present perfect and the past simple tense. There is a brief explanation followed by 2 activities in which students are asked to write been or gone in each gap a ...
This is an interesting activity for your students to use past tense and question formation. In pairs they have to prepare an interview to a famous person, the dates and facts are provided. 10 minu ...
This is a 2-page worksheet for elementary students on present simple and present perfect tense. There is a brief explanation followed by 4 different activities in which students are asked to read ...
Quick reminder of the use of the present simple, present continuous, past simple, past continuous and the present perfect followed by an exercise in which the students have to put the verbs into t ...
Practice worksheet for correctly using simple present and present continuous. Complete the sentence by selecting the correct tense of the verb provided. Verbs are all sports verbs of Summer Oly ...
This worksheet is about using verb to be in present simple (affirmative, negative and questions) with adjectives to describe people, places and things. It has a grammar review / preview part which ...
Students have to fill in the blanks with correct answer based on the questions given.They also must rewrite the following affirmative statements as questions, negative statements, negative questio ...
This is a set of invented tarot cards. I use them to review simple tenses with lower levels, but I'm sure it's also perfect with more advanced students. Divide the class in pairs or groups of four ...
This is a movie worksheet for "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (2011). The worksheet is divided into six sections, and each section has the specific timing to help you through the viewing. The fil ...
I am running two weeks of middle school summer classes with an Olympic theme (since the Games are currently happening in London!). These country profiles are for a lesson about different countrie ...
I am running two weeks of middle school summer classes with an Olympic theme (since the Games are currently happening in London!). This worksheet is for a lesson about different countries' Olympi ...
This is a listening activity that can help your students to develop this skill, in addition it is a good way to review the different tenses. I used it after studying tenses like simple present or ...
This activity is good for practicing verbs in the Past Participle, so students get used to them when using the Present Perfect Tense. I also used some phrasal verbs to check their meaning and to h ...
A worksheet with exercises made to show the students the difference between the simple past and the present perfect tenses. After the teacher's explanation, the students are going to practice to s ...
I have been doing a series of classes on the 2012 London Olympics with my Korean middle school students. My students always seem to appreciate music in class, so I made a gap fill for "Proud" - a ...
This is a 15 question activity about the movie Knowing, starring Nicholas Cage. Its main topics are the paranormal, the Apocalypse, the end of the world, etc. The questions are designed to get the ...
This is a worksheet for teaching there is and there are structure. There's a brief explanation at the top of the page followed by 2 activities in which students are asked to look at the picture an ...
This worksheet offers a gap fill activity, a present simple / present continous activity, an irregular verbs activity, a speaking activity (students imagine her side of the story and come up with ...
Here is a short test on past simple tense of the verb TO BE, regular and irregular verbs. You can use it after you had lessons during which you had explained the rules concerning the past simple t ...
This worksheet is useful to practice How long ...(duration of activities and tenses ...)
It's an exercise with questions about duration of daily activities. You can develop a conversation about i ...
This is a colourful classroom poster which can also be used as a study sheet on past simple regular verbs. Recommended for elementary students the file is available in both colour and black and ...
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