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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In this worksheet there are 2 exercises to revise the present & the past both in the simple and continuous form. In 1, the students have to fill in the gaps with the correct simple or continuo ...
First students watch the video and then answer the questions for the fisrt activity. After that, you can work on some words meaning for the second activity. Finally, students have to complete the ...
I personally love this song, so I'd wanted to bring it to my classroom in a creative way. We've been studying the past perfect, and the story told in this song is perfect to relate past and presen ...
A very easy-to-use present simple tense worksheet for reference and for all those who want to master the tense once and for all. This A4 format one-page is an all-level grammar guide and nearly 10 ...
This worksheet is appropriate for basic level students helping them to make questions in simple present and present continuous. It can be used after pair work activities about asking daily routine ...
It is a simple worksheet to revise past simple tense. The first exercise uses the words that appear in the lyrics of the song. It is suitable for teenagers as well as adults, to learn or just for ...
Complete beginners and elementary students will surely appreciate this funny “grammar tree”. It will help them to memorize the forms of the verb to be according to the corresponding pe ...
It's a nice activity to work out the use of TO BE verb with very early levels. There's also a vocabulary activity. I would ask stds to complete the vocabulary activity firstly and then explore th ...
Take a look at this worksheet aimed for elementary students. This song is great to work the Present Perfect tense. In the fisrt activity you can ask your students to fill in the gaps after listen ...
This is a worksheet for revising both animals related vocabulary and the present simple tense. There are 2 pages with activities in which students are asked to make questions and then choose the c ...
Listening Activity - there are different kinds of exercises ( fill in the gap, order the verses, unscrable the words or sentences) to practice listening in a funny way. I hope you enjoy!
This is a 2-page worksheet contrasting the past simple and the past continuous. There are simple explanations at the top of the page followed by 2 different activities in which students are asked ...
This is a worksheet for revising the future forms: will, going and present continuous. There are explanations and example sentences followed by an activity in which students are asked to complete ...
The pupils watch and describe safari pictures using the present continuous. I added some phonetics to practise saying the names of some wild animals (zebras, leopards, giraffes, lions etc...). Thi ...
Excellent to practice comparatives. "Who's Better?" is a worksheet to be used with the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SogBz3aAle0. Ss will enjoy watching two teen dancers perform in the s ...
This is a worksheet for revising the present continuous for future arrangements. There's a brief explanation at the top of the page followed by a simple activity in which students are asked to com ...
Mr. Bean's real identity is revealed. This worksheet contains Rowan Atkinson's biography as well as reading comprehension questions and the key. This worksheet was designed for Mexican ELL's in th ...
This is a worksheet for teaching or revising the present perfect continuous. The first page is basically just a grammar guide with simple explanations and example sentences and the second page has ...
By providing the students with a picture of The Simpson's Family tree, they have to look carefully in order to find out what the mistery word is. This activity can be used as a warm up or revision ...
If you are teaching the present continiuos tense and adding -ing to infinitives, this song is ggreat fun for elementary and preintermediate students. I am sure that you will enjoy this song by Foo ...
This activity you can easily introduce or review simple past with regular and irregular verbs. The song is divided into 3 exercises. exercise one the students are supposed to complete the song wi ...
This worksheet is designed for elementary students of English. It can be even used as a review of past simple, present simple and adjectives. The first famous person is Ayrton Senna and there are ...
For adult, complete beginner students - When using your own personal information becomes too boring (and too easy), use this activity to change things up. Each student receives a card with their ' ...
Wouldn’t it be nice to see just how much your students are imaginative and creative? These photos can be used to provoke critical thinking. Pre-intermediate students can practise past tenses ...
Students are often puzzled when they have to distinguish tenses in English. Since there are three present tenses, it can be difficult for them to know when each of them is used. This worksheet pro ...
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