4,456 FREE Verb Tense Worksheets Worksheets
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FREE Verb Tense Worksheets

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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Detective & Suspect Dialogue

Detective & Suspect Dialogue

Aytac KANDEMIR
This is a great dialogue worksheet for learners who have difficulty learning some grammar topics such as past simple, past continuous and past perfect. This worksheet is not suitable for young lea ...
7 Views 78,953 ElemPre-IntInt
Past Perfect Tense Video and Worksheet

Past Perfect Tense Video and Worksheet

Watch a video lesson to help students learn about the past perfect tense, and then complete the worksheet to help them continue to practice using the past perfect tense. This actvity can be used i ...
5 Views 37,589 ElemInt
Emergency Services Role Play Cards

Emergency Services Role Play Cards

SI
These role play cards are designed for elementary to pre-intermediate learners. There are 6 different scenarios split between the police, ambulance and fire service. Students work in pairs to prep ...
5 Views 127,366 ElemPre-Int
Urban Legends for High School Students

Urban Legends for High School Students

BusyTeacher Contributor
This is a lesson produced to work with high school students to develop past tenses and the ability of telling and writing stories. The activities are contextualized through the genre Urban Legends ...
8 Views 36,665 IntAdv
Teaching Gerunds Through Creative Writing

Teaching Gerunds Through Creative Writing

Michael Patrick
Lesson 7 in this 24 part series of exercises is almost all about gerunds which are very common in everyday usage and these different exercises will show your students just how much. I've also snu ...
7 Views 38,816 Pre-IntInt
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Progressive Present Practice

Progressive Present Practice

Dilley Rocio
This is an interesting way for practicing the progressive present tense, reading and answering about the paragraphs, learning about our environment too, analyzing what we can do for helping our pl ...
3 Views 21,628 BegElem
Crossword - Present Perfect and Simple Past

Crossword - Present Perfect and Simple Past

Fontanelli
This is a simple crossword designed for elementary / pre-intermediate / intermediate students. It has been designed to help students learn the differences between past simple and present perfect, ...
18 Views 92,247 ElemPre-IntInt
NICE TO MEET YOU! (Find someone who...)

NICE TO MEET YOU! (Find someone who...)

Iván Jaramillo
This is a mingle activity for a group of up to 15 students (last 3 cards can be taken out without any change in the activity). Students' cards include personal information such as name, nationaity ...
11 Views 23,929 ElemInt

"Going To" Verb Tense Board Game

Bình Vũ
This activity serves as a = fun way for your students to practice "be going to." It works best when played in groups of four. To play the game, cut out the cards on the second page and place the ...
7 Views 28,373 Elem
Present Simple - PPT

Present Simple - PPT

This is a presentation about Present Simple where we discuss some basic aspects of this topic, such as the different modalities of the tense, or the use of adverbs of frequency. It contains a lot ...
4 Views 21,189 Beg
Spelling Rules: Simple Present (3rd person he-she-it)

Spelling Rules: Simple Present (3rd person he-she-it)

Diana
This activity requires students to identify the correct spelling of the verbs for the Present Simple for 3rd person singular (he/she/it) and match the verb to its respective spelling rule. Some in ...
6 Views 59,636 ElemPre-Int
Song Worksheet: Castle on the Hill

Song Worksheet: Castle on the Hill

Bethania
After listening to the song "Castle on the Hill," students must complete activities related to the song. Activities include filling in the blanks with the correct words and verb tenses, as well as ...
6 Views 33,629 Int
Simple Tenses Conversation Questions

Simple Tenses Conversation Questions

Murilo Camarini
This is a list of several questions designed to help teach verb tenses. The questions are divided into Simple Present, Simple Past, and Simple Future. This worksheet also contains a bunch of Mixed ...
10 Views 164,979 Pre-IntInt
Daily Routine Game

Daily Routine Game

Maria do Rosário Viana
It's a game to practice the simple present using daily activities as vocabulary. My students liked it so much. It's very simple to play. The teacher chooses one student that will begin. Afterwards ...
10 Views 56,479 Elem
I Love My Family

I Love My Family

This is a simple and easy reading comprehension worksheet on the topic family, physical description and the present simple tense. The worksheet is available in both colour and black and white ...
3 Views 29,866 Elem
Making Sentences in English (Present Simple)

Making Sentences in English (Present Simple)

S.I.
This document is a summary sheet of English tenses, the basic sentence structure and subject pronouns. I use this as an introduction to basic grammar knowledge for complete beginners. The main foc ...
9 Views 34,941 Beg
The Past Tenses Show Poem

The Past Tenses Show Poem

This is a little poem I came up with as a metaphor for the narrative tenses. You can use it as a poster or a fun handout for higher level groups. You can ask them why each metaphor is used and do ...
4 Views 30,424 IntAdvExam
Movie Worksheet: Word Order ,10 + 10 Amazing Facts (Present Simple)

Movie Worksheet: Word Order ,10 + 10 Amazing Facts (Present Simple)

A worksheet to practice the present simple and sentence structure. In the video there is a short explanation of word order in English plus an activity similar to the one in the worksheet with 10 ...
5 Views 26,267 Pre-IntIntAdvExam
What Are They Doing? Present Continuous Boardgame

What Are They Doing? Present Continuous Boardgame

Sara Iancu
This boardgame is designed for students to practice using present continuous. All you will need is a dice and some counters. Students take turns rolling the dice and moving along the board accordi ...
5 Views 50,806 BegElem
5 Uses of the Verb 'to Be'

5 Uses of the Verb 'to Be'

Sara Iancu
I created this PDF to help my students understand the verb 'to be' more easily. The verb 'to be' gets used so much in the English language but students often have difficulty knowing when to use it ...
6 Views 30,227 BegElem
Present Simple Usage

Present Simple Usage

This is a handout accompanied by a YouTube video to introduce present simple to learners. The worksheet contains 10 of the most general uses for present simple, while the video also has an intera ...
3 Views 19,825 Pre-IntIntAdvExam
The Legend of the Scarecrow (Past Tenses Revision)

The Legend of the Scarecrow (Past Tenses Revision)

This is a worksheet to revise the narrative tenses, namely the past simple, past continuous and past perfect. It allows students to practice their listening, reading, pronunciation, vocabulary and ...
8 Views 41,281 Pre-IntIntAdvExam
Passive Voice Worksheet (Simple Past)

Passive Voice Worksheet (Simple Past)

Ghislaine Martínez
This is a simple worksheet about passive voice (using simple past). It has a brief description about the passive voice and its structure in the simple past and items. Item 1: write the sentences u ...
3 Views 49,556 Pre-IntInt
Movie Worksheet: Describing Pictures, Infographic

Movie Worksheet: Describing Pictures, Infographic

This is an infographic I made for a short video on how to describe pictures in English. It talks about the vocabulary and grammar for a great picture description. I think any level could use it es ...
8 Views 46,500 ElemPre-IntIntAdvExam
Present Simple Questions and Short Answers

Present Simple Questions and Short Answers

Rania Foka
This worksheet has been created in order to facilitate elementary young learners practice the question and short negation of the verb 'like' in the present simple tense. Illustrations can be helpf ...
6 Views 24,726 Elem

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