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 can be used to improve fluency. It can also serve to revise tenses at the end or beginning of the school year. Students have to read the same text using 14 different tenses. This dr ...
This is a worksheet based on the song "Too Close" by Alex Clare. You can use it with your elementary students. This song will help you to revise the Present Simple Tense and to consolidate the mea ...
This funny power point is about the present continuous where you can practice with your students with a lot of pictures and encourage them to learn in oral form. You can use this activity at the e ...
Hello again dear teachers. This time I brought to you one activity about the use of "have go" and "objects". For example: Mary has got some stickers, but she hasn't got any posters". You can model ...
This worksheet tests students knowledge about the twelve tenses we have in English Language. Students, having learnt the tense forms we have in English should be able to apply them in context. Th ...
A useful worksheet to work and learn the use of simple past and wh questions. An easy way to learn grammar with your students and differenciate the use of regular and irregular verbs and of course ...
Students must transform sentences from the present tense into the past tense. All of the verbs used are irregular in the past tense and therefore the worksheet is slightly harder. I created this w ...
After you have explained about 'there to be' and the use of 'some, any, a lot of, a, an' you can use this handout to practice with the ss. You can create a presentation to describe your neighborho ...
This is a two-page worksheet for practising the present continuous tense. Students work in pairs, they are asked to look at the pictures, read the questions and give their answers. The pictures de ...
This is a 2-page worksheet , which can also be used as a grammar test for elementary students on present continuous. There is a brief explanation at the top of the page followed by 5 different and ...
Hi all, this a really nice activity I use to motivate my students to write an original and interesting story using musical ideas. All you need is pick four different musical pieces. You might want ...
For those more advanced students who have seen these sorts of activities too many times, this might bring some humour and surprise into the usual "Have You Ever" survey. The strange choice of the ...
Probably for older learners - upper KS2 covering all verb tenses. The work sheet covers past, present, future, simple, continuous and perfect - writing sentences with the correct verb tense, recog ...
The worsheet has two exercises. The first one focuses on 'wh-' questions that aim at obtaining someone's personal profile. Candidates are encouraged to answer with complete sentences. The second e ...
This worksheet is presented as a PPT for JOBS and verbs related to them, including sentences in Present Simple only for third person ( he, she) It works perfectly as a vocabulary warm up for the ...
Encourage students to work in pairs. One should describe a picture using the present continuous tense and the other student should draw what he/she hears. Then they compare their pieces with the o ...
This is a worksheet for teaching future forms with going to, holidays and leisure activities related vocabulary. The first page is basically just a picture dictionary, which can also be used as a ...
This is a 2-page worksheet for teaching or revising the present continuous tense. Recommended for elementary students who are asked to look at the picture and write sentences using the verbs given ...
Short parctice on Verb To Be - basic steps. There is a chart on affirmative to be, a chart on negative to be, a chart on contracted forms of to be, plus a chart of questions on To Be and ...
The worksheet consists of 20 pictures, 20 sentences with blanks and a list of 20 verbs. The students have to fill in the blanks with the correct verb from the list by using the "going to" form to ...
Worksheet of how to use the Present Continuous in the sentences. Teachers can always use some new ideas so welcome to the present continuous page which has not only worksheets, but also several ar ...
Exercises to practise the Present Continuous with pictures and more. Teachers can always use some new ideas so welcome to the present continuous page which has not only worksheets, but also severa ...
How we use the Present Simple: explanation. This is the first tense students learn so while previous lessons most likely focused on vocabulary, lessons on the present simple will emphasize basic s ...
Present Simple exercises for all levels. This is the first tense students learn so while previous lessons most likely focused on vocabulary, lessons on the present simple will emphasize basic sent ...
This ppt will help your students to practise regular verbs with different endings- t, d, id and irregular verbs. The pictures will help to remember the verbs better. You can answer the questions w ...
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