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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After watching the whole movie which is not so long, students have to do the first task that is to remember who the main characters are. The second task is to put the sentences in the right order ...
My Beginners were having problems understanding the use of: what / who / when and where + Present Continuous After some exercises and explanation, I decided to create this game to reassure they un ...
Worksheet (info + exercises) on GOING TO FUTURE - The worksheet contains information about the formation of the "going to" verb phrase + rules of usage + example sentences + fill in the gap exerc ...
Here's my first worksheet of the set. In this one your students must decide what food is suitable for each animal. Then they have to complete some sentences about what the animals eat or don't eat ...
It is a song worksheet of Michael Jackson's song Beat it. There are four types of activities. Your students will love it. It is a famous song. It mostly focuses on listening abilities of the stude ...
The worksheet is useful for learning Present Simple.There are fourteeen questions which start with how often do you...? e. g. listen to music, feed the pet, catch a cold etc. and the answers: som ...
Get your students to practice the past simple in a fun way with this video activity. You can make it into a game by dividing the class into groups and awarding points for correct answers. For adde ...
Simple but fun activity. Have Ss work in pairs, give out the dialogue. Ask them to separate from each other to both of the sides of the classroom (they have to be in fron of each other as far as p ...
Reading comprehension test about a champion and focusing on simple present, this test may suit beginners. It includes a description of a famous sportsman and several activities dealing with compre ...
Another worksheet about daily routines where beginners will make use of the simple present tense, to be, to have, and some action verbs. The paper contains an easy text with various activities tes ...
This pictionary consists of 25 pictures with daily activities with the names under the pictures. The activities are different from a previous ws (Daily routines poster). It is useful to practise ...
The worksheet contains a number of situations your students were presumably involved in a day before. Hand each student one situation, give the class some time time to think it over and ask each o ...
The worksheet presents the song by Alexander Rybak and Lotta Engberg - Baby It's Cold Outside with blanks and teacher's notes on the second page. There are verbs in Future forms in the blanks (Fut ...
Hi everyone! This is a fun worksheet to use at the end of your lesson or to practice the future. First teach the pupils the rules. The pupils receive a worksheet. There they can find plans of dif ...
Reading activtiy about what students do before, at and after school. They cut and glue the pictures to complete the text about a student' s day. Finally, they read the text again ans answer questi ...
Great photos for students to practice Present Continuous! They have to look at the photos and say what people are doing at the moment. They can also ask each other questions (e.g. Are they running ...
It is a simple worksheet to work simple present tense writing about personal facts. You can find different types of activities to practise the verbal tense. Moreover, you will find a reading compr ...
This is a song worksheet. Your students have to open the brackets and complete the song by U2. You can provide them with audio afterwards so they can hear and remember their mistakes. It can also ...
The worksheet consists of 3 tasks: filling in the gaps, correcting the mistakes in lyrics and putting the lines in correct order. I would also recommend translating the lyrics with the students in ...
This presentation is suitable for beginner level students. The collection of strange photographs will make it easy to introduce "Have you ever...?" questions and the reply "I have never...." Eac ...
It is a short review of The Prince and the Showgirl. The leading actors- Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier. This worksheet can be used before or after watching the film or some of its part. On ...
Just a short simple future dictation to aid the student to see the different between going to and will. I read out the dictation then have each student write one sentence on the board. Everyone wa ...
This worksheet consists of 20 pictures and 20 sentences with blanks. The students are asked to complete the sentences with one of three options given. They should pay attention to the time referen ...
Betting game is similar to grammar auction. Students need to decide whether the sentences are correct or wrong and bet between 10 and 100 points on each sentence. This one is designed for revising ...
This worksheet is an exam or quiz about different tenses such as to be (present and past), simple present and past, present progressive, going to and will; It has different kinds of exercises wher ...
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