Practise verb tenses on the whiteboard

A sentence on the board with one word missing, and the whole verb printed underneath it. The class puts in the right form and sees straight away whether it was right. You choose which tenses, which verbs and what the sentences are about. No account, no adverts, nothing to install.

How it works

Choose the tenses
Present simple, past simple, present perfect, or several at once. With more than one switched on, the hardest question is on the board: work out which tense it is first, and only then the form.
Choose the verbs
Regular verbs only, where the -ed rule always works, or irregular ones as well. Start with regular: while the rule is still being learned, a verb that ignores it is only confusing.
Choose a topic
Football, holidays, sport, gaming, school or music. The grammar does not change, the sentences do, and a class reads a sentence about a penalty in the last minute rather differently from one about a man walking to a shop.
Let the class fill it in
A sentence appears with a gap in it. A child types the form and presses enter. The right form then stands in the sentence and the next one comes up on its own. At the end you get the score and can walk back through every sentence.

Why a sentence beats a list of verb forms

Verb tenses hardly ever go wrong because a class does not know the rule. They go wrong because the rule only helps once two other things have been seen: which tense the sentence is in, and who is doing it. A list of verbs on its own says neither.

So the question here is always a whole sentence. "She writes the neatest in the class" and "She wrote a story three pages long" need different forms of the same verb, and nothing in the verb itself tells you which — the rest of the sentence does.

The whole verb is printed under the gap. Without it, a class is guessing which verb belongs there, and that is vocabulary practice rather than grammar. With it there is exactly one question left: which form.

The three tenses, and what each one teaches

The present simple is the third person s: I play, she plays. It is the smallest rule in English and the one a class forgets for years, precisely because it is one letter and only on one person.

The past simple splits the language in two. Regular verbs take -ed, with the spelling rules that go with it: the p in stop doubles, the y in carry turns into an i. Irregular verbs simply have to be known — go became went, not goed — and mixing the two is what makes the exercise real.

The present perfect adds the third form, which for irregular verbs is a word of its own again: go, went, gone. Those three are what every irregular verb table in every classroom is a list of, and this puts them in sentences instead.

Typing or choosing

By default the class types the form. That is the honest version: you cannot guess, and you have to produce the word. For a child standing at the board it is also the real work.

At the bottom of the start screen there is a switch to choosing instead: three forms side by side, and the class points at one. That is how a worksheet asks it, and it is the easier half. Useful for a younger class, for a round where the discussion matters more than the speed, or when the board is handed to a group that does not type quickly.

The three forms are never random words. They are the ones that get mixed up: play, plays and playing in the present, went against gone and goed in the past. Even when the class is choosing, the question is still the right question.

How many sentences, and what comes after

A round is five, ten, fifteen or twenty sentences. Ten makes a decent lesson: long enough for a pattern to show, short enough to still have time to talk about it.

After the last sentence the score goes up on the board. "Check the answers" lists every sentence of the round with the right form in it, and with what was typed where that was wrong. That list is where the lesson really starts: not how many were right, but why that one was not.

With an account, a finished round earns points, more of them the more answers were right. It is not required: without signing in the tool works exactly the same.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an account?

No. The tool opens straight away and works without signing in. With an account, finished rounds count towards points, but nothing else changes.

What age is this for?

From around age nine, when verb tenses start being taught. Begin with the present simple and regular verbs only; with all three tenses at once and irregular verbs mixed in it is still demanding at the top of primary school.

Can I practise more than one tense at a time?

Yes, and it is the hardest setting. Switch two or three on and the sentences come up mixed, so the class has to work out the tense before anything else. You cannot switch all three off: there has to be something to ask.

What counts as an irregular verb here?

Any verb the -ed rule does not reach: go, win, write, catch, think. In the present simple almost everything in English is regular, so there the setting mainly adds be, have and do.

Does a child have to type, or can they point?

Either. At the bottom of the start screen you choose between typing and picking one of three forms. Typing is the default, because choosing can be guessed.

Do capitals and spaces count?

No. Only the letters of the verb are checked, so a capital or a trailing space makes no difference. The spelling of the form does.

Which spelling does it use?

British spelling: travelled with two Ls, practised with an S. The near-miss forms offered beside it are the ones a class actually writes.

Does it cost anything?

No. Every tool on Reppilo is free to use, with no adverts.