Being frustrated with my students' difficulties of correctly applying English tenses in exam situations, I looked for a low-friction tool for students to drill verb tenses. Not finding one that either meets my needs or is free, I decided to vibe-code my own.

Main Screen

The home screen shows all tense modules arranged in a grid: past, present, and future in columns. So far, it only features the tenses I deem most important for students to master as a base minimum. For the normal levels, students only need to fill in the gaps correctly. A variety of basic and more advanced verbs are used, in addition to all the irregular verbs from the textbook "English File."

Below, with a yellow hue, are the mixed tenses modules. To submit an answer, students need to first answer some yes/no questions to determine the tense. If they click the question mark, they can see the decision matrix, which is either automatically generated or manually designed in the settings. The idea is that students are forced to think about what tense is used and not merely rely on their gut feelings, as I identified that as a main cause for mistakes.

At the very bottom there are further modules, like All Tenses or Irregular Verbs.

Modules and Levels

Each tense has its own module, which is again subdivided into levels. Usually, modules start with a level on positive sentences, then negative ones, questions, and then mixed sentences.

To advance to the next level, students have to answer at least 10 questions correctly, in addition to having 5 correct in a row. The progress is always displayed at the bottom. With the teacher password, this can be changed in the settings. Locked levels can be unlocked by clicking on them and entering the password.

Saving Progress

As long as students don't delete their browser cache, progress should be saved whenever they open the website again. However, there is the option to export and import progress. In the main screen, students can click on the ··· icon in the bottom left corner and export/import it as a .json file.

Database

The database with all the sentences (and settings) is stored in a json file that is NOT accessible to frontend users (e.g. teachers and students). While one is able to view and change the sentences under "Data," this only changes them within the current browser and does not affect others' databases.

If you have any feedback or would like to see sentences or features added, the easiest way is therefore to directly reach out to me at imelch.b@gmail.com. Note that I work on the tool in my free time and for free, so I might not answer immediately.