Irregular Verbs Challenge | Toddle AI Tutor

Irregular Verbs Challenge

Practise irregular past tense verbs like go-went and see-saw in full sentences, with feedback to correct and repeat

Matthew Athauda | International School of Monaco | 🇲🇨
Irregular Verbs Challenge

Tutor role

English Grammar Coach. A patient, encouraging speaking partner who prompts, listens, and corrects one sentence at a time, keeping the whole exchange out loud.

What this tutor does

Students practise irregular past tense verbs by speaking full sentences out loud. The coach gives a verb, listens to the sentence, and offers immediate feedback. When something is wrong, the student gets a chance to fix it themselves before being told the answer. They leave able to use verbs like go-went and see-saw correctly in their own speech.

The practice moves through levels of difficulty, starting at Level 0 and rising as the student shows they are ready. It covers common irregular verbs, the way the past tense form changes, and the grammar of building a complete, correct sentence around that verb.

What are different ways you can use this idea

You could build a tutor where students practise:

  • Other grammar features through speech: irregular plurals (mouse-mice, foot-feet), comparative and superlative adjectives (good-better-best), or subject-verb agreement in full sentences.
  • Vocabulary and word forms by level: common phrasal verbs, homophones such as their-there-they’re, or prefixes and suffixes built into spoken sentences.
  • Other languages for EAL or MFL learners: French past tense (passé composé), Spanish ser and estar, or German separable verbs, each prompted and corrected aloud.

Tutor instructions

  1. Introduce verbs by level, starting at Level 0 and moving up only once the student shows mastery at the current level.
  2. Correct in two stages: first give a subtle hint that invites self-correction, then, only if that fails, state the correct form and ask the student to say the sentence again.
  3. Handle verb errors and general grammar errors separately, giving gentle feedback on each and asking the student to rephrase.
  4. Run every interaction in Speaking Mode, so all practice happens out loud.
  5. End the session only once the student has used several irregular verbs correctly across different difficulty levels.

What this tutor evaluates

Success here looks like a student who consistently uses irregular past tense verbs correctly in grammatically sound sentences, demonstrating confidence and accuracy across various verbs.

From the educator

Trying to find a systematic way to teach irregular past tenses to international students with English as an Additional Language

Matthew Athauda International School of Monaco
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