DrillKit is an AI-powered tool that turns your online lesson chat from Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, or Microsoft Teams into professional, print-ready ESL lessons in under 30 seconds. It automatically extracts vocabulary, generates exercises (gap-fill, error correction, vocab match, word formation, and more), and produces beautiful PDFs tailored to the student's CEFR level and native language.

Does DrillKit support Zoom chats?

Yes! Simply copy the chat text from your Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, or Microsoft Teams lesson and paste it directly into the input area. You can also paste vocabulary lists or handwritten notes. DrillKit's AI strips out timestamps, sender names, and other noise automatically.

Can I export lessons to PDF?

Absolutely. Every lesson is generated as a high-quality, print-ready PDF. Pro users can also export to Google Docs and customize branding with their school logo and accent colors.

Which languages are supported?

DrillKit supports translations in 11 languages: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Turkish, and Russian. The AI auto-detects the student's native language from the chat transcript.

What exercise types can DrillKit generate?

DrillKit generates 11 exercise types: Gap Fill, Vocab Match, Error Correction, Sentence Completion, Multiple Choice, Word Scramble, Sentence Reorder, Translation, Word Formation (Cambridge Part 3), Key Word Transformation (Cambridge Part 4), and Dialogue Builder.

How does the AI extract vocabulary from chat transcripts?

The AI scans your pasted chat transcript, strips out noise (timestamps, reactions, media placeholders), identifies teachable vocabulary, phrasal verbs, idioms, and student errors, then scores each item by relevance. You review and select the best items before generating exercises.

Is DrillKit free to use?

Yes! The free plan includes 20 generations per month with full access to all 13 exercise types, all lesson styles, and custom branding. The Pro plan ($4.99/month or $3.33/month billed yearly) unlocks unlimited generations and priority AI processing.

Can I customize the lesson with my school branding?

Pro users can add their school or institution name, choose custom accent colors, select from 5 lesson styles (Standard, Classic, Modern, Playful, Academic), and add footer text to every generated lesson.

Teaching Past Tenses in ESL: Simple, Continuous & Perfect Explained

The Camera Analogy That Makes It Click

Grammar textbooks describe past tenses in terms of 'completed actions', 'actions in progress', and 'actions before other past actions'. These descriptions are technically correct but cognitively opaque — students nod but don't feel the difference. A better approach uses the camera analogy. Past simple is a photograph: a finished moment, captured and closed. 'I ate breakfast.' Click — done. Past continuous is a video: an action in progress, unfolding over time. 'I was eating breakfast (when the phone rang).' The camera is rolling — we see the action mid-flow. Past perfect is a flashback: stepping FURTHER back in time from an already-past moment. 'I had already eaten breakfast (before she arrived).' We're rewinding the tape. Each tense offers a different cinematic angle on past events, and this analogy gives students an intuitive framework for choosing the right one.

The Three Past Tenses Visualized

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Past Simple — The Photograph

Finished actions at a specific time: 'I lived in Paris for 3 years.' 'She graduated in 2020.' 'We ate at that restaurant last Friday.' The action is complete, closed, done. Time markers: yesterday, last week, in 2019, ago.

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Past Continuous — The Video

Actions in progress at a past moment: 'I was walking home when it started raining.' 'At 8pm, they were watching TV.' Sets the scene (background) while past simple delivers the event (foreground). Used heavily in storytelling.

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Past Perfect — The Flashback

'When I arrived, they had already left.' 'She was tired because she had worked all night.' A past event that happened BEFORE another past event. Creates a two-layer past: the story past and the earlier-than-story past.

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Teacher Tip

“Use story-building activities: give students a story starter in past continuous ('I was walking through the park...') and ask them to add events in past simple ('...when I saw a strange man'). Then add background with past perfect ('He had been standing there for an hour'). This mirrors how native speakers naturally combine past tenses in narratives. Film scene descriptions work brilliantly too: 'What was happening? Then what happened? What had happened before?' DrillKit can generate comprehension exercises from any story text with targeted past-tense gap-fills.”

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I teach the difference between past simple and past continuous?

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Use the photograph vs video analogy. Past simple = snapshot (completed event). Past continuous = video (event in progress). The classic context: 'I was having a shower when the doorbell rang.' The shower is the video (continuous background), the doorbell is the snapshot (sudden interruption). Practice with interrupted-action sentences and picture story descriptions.

When should I introduce the past perfect?

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Introduce past perfect at B1-B2. Students need solid control of past simple before adding another layer. Start with clear 'before' contexts: 'When I got to the station, the train had already left.' The temporal relationship must be obvious. Avoid sentences where past simple alone would work — students need to see WHY past perfect is necessary.

How do I teach irregular past tense verbs?

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Teach the 50 most common irregular verbs in groups based on pattern: no change (put/put, cut/cut), vowel change (swim/swam, drink/drank, sing/sang), and completely different (go/went, be/was). Drill with rapid-fire verb conjugation games. Test with regular quizzes. Accept that this is pure memorization — there are no reliable rules.

Past Tenses: Simple vs Continuous vs Perfect — A Visual Timeline Guide