FRENCH IR VERBS CONJUGATION PRACTICE #4

GCSE FRENCH KS4 FRENCH KS3 FRENCH IR VERBS CONJUGATION PRACTICE SIX WORKBOOKS & TENSES @ £1.00 EACH IN THE BUNDLE featuring 25 high-frequency French IR verbs in the present, perfect, imperfect, near future, simple future and conditional tenses.

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My students really like this kind of grammar activity, as they like to work and learn independently, which is a successful way of varying teaching and learning methodologies - I’ve found it’s really important to avoid predominantly teacher-led learning in the languages classroom. There are 150 conjugations across 3 differentiated conjugation challenges with a full answer key in each set, so 900 conjugations in total.

I use these kinds of workbooks in lots of different ways: for practice during the introduction phase, for independent choice in class time, for home learning, for practice and revision during vacation and at return to class, and for cover lessons - they’re really versatile, and ideal for advanced KS3 French and KS4 French students who are developing their conjugation skills in French, and beginning to work with more complex language and texts, including a range of tenses. The workbooks focus on the mechanics of conjugation, rather than usage, and I’ve found that when my students are able to provide the correct conjugation very quickly, and out of a specific context, they feel really confident that their conjugation skills are developing well.

The workbooks focus on formation and conjugation, rather than usage, though it’s definitely useful to remind students of a number of things when focusing on or revising tense and verb formation and conjugation. Language learners tend to conflate what they know about grammar in their first language with the grammar of the language they are learning. For example, with the imperfect tense in French, students with English as a first language frequently use the construct***j’étais courir instead of je courais as a translation of I was running***. They also tend to look for a direct equivalent of the notion of ***used to…***, before they embed the knowledge that this is implicit in the tense itself, indicated in the verb ending.

There are specific differences in usage between English and French with this tense, and I do always discuss this with students about this when we’re using the workbooks - I tend to work fairly simultaneously with le passé composé and l’imparfait, because students are better able to understand correct usage when they look at a range of past tense contexts together, for example I have run, I ran, I was running, I used to run. I refer frequently the difference in usage between English and French, and this is important particularly when explaining when and in which contexts to use the imperfect tense in French.

Though the workbooks focus solely on the correct conjugation of verbs, and does not look at word order in the context of full sentences, there are conjugation patterns that students can learn, recognise and apply, ensuring that their spoken and written French is accurate, and that their understanding of French across the skills of l***istening, speaking, reading and writing*** is robust. Students become very familiar and confident the more they work with conjugation, and these quick conjugations certainly help to embed that successfully.

The tenses are:

present tense (le présent)
simple future tense (le futur simple)
near future tense (le futur proche)
perfect tense (le passé composé)
imperfect tense (l’imparfait)
conditional tense (le conditionnel)

Each set is structured as follows:

Two alphabetical verb reference lists: French-English and English-French.

Three conjugation challenges, each with 50 individual conjugations:

Conjugation Challenge 1: each verb conjugated in French across a range of pronouns, with students writing the corresponding English verb conjugation.

Conjugation Challenge 2: gives the infinitive of each verb in French, specifying the target pronoun. Students write the corresponding verb conjugation in French.

Conjugation Challenge 3: students write the corresponding French verb conjugation, and its infinitive, from an English prompt.

Notes and Next Steps template which students visit regularly - it really does encourage them to think about where they are now, how confident they feel, and what they might need to work on a little more to be absolutely sure of their conjugation skills. We also note down any new verbs we meet, which enables students to build up their own verb vocabulary bank. It’s a great tool to guide and inform whole-group discussion about learning and progress in general, which is a really successful and popular activity.

answer key: 6-page booklet which is absolutely essential in my view. Answer keys help students develop more independence in their learning, and provide them with an additional opportunity to engage with language and grammar. They also genuinely enjoy correcting their own - and particularly each others’ - work.

Try this free sampler to see whether this kind of activity would work well for your students:

FRENCH CONJUGATION PRACTICE FREE SAMPLER
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/french-verbs-conjugation-practice-sampler-12307809

Currently in my store I have quick conjugation workbooks for each of these verbs groups across the following tenses:

present tense (le présent)
simple future tense (le futur simple)
near future tense (le futur proche)
perfect tense (le passé composé)
imperfect tense (l’imparfait)
conditional tense (le conditionnel)
pluperfect tense (le plus-que-parfait)
future perfect tense (le futur antérieur)
conditional perfect tense (le conditionnel passé)

Have a browse in my store for more French grammar activities, with a wide range of French language teaching and learning materials, with special offer bundles and lots of freebies too - I’ve included a selection here.

MERCI BEAUCOUP ET BONNE CONJUGAISON !