FRENCH REFLEXIVE VERBS CONJUGATION PRACTICE #1

GCSE FRENCH KS4 FRENCH KS3 FRENCH CONJUGATION PRACTICE REFLEXIVE VERBS PRESENT, PERFECT & IMPERFECT TENSES 3 workbooks @ £1.20 each in the bundle 25 high-frequency reflexive verbs, 150 conjugation questions in each set across 3 differentiated challenges, so 450 conjugations in total, answer keys & verb lists

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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. French reflexive verbs can be quite tricky, particularly for students whose first language does not have a similar reflexive verb group.

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 do often try to conflate what they know about grammar in their first language with the grammar of the language they are learning, and students whose first language is English often use the auxiliary avoir instead of être with the passé composé for example. Students do need to to have a good grasp of the auxiliary verb être in the present tense to ensure that they can form the perfect tense in French accurately. In terms of the past participle, students begin to be able to predict it accurately, the more they see it, and construct it.

French reflexive verbs tend to require additional practice for learners with English as a first language - firstly, the correct reflexive pronoun, and secondly, its location within a clause or sentence in relation to the pronoun and verbs. With l’imparfait, I often see students using j’étais me lever, je m’étais lever or even j’étais se lever instead of je me levais as a translation of I was getting up. 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 got up, I got up, I was getting up, I used to get up. Though the workbooks focus on formation / conjugation, rather than usage, I do always discuss these kinds of issues with students about this when we’re using the workbooks. I’ve found that this kind of conjugation practice workbook really helps students to***recognise and predict*** conjugation patterns.

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 listening, 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)
perfect tense (le passé composé)
imperfect tense (l’imparfait)

Each set has the following structure:

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.

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, and a wide range of other French teaching and learning materials, with special offer bundles and lots of freebies too!

MERCI BEAUCOUP ET BONNE CONJUGAISON !