Perfect tense – Regular, irregular & Vandertramp verbs – KS3-GCSE French lessons

A complete three-lesson teaching sequence for introducing and practising the French perfect tense, moving from regular verbs to irregular past participles and finally to Vandertramp verbs with être.

Each lesson combines clear explanation, teacher modelling and scaffolded practice, with challenge and progression built across the sequence.

What’s included

Lesson 1 – Regular verbs
• Do it now task: retrieval of avoir in the present tense
• Formation of regular past participles with -er, -ir and -re verbs
• Step-by-step modelling: I do, we do, you do
• Pronoun and verb matching
• Sentence reconstruction
• Translation practice with increasing challenge
• Error-correction plenary

Lesson 2 – Irregular verbs
• Do it now task: retrieval of the regular perfect tense
• Introduction to six common irregular past participles: bu, fait, lu, pris, vu, reçu
• Step-by-step modelling and guided practice
• Identifying and correcting incorrect verb forms
• Choice of speaking or written plenary
• Optional mixed regular and irregular perfect-tense practice

Lesson 3 – Vandertramp verbs
• Do it now task: retrieval of regular and irregular perfect-tense forms
• Introduction to the DR & MRS VANDERTRAMP verbs
• Using être as the auxiliary
• Clear explanation of past-participle agreement
• Step-by-step modelling and scaffolded application
• Translation and error-correction practice
• Optional more advanced route including irregular Vandertramp past participles such as venu, né and mort

Also included
• Colour and black-and-white PDF reference printouts for the key grammar rules
• More detailed irregular past participles reference list to stretch more confident students
• All answers included

The main three-lesson sequence is supplied as an editable PowerPoint, allowing you to adapt examples, tasks and pacing for your classes.

Designed for KS3 and GCSE French, this resource can be used from Year 8 to introduce the perfect tense with scaffolded material, through to GCSE classes revising and consolidating their understanding.

Each lesson contains approximately 60 minutes of material, depending on the year group and ability level of your classes. Some exercises are intentionally longer to suit older year groups but can easily be shortened by omitting selected challenge or extension tasks.

I hope you find it useful.

You might also be interested in these resources in my shop:

• French tenses – KS3-GCSE grammar mat
• Tense consolidation – French GCSE worksheets (Foundation & Higher)
• Tenses workbook – KS3-GCSE French

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