How sick are you of finding blog posts and websites on teaching passé composé and then being UTTERLY disappointed?
I used to spend FOREVER trying to find resources on Google. I would often find blogs of extremely boring and unoriginal worksheets.
On the other hand, blog authors would also tell me to teach with “music” or “videos” or “photos”. However, they would neglect to share links or examples of videos, music or photos.
Don’t worry fellow French teacher – I have your back!!
This blog post contains tried and tested activities and assessment I’ve done in my own class! It will definitely make teaching passé composé a lot more fun and much less stressful!
1. Deux vérités et un mensonge
This is one of my favourite activities to do when I initially teach passé composé. It also serves as a fun and effective reinforcement game!
If you are reading this during the pandemic, you can play this game whether you are F2F, hybrid or remote. Here’s how I organize this in my own classroom :
1. Have your students write down 2 truths and 1 lie about themselves using passé composé (remind them that no one in the class should know any of them)
2. Go around (F2F or virtually) and have your students share!
Modifications :
- have students create slides with stock photos so that their classmates can comprehend better
- get your students to film their 2 truths and a lie. This is especially nice for the shy ones!
2. No more boring, monotonous YouTube grammar videos – say hello to @Damonandjo
I almost never look up grammar videos on YouTube because they are SO monotonous and boring! They are definitely not created for engaging high school students!
Damon and Jo are French professors in New York and their videos are SO FUN. They incorporate funny trends, slang and pop culture. The best part is that their explanations are so simple!
3. SHH…J’AI UN SECRET
I did this activity with my Grade 10 students this year and we were hybrid. It was a hit!
- First, have your students brainstorm one secret about them that nobody knows in the classroom. For instance, I broke my elbow as a child, I went to ________, I once choked on _________, etc.) Remind them that it has to be an action in the past tense that is over (passé composé).
- Get your students to send their sentence to you (via Teams, Google Classroom, email or just collect their paper). Tell them their mistakes (e.g. wrong helping hand verb, look at the past participle).
- Then, Students correct their sentence and send it back to you.
- Next, You compile a page with ALL of their sentences. See below to download my free template!
- Finally, take your students outside (or not) and get to them to walk around asking one another the questions.
4. Passé composé flipbook, cootie catcher, reading comprehension text & more
Okay – stop wasting your time looking for the perfect set of free passé composé worksheets. As someone who did this for months in my first and second years, let me tell you they don’t exist.
Unfortunately, a lot of the free stuff on Google is extremely boring and difficult for our Core French kiddos.
I created a passé composé flipbook for my Core French students. It is an interactive way to get your students to learn about this French grammar concept.
I also always introduce passé composé in context. This means that students will read a French reading comprehension text and highlight present tense & passé composé.
The cootie catcher is to get your students speaking in French by asking and responding to questions with a partner. These are just a few of the activities included in this resource!
5. Passé composé games
Here are a few games I could find on the Internet on passé composé! If you know of any you’d, please share them below in the comments!
- Jeu numérique — Word Wall – frapper une taupe
- Les participes passés réguliers — Kahoot – les réguliers
- Pratiquer la formation du passé composé — Kahoot – la formation
- Les verbes DR MRS VANDERTRAMP — Kahoot – être
6. Le déjeuner du matin
Teaching passé composé doesn’t have to be boring!
Déjeuner du matin is a poem by Jacques Prévert. It is quite possibly the simplest poem that exists out there for FSL students to practice their passé composé. I have included two videos below.
First, you will find the poem itself recounted by Jacques Prévert. Here are some examples of activities to do with your students with the first video :
- Qu’est-ce que t’as compris? –> Get them to write down every passé composé expression they hear
- Tableaux –> break down the poem into sections and split your class into groups. Now assignment each group a sentence and have them act it out in a single motion-less tableau. Have each group stand at the perimeter of the class ready to do their tableau when their line comes up. You can even do this before listening to the whole poem as a class.
- Skits –> assign the whole poem to the class and have them do skits narrating the entirety of the poem (actions + narrate the poem)
This next video is a court-métrage without words! Here are some ideas to use this with your class :
- introduce this video before #1 and get them to write down what happened (in passé composé) the actions within the video
- matching – get them to match up the lines of the poem with the different parts of the short film. They can even recreate the short video in illustrations!
7. La musique
I love using music to reinforce grammatical concepts. Here are two videos that contain tons of passé composé.
You can :
- print out the lyrics and have students highlight all of the passé composé
- get them to listen to the songs and write down all of the passé composé they hear
- print out the lyrics with blanks where all of the passé composé structures are. Then, get them to listen to the song carefully and write down the passé composé structure.
8. La maison d’être – any theme
This next one is honestly so simple and SO good. Everytime I teach DR MRS VANDERTRAMP past participles, I always have my students recreate la maison d’être.
The twist I put to it though is that they can recreate the house in any theme they want! My students are so creative and talented. This assignment always ends up turning teaching passé composé very therapeutic due to how simple the criteria is!
9. DÉCRIS….. (le TikTok, les photos, la vidéo)
Okay so the concept for this one is simple. I get my students to describe past tense actions in photos and videos. During the early stages of the pandemic, I was pulled into the world of TikTok and since then, I have also used funny TikToks as well!
Videos (little to no words)
TikToks
Here are some funny TikToks to teach passé composé in a fun and engaging manner!
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