What are the best activities and strategies for teaching French regular verbs to Core French students? How do we teach French regular verbs in a way where students become proficient in communicating about themselves and the world around them?
Stop teaching them how to conjugate French regular verbs
I know this may be very painful to some, but it is so important.
Most of us took French classes where we were forced to learn how to conjugate French regular verbs. There wasn’t much speaking or listening involved. Just a whole lot of grammar rules about how to use regular verbs.
The problem with teaching this way is that that is just not how we learn how to speak a language. That is how we learn how to conjugate French regular verbs.
It is clunky and it is not an effective method.
You will know that this doesn’t work when you move on to the next set of verbs and students have already forgotten what regular verbs are and what to do with them.
Instead, we need to go ahead and teach French regular verbs in context.
Teach French regular verbs in context
What do I mean?
Well in what context is the verb aimer used? What about habiter? Choisir? Parler?
We need to recreate SPEAKING, LISTENING, READING, AND WRITING opportunities where students can use these verbs within the correct context.
Okay – so how do I make this happen?
Aimer, préférer, adore, détester, etc. – try a daily question du jour activity where students have to talk about their preferences
In this activity Core French students see and practice both the “je” and “tu” forms of French regular verbs.
Incorporate specific verbs into your units
When I am planning a French unit, I select a set of sentence structures that I want my students to repeat over and over. We repeat these structures in ALL reading, writing, speaking, and listening activities.
I incorporate these sentence structures into the questions I want my students to be able to respond to (orally and in writing) at the end of the unit.
Here is an example for a Francophonie unit where the goal is to communicate using the subject pronouns IELS/ELLES/ILS :
- Où habitent les francophones ?
- Que mangent les francophones ? Quelles boissons boivent-t-ils ?
- Quels plats cuisinent les francophones ? Quels sont les ingrédients
Coming up with questions really helps me be intentional. If in one unit, my students are mastering use of regular verbs with just je/tu pronouns, in the next one they will master il/elle/iel and iels/elles/ils.
Here is an example for a clothing unit :
- que porte ton partenaire aujourd’hui ?
- quelles couleurs portent nos membres de classe normalement ? Est-ce que nous aimons porter noir ou gris ?
You don’t just have to plan this way for units. You can use this planning method for a week of lessons.
Don’t be afraid to mix in French irregular verbs as well
One thing that has been very successful for me is that I mix in French regular and irregular verbs. I don’t stress about the label. If it feels authentic to bring in avoir, être, faire, etc. – I bring it in.
Once students have mastered communicating using French regular verbs, now teach them the grammar
Once my students have mastered French regular verbs and can communicate accurately using these verbs, that is when I go ahead and teach them some of the grammar explicitly.
To be honest, I don’t teach them every rule explicitly. I only teach them what I think they need to know to communicate effectively. This works really well for me and my students!
Here are a variety of French regular verb activities you can use with your students to practice structures :
