Are you a French teacher looking for creative ways to teach French reflexive verbs? Here are some activities to get you started!

How should you teach French reflexive verbs?

I’m a really big fan of teaching French grammar in context. What does this mean? It means that instead of beginning my “unit” on reflexive verbs by having my students take notes on the grammar topic, I sprinkle reflexives into daily and weekly routines.

If you’re interested in learning more about how I got to this point, I have a whole blog post dedicated to some of the mistakes I made in the first year of my career.

The goal is to have my students express themselves using French reflexives without knowing what exactly they are.

A really great way to do this is to include questions with French reflexive verbs in your Question du jour bell work. You can also do a weekly routine where students speak about their favourite routines.

French reflexive verbs list as a guide on which verbs to teach

A French reflexive verbs list has been included in the resource for you. It’s got all of the commonly used verbs students will need to be comfortable expressing themselves in.

Everything you need in one PDF – A French reflexive verbs resource for the Core French and/or French Immersion classroom

If you are looking for a resource that has reading, writing, and speaking activities to teach reflexive verbs to your students, you can grab this set from my TPT!

It’s got everything you’ll need and even more!

A French reading comprehension worksheet with reflexive verbs

I like to have students do tons of reading activities to see the French grammar concept in action.

Here’s a daily routine story I wrote myself with tons of high-frequency reflexive verbs.

If you know of French picture books with reflexives, please do be sure to share them with me in the comments below!

A list of French reflexive verbs to put up on your whiteboard – French reflexives word wall

It is super helpful to place high-frequency reflexive verbs somewhere where your students can see them.

We want our students to independently use French reflexives orally and in writing and a word wall is a great visual tool to make that happen.

French reflexive verbs list – an illustrated guide for students

I’ve also included an illustrated guide of commonly used verbs.

A flip book for students with everything they need to know

Once your students are comfortable using the verbs independently, that is when I recommend teaching some of the grammar to them.

This flip book provides a step-by-step breakdown of the French grammar concept for students.

Tons of reading, writing, and speaking activities including French reflexive verb conjugation

I’ve included tons of French reading, writing, and speaking activities to choose from.

French pronominal verbs list and reflexives in past tense

Last but not least, when your students are ready to dive into pronominal verbs in the passé composé, there are notes and practice activities ready for you and your students.

Teach reflexive verbs to your students with this no-prep resource

The post How to teach French reflexive verbs appeared first on FLE Avec MmeD.

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

A daily routine that is structured and repetitive and encourages speaking, reading, and writing is an effective technique for teaching regular verbs.

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 :

The post Teaching French Regular Verbs: Effective Strategies appeared first on FLE Avec MmeD.

Are you looking for creative and fun French activities to teach French adjectives? If so, you are definitely in the right place! Teaching this particular French grammar concept can be a little tricky given the fact that there are thousands of French adjective rules. That said, if you structure your lessons with intent, understanding French adjectives can be made a lot easier for our students.

Colour by code – understand French adjectives rules by exploring

When teaching adjective rules, the biggest mistake I made was TELLING my students all of the rules! This is a rule that pretty much applies to all French grammar lessons!

I know. That sounds wild, doesn’t it?

Just giving our students French adjectives lists or lists of French adjectives rules does not mean your students will have a good grasp of the concept or know how to use them!

Instead of telling your students the rules, have them explore and analyze the rules by themselves! This first activity does just that!

It took me SIX hours to create this colour by code activity and I have ZERO regrets!

I have my students explore French adjectives rules by analyzing what the adjective ends in and whether that ending is masculine, feminine, neutral, masculine plural or feminine plural.

How I set up this colour by code worksheet with my students:

1. Project the worksheet on your board.
2. Pick 1 adjective from the colour by code sheet
3. Go to www.wordreference.com and type the adjective into the search bar (see image below)
4. I zoom into the orange rectangle and show them which form of the adjective is masculine or feminine.

Me voici – get your French students to describe their identities with French adjectives

In my classroom, we spent a lot of time celebrating our identities as well as the diversity of the francophone world. One of the activities we do in French 8 (or French 1 if you’re from the US) is practice describing our identities.

This resource is a free download in my TPT store!

Acrostic poem

This next activity is simple, but effective! I have my beginner French students write an acrostic poem. Each letter of their first name will be a placeholder for an adjective that describes them.

Crayola

Finally, we have an activity which I LOVE so, SO much!

Basically, I asked my students to create a list of 20 adjectives that describe their identities. PS, I let me students know that the choice of adjectives is THEIR choice.

If they want to choose words that describe their religion, ethnicity, race, gender or sexual orientation – they absolutely can! However, if they don’t want to, that is okay too <3.

Also, if you choose to do this activity, I ask that you have diverse shades of crayons/markers/pencil crayons for your students with melanin!

The post Creative French activities to teach French adjectives appeared first on FLE Avec MmeD.

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!

1. 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).
2. 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).
3. Then, Students correct their sentence and send it back to you.
4. Next, You compile a page with ALL of their sentences. See below to download my free template!
5. 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!

Looking for a Facebook Group to continue learning?

Join our FaceBook community where French Immersion & Core French teachers share the resources we use in our own classrooms. Click here to join.

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The post Teaching passé composé – resources, ideas and activities appeared first on FLE Avec MmeD.

Hey there fellow beginner French teacher. Are you feeling lost and confused about how to teach your beginner French class? Do you spend hours looking for beginner French lessons and beginner French worksheets? You are definitely in the right

Don’t forget to grab your beginner French freebie!

1. French Greetings and saluations

One of the first lessons I begin my beginner French class with is salutations and important questions! This beginner French worksheet is a great tool to practice those important questions students will be asking in French.

Bonus tip : I play musical chairs (without the chairs) and have students dance around the classroom. When the music stops, they have to find their closest peer and have a quick French conversation with them!

2. French vocabulary

This beginner French resource is a package of the most essential vocabulary beginner French students will learn in the first year of French.

It includes notes, worksheets and other tools on the following topics :

Pronunciation patterns, numbers, writing the date, colours, seasons, salutations, essential questions, pronouns, prepositions, interrogatory words, and basic vocabulary.

3. French school supply vocabulary

School supply vocabulary is one of the first things we cover in a beginner French class.

In my class, the first term of French class is intense speaking activities, much like a late immersion class. However, sometimes I need a break from the chaos and performance of this teaching style. For that reason, this resource comes in handy. Students can work independently or in partners on a series of vocab-based worksheets and activities on school supplies and my voice gets a break!

4. French indefinite and definite articles

In my classroom, I teach basic grammar and instead try to teach French in a more “natural” way. However, when I do need to teach grammar, I like my worksheets to be simple, aesthetically pleasing and efficient.

I use these notes and worksheets to teach my students indefinite and definite articles, as they pretty much are the foundations of the language!

5. Quelle heure est-il?

I am going to be honest — I do NOT love to teach time in French. I think this is probably because telling time is SO complicated in the French language.

That being said, I find that teaching students the 24-hour clock is actually really important due to its widespread use in universities and during overseas travel. I am also Canadian and Québec uses the 24-hour clock. For that reason, I teach how to read the clock AND telling time in French.

Finally, what I love about this resource is the game my students play to show their understanding of what they have learnt in this mini-unit.

All notes and worksheets included too!

6. Teaching French weather expressions

What is a MORE fun way of FSL students learning French weather vocabulary than becoming little meteorologists? This beginner French resource contains notes, worksheets, a peer survey, instructions and a rubric for weather presentations.

7. Me voici storybook

One of the very first units I begin with in FSL is an All About Me unit.

We learn adjectives, agreement, expressing our interests and preferences, etc.

At the end of the unit, students write picture books describing themselves and their preferences.

8. Food bingo freebie

Stop what you’re doing and go download this freebie pronto! My students absolutely LOVE playing food bingo. I laminate my bingo sheets and students circle their choices using whiteboard markers.

It also includes food bingo vocab worksheets.

9. Introduction aux verbes être et avoir

Everything you need to introduce your students to these important verbs is in this resource.

The resource includes step by step notes, practice, speaking and writing activities and task cards.

10. Le verbe aller et les endroits en ville

Aller et les endroits en ville is another unit my beginner FSL students complete.

They learn the verb aller, its’ conjugations, important prepositions, and location vocabulary.

One of my favourite activities in this resource is a Google Maps virtual tour activity. Students must find two locations in Québec on Google Maps and write a sentence describing what method of transport they should take between the two locations.

11. Introduction aux verbes réguliers

This was one of the first resources I ever made for my beginner French class. Don’t worry — it has been updated many times over the years!

It includes so many notes, worksheets, fun speaking and writing activities in order to help students master regular verbs in French.

12. Unité thématique : la nourriture

This is the final unit my beginner students complete and it is SO MUCH fun!

Students discover all about food and cooking vocabulary and complete a number of reading, speaking, writing AND reading and written comprehension activities.

13. Jeu de vocabulaire : la nourriture

I created this game to reinforce food vocabulary for my beginner students. I also play this in several different courses to refresh their memories when it comes to this essential vocabulary.

14. French verbs vouloir and pouvoir

Finally, I always end the year off by teaching the verbs vouloir and pouvoir. I keep it super simple and have my students complete listening comprehension activity and have them describes things they want vs. things they can do!

If you liked these beginner French resources, please share what you do in your class in the comments below!

The post 14 fantastic beginner French Resources appeared first on FLE Avec MmeD.

Are you looking for an engaging way to teach and reinforce the imparfait to your intermediate French students? Are you also looking for community building activities for your classroom? This project does both!

This project was my favourite one in French 10 this year because I got to learn more about my students’ childhoods. Seriously, it was so cute to see their baby photos, toys, trophies and unique knickknacks from their childhoods!

The idea for this project is not my own and I have to thank my friend and colleague Ingrid for this incredible idea! Thank you so much, Ingrid, for suggesting this amazing idea!

Project Criteria 

Students choose 3 physical objects that represent different values from their childhood.

These values could be family, sports, books, culture, etc. After choosing their 3 objects and values, students must write paragraphs where they :

1. describe what the object is
   • How does it look? How did they obtain it? What value does the object represent?
2. describe the significance of the object to their childhood. 

The Writing Process

Subsequently, I have my students write their draft and I normally collect all work before the bell rings. This ensures that :

1. they do not use Google Translate or other translators at home.
2. their family members or French Immersion friends do not complete or edit their work.
3. they do not lose their work. 

While they write, I circulate the entire time and answer questions. This is extremely valuable time because I get to work one to one with every single student in the class. 

After they have finished their draft, I circle their mistakes using a grammar correction code. They then have 1-2 classes to fix their mistakes and to ask me questions. I ask them to show me their corrections to ensure that they have corrected correctly. 

Once they are done their final draft, they begin memorizing. 

Presentation Day

Everyone comes prepared with their three objects on presentation day. I have the desks pushed to the perimeter of the room and we sit in a giant circle. 

Finally, I have each student ask their peers at least 3 relevant questions.

Thank you so much for reading! Subscribe to my mailing list to receive the Imparfait freebie!

Avec plaisir,

Pav

The post Teaching Imparfait : Project Freebie appeared first on FLE Avec MmeD.