On our return to school following the lengthy winter break, my 8th grade level I students (in their second year of French) looked a little confused and seemed hesitant when responding to familiar questions. By the end of the class, things were better, but I did feel a little frustration that we seemed to be playing the usual game of language snakes and ladders with the students forgetting so much during a break. As class was coming to a close, a conscientious student asked, “Can we just review verbs and all those present tense endings – then it will be easier.” Enough others nodded in agreement that I had to give the matter serious thought. I don’t often do grammar “drills” or specific grammar teaching in class without a context, and so it would need to be purposeful with a focus on what each student needed to learn. At lunch I took a few minutes to catch up on the French news, and it was there that I got my inspiration – les soldes! The January Sales – for verbs!
But how would it work? For the sales in France, you need to develop a plan! I set out some important elements. We started with the vidéo for a little cultural context.
- Les publicités (advertising): Only shop for what you need: I gave students a handout with all the verbs patterns, irregular verbs, and list of verbs we had used and learned. They had to determine those they knew well, those they needed to review, and those they struggled with. Some pretests with matching or completion or simply writing on the board (a favorite with middle schoolers) allowed them to identify areas of difficulty and make their “shopping list.”
- Comparison shop: Students worked in pairs to identify patterns, relationships between groups of verbs, familiar verb endings or stem changes (as in step or boot verbs) with colored highlighters. Some wrote “rules” while others wrote sentences with the verbs used in context. We took time to note the discoveries: ex. “for all verbs nous, vous, ils have -ons, -ez, -ent endings; many verbs have -s, -s, -t, singular endings; pronounced endings (infinitives, nous, vous) have similar stems.” This might have been the most important step as it demystified many of the different stems and endings for students.
- Les promotions: (different from les soldes in the cultural sense but still works for verbs). Students took advantage of the “2 or 3 for 1 deals”: venir, revenir, devenir; sortir, partir, dormir; pouvoir, vouloir; and gave some time to the “One of a kind” specials: aller, avoir, être.
- Tell a friend:(Accountability) Students explained a pattern or a verb they had learned or understood better to a friend. They also shared their plan to study to get the endings right.
- Allons-y! Let’s go! We reviewed in teams to see if we could use the verbs correctly. I don’t often use competitive games but the first group gets the best deal! At the end students self-evaluated to see what remained on their “list”.
- A la caisse: Time to check out and prove you know it. We did this with a variety of formative assessments: fill in the blanks, online resources, matching, completion, and dialogues.
- Après vente: (after sales service) in a follow up writing assignment, as students read their work to me, it was satisfying at times to hear say, “I need to change that verb ending – it should be (-s/ – ent) and they were correct! Self-correction and a growing sense of confidence were also evident following the exercise. And of course, I am more than willing to assist any student who still needs assistance or reminders.
A Teacher's Notebook 