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No frills lesson plan to teach negative ne... pas

Here is an effective way to introduce and thoroughly practise the negative ne... pas with near beginners (late in Y7 in England). This could take around 30 minutes. Very little preparation needed.

Teacher starts by miming some simple activities whilst saying  je joue au football, je regarde la télé, je joue un jeu vidéo, je joue au tennis, j'écoute ma musique

Do group repetition of the sentences. Class could copy mimes for more fun.

Get a volunteer up to mime simple activities (sports are good) whilst you give a commentary:

Elle joue au tennis
Elle regarde la télé
Elle écoute de la musique etc

Get another volunteer up to mime activities. This time add a negative to each commentary:

Elle joue au tennis; elle ne joue pas au football.

Let the class quite hear a few examples of the negative. Support with a negative gesture (hands and face).

Introduce group repetition of negative sentences.

Then get your two volunteers to use negatives in first person; Je ne joue pas... help them by giving your own examples.

Then mix up first and third person questions with class and volunteers.

Il joue au football? Non, il ne joue pas...

At this point you could release some tension by asking the class in English what is going on in case some are lost. Once this is establish, go into a simple oral drill with the class. (Your volunteers have sat down.)

"I'll give you a sentence, you tell me you don't do that activity." (Give an example or two.)

Tu joues au football? Non, je ne joue pas au football.

Do lots of these - at least 15 - to get the structure well established.

OK, if the class is ready they can now do the same task in pairs. You could give them a bit more freedom, telling them the partner may give a positive or negative answer if they want. To support the class, have a list of sentences on the board to give written support.

You can then go to a written exercise along the same lines.

With a very quick class you could use your volunteers to introduce more persons of the verb (ils... vous... nous)

Later in the lesson or next time you could give notes for the class to copy down.

Why this is good:

Lots of easy target language
Clear structure
Lots of repetition practice
Bit of fun

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