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Homework idea to practise the imperfect tense

This is a simple one. Maybe you have already done it.

Give your class at least a week to do this for a good, chunky and hopefully enjoyable double homework. Tell them they are going to interview a grand-parent or parent. Provide them with a list of questions in French. They will have to ask these questions, take notes, then write up the answers in French. It should produce some real-life use of the imperfect tense as well as enable children to talk to their parents or grand-parents about the old days. the write up can take the form of a dialogue/interview with questions, or it could just be a summary e.g. for a mock news feature.

An amusing alternative would be to ask them if a teacher will give them 15 minutes to be interviewed. Others could guess the teacher. I actually prefer the parent/grand-parent version in this case since it seems a good conversation to have in a family anyway, therefore more authentic.

How about these questions?

A quelle école allais-tu quand tu avais 10 ans?
Qu'est-ce que tu aimais manger quand tu étais petit?
Où habitais-tu?
Quelles émissions de télé ou de radio préférais-tu?
Qui étaient tes meilleurs amis?
De quoi avais-tu peur quand tu étais petit?
Allais-tu régulièrement en vacances? Où?
Avais-tu des animaux familiers?
Qu'est-ce que tu aimais faire à l'école primaire?
Quelles matières aiamais-tu à l'école secondaire?
Avais-tu des ambitions quand tu étais jeune?
Que faisaient tes parents comme travail?
Tu t'entendais bien avec tes parents?
Quels passe-temps avais-tu?
Quelle musique aimais-tu quand tu étais adolescent?

As always, you can assist students, where needed, by providing starts to some answers: il allait... il aimait...

Comments

  1. Nice! I get my students to talk about their primary school and make a presentation for the rest of the class. I also teach them the Imperfect song to the tune of Abba's 'Money, money money' - but that's just for Spanish!
    Thank you for your idea and questions.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry for the belated reply. Yes, the primary school idea works fine. My Spanish is almost non-existent, but Abba sounds good. I like those verb songs.

    ReplyDelete

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