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No frills lesson plan: teaching ne... pas... (negatives)


Here is an effective way to introduce and thoroughly practise the negative ne... pas with near beginners. This could take around 30 minutes.You could adapt this for use with other languages.

Preparation: have about ten simple present tense sentences ready for display later. All are easy to mime.

Je joue au football
Je joue au tennis
Je joue au ping pong
Je nage
Je danse
Je fais du cheval
Je fais du skate
Je lance une balle
Je regarde la télé
J’écoute de la musique

Here we go:

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

Display some of the examples and do choral reading aloud.

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 established, 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.

If you think the class will find the conversion of the tu joues into je joue confusing, just give them the first person form.

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 might this be a good lesson?
  • There's lots of easy, comprehensible target language
  • There is a clear structure to the lesson, moving from easier to harder
  • There's lots of repetition
  • There's a fun acting out element which helps with memory

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