Skip to main content

Simple pairwork verb retrieval tests

I've just uploaded to frenchteacher a set of five sheets the aim of which is to get students to practice of retrieving (buzzword alert!) verb forms. I have these in mind as a revision resource to help students internalise common verb forms in the perfect tense. I have focused mainly on first and third person. I added a few notes to advise teachers how they could be used. (UPDATE: I have now uploaded pairwork tests for five different tenses.)

Basically students are given a list of verb phrases in English which have to be translated into French by their partner. Each partner has a different set of verbs. Students take turns to ask the give the English, then the partner attempts an answer. If they get it right they get one point. The correct answers can be seen on the 'tester's' sheet.

You can see an example below. It's the first of five sheets, with many verbs being recycled across the five sheets. If you find this a bit too mechanical for your taste, you could suggest that students get bonus bonus points for adding a further element to their answer. So, instead of just responding Je suis allée, they could respond Je suis allée chez le médecin.

A simple retrieval practice idea, one which, in the example below, word work well with students working at GCSE Higher Tier. A really good Y9 class might be able to handle it.

Test your partner on perfect tense French verbs                       Partner A

English

Answer

English

Answer

I went

Je suis allé(e)

I wrote

J’ai écrit

I played

J’ai joué

I finished

J’ai fini

I listened

J’ai écouté

I started

J’ai commencé

I departed

Je suis parti(e)

We ate

Nous avons mangé

I drank

J’ai bu

We bought

Nous avons acheté

I took

J’ai pris

They went

Ils/elles sont allé(e)s

I had

J’ai eu

You were

Tu as été

She went out

Elle est sortie

You had

Tu as eu

He arrived

Il est arrivé

You took

Tu as pris

I bought

J’ai acheté

We reserved

Nous avons réservé

She bought

Elle a acheté

I continued

J’ai continué

We went

Nous sommes allé(e)s

We decided

Nous avons décidé

We played

Nous avons joué

You finished

Tu as fini

I heard

J’ai entendu

I chose

J’ai choisi

He decided

Il a décidé

They decided

Ils/elles ont décidé

 

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Test your partner on perfect tense French verbs                        Partner B

English

Answer

English

Answer

I visited

J’ai visité

You chose

Tu as choisi

I ate

J’ai mangé

I wanted

J’ai voulu

I spoke

J’ai parlé

I saw

J’ai vu

I arrived

Je suis arrivé(e)

He spoke

Il a parlé

I read

J’ai lu

They listened

Ils/elles ont écouté

I was

J’ai été

We saw

Nous avons vu

She returned

Elle est retournée

They played

Ils/ells ont joué

He went up

Il est monté

We took

Nous avons pris

I sold

J’ai vendu

You went

Tu es allé(e)

He went

Il est allé

You ate

Tu as mangé

We played

Nous avons joué

You finished

Tu as fini

We listened

Nous avons écouté

She started

Elle a commencé

I started

J’ai commencé

She visited

Elle a visité

I did

J’ai fait

I knew

J’ai su

She spoke

Elle a parlé

I fell

Je suis tombé(e)

 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What is skill acquisition theory?

For this post, I am drawing on a section from the excellent book by Rod Ellis and Natsuko Shintani called Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research (Routledge, 2014). Skill acquisition is one of several competing theories of how we learn new languages. It’s a theory based on the idea that skilled behaviour in any area can become routinised and even automatic under certain conditions through repeated pairing of stimuli and responses. When put like that, it looks a bit like the behaviourist view of stimulus-response learning which went out of fashion from the late 1950s. Skill acquisition draws on John Anderson’s ACT theory, which he called a cognitivist stimulus-response theory. ACT stands for Adaptive Control of Thought.  ACT theory distinguishes declarative knowledge (knowledge of facts and concepts, such as the fact that adjectives agree) from procedural knowledge (knowing how to do things in certain situations, such as understand and speak a language).

What is the natural order hypothesis?

The natural order hypothesis states that all learners acquire the grammatical structures of a language in roughly the same order. This applies to both first and second language acquisition. This order is not dependent on the ease with which a particular language feature can be taught; in English, some features, such as third-person "-s" ("he runs") are easy to teach in a classroom setting, but are not typically fully acquired until the later stages of language acquisition. The hypothesis was based on morpheme studies by Heidi Dulay and Marina Burt, which found that certain morphemes were predictably learned before others during the course of second language acquisition. The hypothesis was picked up by Stephen Krashen who incorporated it in his very well known input model of second language learning. Furthermore, according to the natural order hypothesis, the order of acquisition remains the same regardless of the teacher's explicit instruction; in other words,

The 2026 GCSE subject content is published!

Two DfE documents were published today. The first was the response to the consultation about the proposed new GCSE (originally due in October 2021) and the second is the subject content document which, ultimately, is of most interest to MFL teachers in England. Here is the link  to the document.  We are talking about an exam to be done from 2026 (current Y7s). There is always a tendency for sceptical teachers to think that consultations are a bit of a sham and that the DfE will just go ahead and do what they want when it comes to exam reform. In this case, the responses to the original proposals were mixed, and most certainly hostile as far as exam boards and professional associations representing the MFL community, universities, head teachers and awarding bodies are concerned. What has emerged does reveal some significant changes which take account of a number of criticisms levelled at the proposals. As I read it, the most important changes relate to vocabulary and the issue of topics