KS3 · French · Year 9

The French revolution: perfect tense, questions, 'ne … pas'

Past and present events: perfect tense, negation, questions

Learn it. Recall it. Make it stick.

IllumED Slides

IllumED · 1/11

Your learning goal

I can use the present and perfect tenses, including negation and questions to talk about significant events in French history.

1 of 11

The French revolution: perfect tense, questions, 'ne … pas': slides adapted from the imported teaching text; recall questions created from its keywords, learning points and common mistakes. Self-check practice, with no automatic grading or XP. Answers stay on this page and are cleared when you leave.

Original teaching resources

The original illustrated PowerPoint is available as well as the IllumED text slides. It retains the publisher’s design and credits.

Download original PowerPoint ↓

What you’ll learn

I can use the present and perfect tenses, including negation and questions to talk about significant events in French history.

Key learning points

[tion] is pronounced as in 'attention' [tion] words are always feminine.
Form the perfect tense by combining part of 'avoir' and a past participle.
-er verb past participles change from -er to é, verbs like prendre change to 'pris' and some participles are irregular.
'Ne ...pas' wraps around part of 'avoir' in the perfect tense to make negative sentences.
Ask intonation questions in the perfect tense by raising your voice. You can also add 'est-ce que' before the subject.

Words to know

[tion]: pronounced as in 'attention'
perfect tense: verb tense that describes completed actions in the past e.g. 'I said', 'she played'
intonation: rise and fall of the voice in speaking
est-ce que: French questioning device

Common mistakes

All past participles are formed in the same way.

Regular -er verb past participles are formed by changing the -er at the end of the infinitive to é but there are other past participle patterns such as verbs like prendre changing to 'pris' and some irregular past participles.

For parents, carers and teachers

Teachers may find it useful to find further photos of the monarchy, Bastille or Paris from 1789 to give students more historical context and an opportunity to talk about the current political situation in France after B2 and B3.