verb tense chart

VERB CHARTS – simple & compound tenses: avoir verbs, être verbs & reflexivesFrom an e-mail to a friend in Belgium –

At the beginning of the year level 4 always got the tenses mixed up - showing them how a compound tense relates to a simple tense helped a lot of them. Some even found it fun to predict the compound tenses whenever we got to a new verb (it just warmed my grammar-freak heart because once I learned how the tenses were related, I did that too!). I even let them use the chart on exams – it didn’t really help them but they thought it did. They also liked to have the meanings – at least to know that future is “will/will have” conditional is “would/’would have” etc. – but since you have a number of non-English speakers, I don’t know how you’d work that so I left it out. I did find out that they don’t know much about tenses in English – so this helped them there too.

I only did the “basic” tenses and kept the infinitive and present participle at the end so I could leave them out easily. I never did the other tenses until level 5 when we did the verbs charts like on my CD. If they started to flip out after a few tenses, I’d save it for another day – but tell them that we did have to do them all and that eventually, they’d straighten them out! In the long run, I was more concerned that they could use them correctly than if they could fill out a verb chart. Some people really love those verbs charts for testing. I think it’s because they’re easy to make and easy to grade. Jim and I gave up on that after level 2 (we hit them hard in levels 1&2) and concentrated on usage – it seemed to work.

Color-coded à la française but you could change it to anything. I like color-coding. I think it helps. Plus it looks a little “jazzier” -

Je to start since they use it so often. I kept it the same all the way down the column because they’re usually confused enough already!

I did switch to elle and ils for the other verbs to remind them of basic participle agreement and used se lever so I could get in the accent changes if it looked like they could deal with it. If they couldn’t, I just glossed over it. I could never decide about leaving the agreement on the past infinitive and past form of the present participle – so to keep it consistent, I left it on even though no subject shows (for them, that can be confusing).

Since I didn’t have too many students (I’d end up with usually 20-22 in 4 and around 16-18 in 5), I ran them off on my computer so they’d have the colors. But first, I made them fill in their own charts (there’s one at the end) as I did it on the overhead. Then, I’d give them a completed chart telling them - as they griped about it, of course - that I wanted them to figure things out for themselves first. – which is true! Plus, then I could go off in any direction that we needed or seemed interesting.

avoiravoir

verbs être verbs reflexive verbs

simple tense compound tense simple tense compound tense simple tense compound tense

le présent le passé composé le présent le passé composé le présent le passé composé

je parle j’ai parlé elle va elle est allée ils se lèvent ils se sont levés

l’imparfait le plus-que-parfait l’imparfait le plus-que-parfait l’imparfait le plus-que-parfait

je parlais j’avais parlé elle allait elle était allée ils se levait ils s’étaient levés

le futur le futur antérieur le futur le futur antérieur le futur le futur antérieur

je parlerai j’aurais parlé elle ira elle sera allée ils se lèvera ils se seront levés

le conditionnelle conditionnel

passéle conditionnel

le conditionnel passé


passé

je parlerais j’aurais parlé elle irait elle serait allée ils se lèverait ils se seraient levés

le subjonctif le subjonctif passé le subjonctif le subjonctif passé le subjonctif le subjonctif passé

je parle j’aie parlé elle aille elle soit allée ils se lèvent ils se soient levés

l’infinitif l’infinitif passé l’infinitif l’infinitif passé l’infinitif l’infinitif passé

parler avoir parlé aller être allée se lever être levés

le participe présent le passé composé du participe présent



parlant ayant parlé allant étant allée se levant s’étant levés

avoir verbs être verbs reflexive verbs

simple tense compound tense simple tense compound tense simple tense compound tense

le présent le passé composé le présent le passé composé le présent le passé composé

l’imparfait le plus-que-parfait l’imparfait le plus-que-parfait l’imparfait le plus-que-parfait

le futur le futur antérieur le futur le futur antérieur le futur le futur antérieur


passéle conditionnel

le conditionnel passé


passé

le subjonctif le subjonctif passé le subjonctif le subjonctif passé le subjonctif le subjonctif passé

l’infinitif l’infinitif passé l’infinitif l’infinitif passé l’infinitif l’infinitif passé




verb tense chart

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