ABSTRACT
Passé Composé (compound past) is probably one of the most difficult parts of teaching French language: two different auxiliary verbs which are difficult to be conjugated, a number of irregular past participles which, according to the auxiliary verb, are held with the subject. Therefore, most of the teaching methods start from regular verbs, and then introduce irregular verbs progressively. This « layer cake » method of teaching is very hard for students to assimilate. On one hand, it prevents them from expressing a variety of experiences they have had before. On the other, it makes the process of learning the compound past far longer and confusing. That is the reason that we have applied another method called « Isabelle's day », a playful way to learn compound past, and found certain good results in some institutions in Japan. In the class, groups of two or three students assemble the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle which corresponds to various activities in an ordinary day of a French student in a recent past. This method is based on actions: it encourages smooth communication in the groups as it is directly related to daily life. Firstly, the students complete the above task and discuss the pertinence of their choices. Secondly, they make assumptions about the construction of the compound past. At the end, this exercise integrates some socio-cultural elements into the process of learning French; touching daily life in France: what time a French student wakes up, how he/she goes to university, or how he/she works after his/her studies. |
