This lesson was experimental The pupils said they couldn't get Zim Zam Zoum out of their heads, which was of course the idea, and an other nice tribute to Taught By Song. I picked up the masculine/feminine distinctions in the first song - Je suis français/française - and we discussed the purposes of the cedilla (Eg cela and ça). We reviewed the use of companion words (gramatically, articles/determiners and adjectives) to work out the gender of a new word. We sang the verb song, with aller, and got onto the main substance of the lesson, time zones.
Last time, I had explained the origin of the term "tense" in the old French word for time. It is anything but a transparent term, and its everyday meaning conveys its effect - it creates tension. So, as an experiment, I tried the term "time zone", which includes both separate verb forms, and what linguistics specialists describe as "aspect" where context and emphasis indicate time as well as changes in the form of the verb.
The zones we thought of were these, with their English equivalents:
Le présent I am learning French I learn French J'apprends le français. French. Face
Le passé Ccomposed (composé) I have learned French. J'ai appris le français.
Continuous (imparfait) I was learning French. J'apprenais le français.
You were learning French. Tu apprenais le français.
(l apprenait nous apprenions, vous appreniez, ils/elles apprenaient_
Simple I learned French J'appris le français
Le futur
with going I am going to learn French Je vais apprendre le français.
with will ( word form in French) I will learn French J'apprendrai le français
The goal here is not to have the pupils remember the endings and forms, but to have them understand how time is indicated, and then to practise. We agreed that a good way to practise and consolidate all we'd learned so far would be to read Le Petit Prince. The pupils have an English translation, which they will read before next week's lesson, when we'll start on the French. We might have a parallel - La Petite Princesse?