Pandemic in France: impersonal expressions including weather
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can use impersonal phrases to talk about life during the global pandemic.
Vocabulary and transcripts for this lessons
Key learning points
- French nouns and masculine adjectives ending -al change to end in -aux in the plural form.
- French adjectives with -al endings have nouns as their root.
- 'il est' can be used with an adjective and an infinitive to talk about how things are for people in general.
- In impersonal phrases, ‘il’ never means ‘he’. It often means ‘it’, but does not refer to a specific person or thing.
Keywords
Impersonal verb - a verb that doesn’t refer to a particular person or thing, and whose subject is most often ‘il’ (it)
Common misconception
'Il' always means 'he' in English.
In impersonal phrases, ‘il’ never means ‘he’. It often means ‘it’, but does not refer to a specific person or thing. It is often used in weather phrases, saying what time it is and what you must (not) do.
Teacher tip
You might want to ask students to think, pair, share examples of where they have seen impersonal uses of 'il' before showing the examples the Oak characters come up with at the beginning of the third lesson cycle.
Content guidance
Depiction or discussion of sensitive content
Supervision
Adult supervision recommended
Licence
Lesson video
Loading...
Some of our videos, including non-English language videos, do not have captions.
Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Match the French word to the English meaning.
horse
social network
hospital
metal
competition
situation
Q2.Which sentence best describes an emergency situation?
Q3.How do you say 'to fall' in French?
Q4.Which sentence correctly uses 'à' or 'de' before an infinitive?
Q5.Which part of the body is the 'pied' in French?
Q6.Which sentence is correctly written and impersonal?
Assessment exit quiz
5 Questions
Q1.Match each French word to its English meaning.
foot
hospital
competition
metal
horse
Q2.Which of these is the correct plural form of the adjective mondial?
Q3.Which of these is a correct impersonal expression?
Q4.Reorder the words to build a correct sentence. Start with 'il'
Q5.Which of these is true about how 'il' is used in impersonal phrases?
To help you plan your 9 French lesson on: Pandemic in France: impersonal expressions including weather, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 9 French lesson on: Pandemic in France: impersonal expressions including weather, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 3 French lessons from the Future and past events: 2-verb structures with prepositions unit, dive into the full secondary French curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.