Describe places: common irregular and pre-nominal adjectives
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can describe a French town using pre-nominal and common irregular adjectives.
Vocabulary and transcripts for this lessons
Key learning points
- The letter 'c' is naturally soft (sounds like 's') before 'e' or 'i'. It is hard (sounds like k) before 'a', 'o' or 'u'.
- The 'c' is sometimes softened before 'a', 'o' or 'u' with a cedilla: 'ç'.
- Many adjectives add an 'e' in the feminine form. Some adjectives are irregular in the feminine e.g. beau (m), belle (f).
- Most adjectives come after the noun in French: 'un livre intéressant'.
- Some adjectives go before the noun. These adjectives refer to beauty, age, good/bad and size (BAGS): 'un vieux vélo'.
Keywords
[c] - makes a soft sound (like 's') before 'e' or 'i': 'ici', makes a hard sound (like 'k') before 'a', 'o' and 'u': canard
[ç] - makes a soft sound before 'a', 'o' or 'u', pronounced as in 'français'
Irregular feminine adjective - an adjective in the feminine form that does not follow the regular pattern: 'beau' (m), 'belle' (f)
Pre-nominal adjective - a BAGS adjective (beauty, age, good/bad or size) that goes before the noun: 'un vieux vélo'
Common misconception
All adjectives go after the noun in French, the opposite to the word order of nouns and adjectives in English.
Most adjectives do go after the noun in French, however some adjectives go before the noun, these are pre-nominal adjectives. They refer to age, beauty, goodness and size (BAGS).
Teacher tip
Pupils may wish to research more monuments in Nice and Paris for an individual research task or a group activity as well as a final speaking activity. If you have a partner school or an upcoming residential visit, some pre-research and descriptions of the locations will be relevant and exciting.
Licence
Lesson video
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Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Match the French and the English.
beach
road, street
cinema
cafe
shop
boat
Q2.Which words have a soft [c/ç] sound?
Q3.Choose the correct preposition.
Q4.Choose the correct adjective: 'c'est une fille .'
Q5.Put the words in order to form a sentence.
Q6.Make this adjective masculine: contente
Assessment exit quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Which vowels follow a soft [c] in French?
Q2.Which vowels follow a hard [c] or a soft [ç] in French?
Q3.Match the French and the English.
a building
a bridge
a garden
a church
Q4.Match the French and the English.
old
new
tall, high
beautiful
good
Q5.Make this adjective feminine: vieux
Q6.Put the words in order to form a sentence.
To help you plan your 7 French lesson on: Describe places: common irregular and pre-nominal adjectives, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 7 French lesson on: Describe places: common irregular and pre-nominal adjectives, 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 Paris and Nice: adjective placement unit, dive into the full secondary French curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.