New
New
Year 9

Emergency services: -er verbs in the perfect tense with 'être'

Learning outcomes

I can use the perfect tense to talk about medical situations in France.

I can confidently pronounce hard and soft 's' sounds.

New
New
Year 9

Emergency services: -er verbs in the perfect tense with 'être'

Learning outcomes

I can use the perfect tense to talk about medical situations in France.

I can confidently pronounce hard and soft 's' sounds.

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Lesson details

Vocabulary and transcripts for this lessons

Key learning points

  1. 'S' at the beginning of a word is soft 's' (sont) but a single 's' between vowels is a hard 's' (vous êtes).
  2. All French people have a 'Carte Vitale' necessary to use French health services. Call the SAMU in a medical emergency.
  3. The present tense has one conjugated verb; the perfect tense has two verbs, a part of avoir/être + a past participle.
  4. Use a conjugated form of 'avoir' with most verbs but use 'être' with movement verbs and past participles must agree.

Keywords

  • 's' liaison - pronouncing a usually silent final consonant because a word starting with a vowel follows

  • Perfect tense - a verb tense that describes completed actions in the past e.g. 'I said', 'she played'

Common misconception

Every 's' at the end of a word is silent because of the silent final consonant rule.

Usually 's' is silent at the end of a word but if the next word starts with a vowel, you usually hear liaison, whereby the final consonant is pronounced. When the final consonat is 's', it sounds like the hard 's' in 'maison'.


To help you plan your year 9 French lesson on: Emergency services: -er verbs in the perfect tense with 'être', download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

Task C3 could be adapted to add practice of question words in the perfect tense or even made into a more independent writing task, where students describe a (real or fictional) accident they have had.
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This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Lesson video

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Prior knowledge starter quiz

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6 Questions

Q1.
Which of these is essential for a French person to use French health services?

Un passeport
Un permis de conduire
Correct answer: Une Carte Vitale
Un téléphone portable

Q2.
In which of these words does the 's' sound like the 'z' in 'zebra'?

Correct answer: maison
poisson
tasse
stress

Q3.
Which auxiliary verb is used with most verbs in the perfect tense?

Être
Correct answer: Avoir
Aller
Faire

Q4.
Put the following words in the correct order to form a grammatically correct sentence in the perfect tense.

1 - J'ai
2 - acheté
3 - des
4 - médicaments

Q5.
Consider the sentence: 'Les amis sont allés à l'hôpital.' Why does 'allés' have an 's' at the end?

It's a regular past participle.
The auxiliary verb is 'avoir'.
Correct answer: The subject is plural and the auxiliary verb is 'être'.

Q6.
Which of the following verbs would use 'être' as its auxiliary verb in the perfect tense?

manger (to eat)
parler (to speak)
regarder (to watch)
Correct answer: sortir (to go out)

Assessment exit quiz

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4 Questions

Q1.
In the sentence 'J'ai eu mal à la tête' (I had a headache), which word is the past participle?

J'ai
Correct answer: eu
mal
à la tête

Q2.
If you wanted to say 'She fell' in French, which of these would be correct?

Elle a tombé.
Correct answer: Elle est tombée.
Elle tombe.
Elle était tombé.

Q3.
What does 'liaison' primarily help with in French pronunciation?

making words shorter
making words louder
connecting words smoothly
Correct answer: changing the meaning of words

Q4.
Match the verb on the left to the auxiliary verb it uses in the perfect tense on the right.

Correct Answer:dormir,avoir

avoir

Correct Answer:venir,etre

etre

Correct Answer:parler,avoir

avoir

Correct Answer:chanter,avoir

avoir

Correct Answer:aller,etre

etre

Correct Answer:monter,etre

etre

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