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      A new experience: perfect tense with 'haben' and 'sein', 'in' and 'auf'

      Lesson details

      Learning outcome

      I can use the perfect tense to understand and write about recent experiences.

      Vocabulary and transcripts for this lessons

      Key learning points

      1. Strong past participles are formed by 'ge-' and '–en' surrounding the stem; the stem may have a vowel change, too.
      2. With certain verbs, often verbs of movement to a destination, the perfect tense is formed with ‘sein’, not 'haben'.
      3. With movement, prepositions 'in' and 'auf' mean 'into' and 'onto', and are followed by the accusative case.
      4. When starting sentences with time adverbs to sequence narration, we use word order 2 so that the verb remains second.

      Keywords

      • Perfect tense - 2-verb tense that describes completed actions in the past, e.g., 'I said', 'she played'

      • Strong past participle - past participle that sandwiches the stem with 'ge-' and ‘-en’ and often changes the stem vowel, e.g., 'geschrieben'

      • Word order 2 (WO2) - sentence order in which an element other than the subject starts the sentence; verb and subject invert so that the verb remains the second idea

      Common misconception

      It is only the verb in a sentence that can tell us whether the action of the verb implies movement towards a destination or a static location.

      The case (form of the article 'the' or 'a') used after prepositions 'in' and 'auf' tells us whether movement or location are implied, e.g., when the article is in the accusative case ('in den', 'in die', 'ins') it means 'into' and indicates movement.

      Teacher tip

      For the final writing task, pupils can pick any new experience, but it might useful to steer some pupils towards the three experiences that have featured in this unit's lessons: a first day at a new school, a trip somewhere, or a time they helped out or did volunteer work somewhere.

      Licence

      This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2026), 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

      6 Questions

      Q1.
      'Ich habe __________ Unterricht.'. Choose the correct missing word.

      auf
      denn
      in
      Correct answer: jetzt
      mit

      Q2.
      Match the German and English.

      Correct Answer:ankommen,to arrive, arriving
      Correct Answer:arbeiten,to work, working
      Correct Answer:fallen,to fall, falling
      Correct Answer:geben,to give, giving
      Correct Answer:schwimmen,to swim, swimming
      Correct Answer:zuhören,to listen (to)

      Q3.
      Match the German and English.

      Correct Answer:Eis (nt),ice, ice cream
      Correct Answer:Fleisch (m),meat
      Correct Answer:Gemüse (nt),vegetables
      Correct Answer:Keks (m),biscuit
      Correct Answer:Naturwissenschaft (f),science
      Correct Answer:Stunde (f),lesson, hour

      Q4.
      Order the words to say: 'The choir sang the song in the classroom.'

      1 - der
      2 - Chor
      3 - hat
      4 - das
      5 - Lied
      6 - im Klassenzimmer
      7 - gesungen

      Q5.
      Write in English: 'das Essen war gut'.

      Correct Answer: the food was good, the meal was good

      Q6.
      Write in German: 'my favourite subject is art'.

      Correct Answer: mein Lieblingsfach ist Kunst

      5 Questions

      Q1.
      Which of these are strong past participles?

      Correct answer: gefunden
      geputzt
      Correct answer: geschrieben
      gesucht
      gezeigt

      Q2.
      Which of these phrases imply movement?

      Correct answer: in die Stadt
      in der Kantine
      Correct answer: in den Garten
      Correct answer: auf das Konzert
      auf dem Markt

      Q3.
      Order the words to say: 'After school I ate fruit.'

      1 - nach
      2 - der
      3 - Schule
      4 - habe
      5 - ich
      6 - Obst
      7 - gegessen

      Q4.
      'Ich bin Klassenzimmer.'. Write the correct word(s) for 'in the'.

      Correct Answer: im, in dem

      Q5.
      Write in German: 'I went to Berlin'.

      Correct Answer: ich bin nach Berlin gefahren

      To help you plan your 8 German lesson on: A new experience: perfect tense with 'haben' and 'sein', 'in' and 'auf', download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...