Deutsche Geschichte: imperfect tense, perfect tense
I can apply a checklist of knowledge to support my use of the perfect and imperfect tenses, and can apply this when reading and writing in German.
Deutsche Geschichte: imperfect tense, perfect tense
I can apply a checklist of knowledge to support my use of the perfect and imperfect tenses, and can apply this when reading and writing in German.
These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.
Switch to our new teaching resources now - designed by teachers and leading subject experts, and tested in classrooms.
These resources were created for remote use during the pandemic and are not designed for classroom teaching.
Lesson details
Vocabulary and transcripts for this lessons
Key learning points
- Confidence in forming the perfect tense is important for communicating past events. Revisit key verbs often.
- The perfect tense is more common in spoken German than the imperfect. Both can be used when writing in the past tense.
- The imperfect tense forms ‘hatte’, ‘war’, and ‘es gab’ are often used in spoken as well as written German.
- Learning imperfect tense endings, and the verb stems of strong verbs, will broaden your use of language in the past.
- Being familiar with a range of past tense verb forms will support your comprehension of written and spoken German.
Keywords
Perfect tense - past tense formed with the present tense of 'sein' or 'haben' and a past participle
Past participle - verb form that forms the perfect tense, together with the auxiliary verb 'sein' or 'haben'
Imperfect tense - single-word past tense used mainly to narrate past events in writing
Common misconception
Always use the imperfect tense to translate the English simple past, e.g., 'I chatted online.'
The perfect tense is far more common in German, used for past events in speaking and informal writing. The imperfect is used mainly to narrate past events in more formal writing. However, 'hatte', 'war' and 'es gab' are used in speaking too.
To help you plan your year 11 German lesson on: Deutsche Geschichte: imperfect tense, perfect tense, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 11 German lesson on: Deutsche Geschichte: imperfect tense, perfect tense, 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 4 German lessons from the Communication and the world around us: Geschichte unit, dive into the full secondary German curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
Equipment
Licence
Lesson video
Loading...
Some of our videos, including non-English language videos, do not have captions.
Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
century
cellar
run
metre
toilet
sand
to think, thinking
to sing, singing
to save, saving
to wear, wearing
to spend (time)
to throw, throwing
Assessment exit quiz
4 Questions
he had
it was
there was, there were
you came
you took
he saw