I hate teaching the perfect tense in French. It is (as the kids in my school say) "proper solid". I have finally (I think) cracked it using the most basic but effective of tools - a flow chart. Actually when you break it down, the perfect tense in French is very logical so using a decision flowchart is a good way of externalising the thought process needed to successfully conjugate this compound tense. The attached picture is a flow chart which should help students to conjugate any verb. I have road tested it with a couple of classes who spotted some mistakes but I think it is basically there. I am going to try to make an interactive flash version over the holidays which I will post when it is ready. Happy tensing...
