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Overview

In this 45-minute Year 7 French lesson, students practise adjectives for describing friends and family. Building on prior learning about personal descriptions, students create, write and recite short sentences using accurate masculine and feminine agreement, appropriate possessive adjectives and clear pronunciation.

Required prior learning: Students should recognise basic family and friendship vocabulary, the verbs être and avoir, and the possessive adjectives mon and ma. They need not know every adjective before the lesson.

Learning intentions

• WALT create spoken and written French sentences to describe people we know.
• WALT choose masculine or feminine adjective forms accurately.
• WALT use mon and ma appropriately with family and friendship vocabulary.
• WALT pronounce and recite descriptions clearly and respectfully.

Success criteria

• I can write at least four accurate sentences about friends or family.
• I can make adjectives agree with the person I am describing.
• I can use mon or ma correctly with familiar nouns.
• I can recite at least two sentences clearly to a partner.

Curriculum links

• Creating spoken and written texts for familiar communicative purposes using culturally appropriate language.
• Applying knowledge of French language systems to create texts.
• Interpreting modelled French sentences and responding to them.
• Exchanging information and opinions in familiar contexts.

This lesson primarily develops spoken and written text creation and aligns with the NSW Modern Languages K–10 Stage 4 outcome ML4-CRT-01.

Lesson structure (45 minutes)

1. 0–5 min · Hook and retrieval. Open with the visual guessing hook and display two age-appropriate illustrated profiles: C’est mon frère. Il est petit et sportif. and C’est ma sœur. Elle est petite et sportive. Students identify what changes and orally retrieve mon frère, ma sœur, il est and elle est.

2. 5–14 min · Explicit teaching. Use the adjective agreement teaching slides to explain that many adjectives change for feminine nouns or people: usually add -e, with spelling changes such as gentil/gentille, sportif/sportive, sérieux/sérieuse and heureux/heureuse. Model:

• Mon ami est grand. Ma copine est grande.
• Mon frère est intelligent. Ma sœur est intelligente.
• Mon cousin est timide. Ma cousine est timide.
• Mon ami est sympathique. Mon amie est sympathique. Emphasise that timide and sympathique have the same written form for masculine and feminine subjects. Contrast mon frère with ma sœur, and remind students that the adjective agrees with the person, not with mon or ma.

3. 14–20 min · Guided pronunciation. Students repeat model sentences using choral repetition, back-chaining and quiet rehearsal. The teacher highlights final sounds that are often silent, such as the s in grand and petit, and models the pronounced endings in grande, petite, sportive and sérieuse. Students practise with a partner, alternating speaker and listener.

4. 20–30 min · Pair creation task. Distribute the people-description practice sheet. In pairs, students select or invent four suitable people from the vocabulary bank: mon frère, ma sœur, mon père, ma mère, mon cousin, ma cousine, mon ami, mon amie. They complete sentence frames such as C’est mon/ma ____. Il/Elle est ____ et ____. Partners check the person word, mon/ma, adjective agreement and pronunciation, then rehearse two sentences each.

5. 30–38 min · Individual text creation and recitation. Students independently write four sentences about real or fictional friends and family members. They may use a maximum of three adjectives per person and should include at least one masculine and one feminine example. Each student recites two sentences to a partner; the listener gives one positive comment and identifies one accurate agreement choice.

6. 38–43 min · Formative share and correction. Invite several volunteers to recite one sentence. Display the checking and discussion slides and ask the class to identify the noun, subject pronoun, possessive adjective and adjective ending. Correct errors by recasting: Ma sœur est sportif becomes Ma sœur est sportive.

7. 43–45 min · Exit ticket. Students complete the final prompt on the exit ticket section: write My female friend is kind and creative in French, then circle the adjective endings. Collect responses as students leave.

Resources

• the French descriptions slide deck
• the people-description practice sheet
• Whiteboard and markers
• Exercise books or lined paper
• Projector or interactive display
• Teacher pronunciation model and timer
• Optional mini whiteboards

Assessment

• During explicit teaching, ask students to transform Il est grand into Elle est grande and explain the change.
• Circulate during pair and individual writing, checking sentence structure, mon/ma, agreement and use of the vocabulary bank.
• Listen to partner recitations for intelligibility and accurate adjective endings; use the exit ticket to identify students needing reteaching.

Differentiation

• Support students with a colour-coded word bank: blue for masculine nouns, pink for feminine nouns and green for adjective endings. Provide the frame C’est ____. Il/Elle est ____ and allow students to rehearse before writing.
• Provide a reduced target of three sentences, visual vocabulary, enlarged text and audio or teacher modelling for EAL/D students, students with literacy needs or students requiring additional processing time.
• Pair students strategically and permit pointing, reading from the worksheet and recorded rehearsal before live recitation.
• Advanced learners write six connected sentences, use parce que to justify an opinion, include both regular and irregular adjective changes, or describe the same person using contrasting adjectives.

Anticipated misconceptions

• Students may write ma frère or mon sœur: reinforce that the noun determines mon or ma.
• Students may leave adjectives in the masculine form: have them underline the person being described before selecting the adjective.
• Students may assume every feminine adjective simply adds e: explicitly compare gentil/gentille, sportif/sportive, sérieux/sérieuse and heureux/heureuse.
• Students may pronounce every final consonant: model the difference between grand and grande, without demanding accent perfection.

Extension

• Create a short spoken introduction of a fictional family member using four adjectives and one reason: Ma cousine est amusante parce qu’elle est créative.
• Exchange descriptions with another pair and identify whether each person is masculine or feminine from the grammar used.

Answer/model sentence bank

• C’est mon frère. Il est grand et sportif.
• C’est ma sœur. Elle est grande et sportive.
• Mon ami est gentil et amusant.
• Mon amie est gentille et amusante.
• Mon père est intelligent et sérieux.
• Ma mère est intelligente et sérieuse.
• Mon cousin est timide et sympathique.
• Ma cousine est timide et sympathique.
• Mon ami est créatif et heureux.
• Mon amie est créative et heureuse.
• Ma copine est petite, gentille et amusante.
• Mon frère est petit, sportif et intelligent.