When I say to people I am a French teacher I hear a lot of different comments, including the one “ I didn’t like French when I was at school, I was very bad at it! And it was very boring, we had to conjugate verbs”.
I usually try to tell people that the teaching has changed since the time they went to school and that I do not ask my students to conjugate verbs.
How surprise was I during my last lesson with my Year 12 when I asked them what I could do to be a better teacher, what I could have done better this year !! Unanimously they answered that they would like to do more conjugation in class and for homework.
I could not believe what I heard. I thought they were going to tell me that they should do some more fun stuff, or watch some more movies or do some more ICT activities. But No !!!! They want to take a verb and conjugate it in different tenses.
I have been teaching those students since Year 9 and I have never done conjugation with them. So they do not want to do conjugation because their previous teacher used to do this type of activity with them. I have to admit I am not sure why they would want to do some conjugation !!!! It is not even a requirement for NCEA, so the excuse of getting a better grade at exam is not even a valid argument.
That brought a smile to my face :) I never learnt any English grammar when I went to school and it wasn't until I did French and learnt how to conjugate verbs that my native tongue-English- began to make sense. It may be tedious, but it really does empower you if you can do it easily. Of course, if you are learning a language by immersion because you live in the country then that is a different matter...
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As I am planning my course for next year I have actually included some conjugaison exercises. I will see if my students next year will like it :-)
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