Key Stage 3 languages · Grammar and vocabulary

KS3 languages: talking about the past in French and Spanish

Talking about what happened is one of the biggest steps in Key Stage 3 languages. Students move from describing the present to recounting weekends, holidays and events, which means learning how the language builds its past tenses: usually a helping verb plus a past participle, and a second past tense for ongoing or repeated actions. It takes practice because the rules are fiddly and the English past tense is formed so differently.

Talking about the past, explained

The curriculum asks students to identify and use tenses or other structures that convey the past. Schools teach any modern foreign language, and the tenses they choose to teach and in which year depend on the language and the school. In French the most common past tense for finished events is the perfect tense (the passé composé), which has two parts: a form of avoir or être, plus a past participle. “I played” is j’ai joué, and “I went” is je suis allé(e). The same structure also means “I have played”, so one French form does the job of two English ones.

Choosing the helping verb is a key skill. Most verbs use avoir, but a small group of verbs of movement and change, such as aller, venir, arriver, partir, sortir, entrer, rester and tomber, use être, as do reflexive verbs. With être the past participle agrees with the subject like an adjective, so a girl writes je suis allée, and a group of boys writes nous sommes allés. Past participles of regular verbs follow patterns: -er verbs end in -é (joué), -ir verbs in -i (fini) and -re verbs in -u (vendu). The common irregular ones, such as fait, pris, eu, été and vu, have to be learned.

Spanish has more than one way to talk about the past. The perfect (“he comido”, I have eaten) uses the verb haber plus a participle ending in -ado or -ido. The preterite (“comí”, I ate) is used for completed events at a specific time, with endings that change for each person, and common verbs such as ir and ser (fui), hacer (hice) and tener (tuve) are irregular. The accents matter: hablo and habló, present and past, are different words. Both languages also have an imperfect tense for what used to happen or was going on in the background, as in “jouait” and “jugaba”; schools differ on when they introduce it, so check your child’s scheme of work.

In practice, students are asked to build a short account of last weekend, a holiday or a school trip. A good one uses time words to anchor the story (hier, le week-end dernier, ayer, el año pasado), a mixture of verbs, and opinions in the past with a reason, such as “c’était génial parce que…” or “fue divertido porque…”. The curriculum asks students to give and justify points of view with increasing spontaneity, independence and accuracy, so the aim is not only to get each verb right but to use the past confidently in their own sentences.

Words your child will hear

Past participle: The part of the verb that follows the helping verb, such as joué in j’ai joué.
Auxiliary verb: The helping verb, such as avoir, être or haber, used to build a tense.
Perfect tense: A past tense made with a helping verb and a participle. In French it is the passé composé.
Preterite: A Spanish past tense for completed events at a particular time, such as comí.
Imperfect: A past tense for what used to happen or was in progress, such as jouait or jugaba.
Agreement: Changing the end of a word to match, as in elle est allée.
Time marker: A word or phrase that shows when, such as hier (yesterday) or el año pasado (last year).

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 3 says:

Pupils should be taught to identify and use tenses or other structures which convey the present, past, and future as appropriate to the language being studied
It should enable pupils to understand and communicate personal and factual information that goes beyond their immediate needs and interests, developing and justifying points of view in speech and writing, with increased spontaneity, independence and accuracy.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: last weekend

Write in French: “Last weekend I went to the beach with my family and my sister played volleyball.” (The writer is a girl.)

Start with a time marker, which sets up the past: “le week-end dernier”. Then list the verbs: I went (aller), my sister played (jouer).
Choose the helping verb for each. Aller is one of the verbs that takes être, so “I went” uses je suis. Jouer takes avoir, so “she played” uses a (the form of avoir for he or she).
Make the past participle. Aller gives allé. Jouer is an -er verb, so it ends in -é: joué.
```
aller → allé
jouer → jou + é = joué
```
Check agreement. Because aller takes être, the participle agrees with the subject. The writer is a girl, so add -e: je suis allée. With avoir, the participle does not change here: ma sœur a joué.
Put it together: “avec ma famille” for “with my family”, and “au volley” for the sport. Read it back and check each verb for the helping verb and the participle.

French: “Le week-end dernier, je suis allée à la plage avec ma famille et ma sœur a joué au volley.” Spanish: “El fin de semana pasado fui a la playa con mi familia y mi hermana jugó al voleibol.”

Common mistakes and how to help

Using avoir with every verb: “j’ai allé”

Avoir is the helping verb for most verbs, so students use it as the default. English has only one helping verb, “have”, so there is nothing to prompt the choice.

What helps: Learn the list of verbs that take être as a set, and always ask “is this a verb of going, coming or changing?” before choosing. Reflexive verbs also take être.

Using the infinitive instead of the past participle: “j’ai manger”

Students remember the helping verb but forget that the second verb needs to change into a participle. The infinitive and participle of -er verbs sound alike in French (manger, mangé), so the ear does not help.

What helps: Practise with -ir and -re verbs too, where the difference is plain to see: finir becomes fini and vendre becomes vendu. Then make it a habit to check the end of the participle: é, not er.

Forgetting agreement with être: “elle est allé”

With avoir, the participle usually stays as it is, so students do not expect it to change.

What helps: Ask who is doing the action. With être, the participle describes the subject like an adjective, so add -e for a girl, -s for a group of boys and -es for a group of girls.

Leaving off the accent in the Spanish preterite, so “habló” (he spoke) is written “hablo” (I speak)

Accents look like small details, but in pairs like this they are the only written sign of the tense. Writing quickly, students leave them off or put them in the wrong place.

What helps: Say the pairs aloud, hablo and habló, and hear how the stress moves. Check accents as a final proofreading step. Learn the irregular preterites like fui, hice and tuve as chunks, because they have no accents and follow no pattern.

How to help at home

Tell me about your weekend. Ask for three sentences about the weekend in the past tense of the language. Choose a different verb each time so they have to think about which helping verb to use and how the participle ends.
Sort verbs into être and avoir. Write a dozen verbs on cards and ask your teenager to sort them into the ones that use être and the ones that use avoir. They can check against their exercise book and turn the cards over to test themselves.
Proofread a short diary. Ask your teenager to write four or five lines about a day out. Then let them be the teacher: they read it aloud and explain, verb by verb, which helping verb they chose and how the participle ends. Explaining it often reveals their own mistakes.
Add time markers. Challenge them to start each sentence with a different time word, such as hier, avant-hier, la semaine dernière or ayer, anoche, el verano pasado. Time markers make the account sound natural and signal the tense.

Builds on

Key Stage 2: Building vocabulary
Key Stage 2: Using a bilingual dictionary
Key Stage 2: Masculine, feminine and neuter nouns
Key Stage 2: High-frequency verbs
Key Stage 2: Patterns and building sentences
Key Stage 2: Comparing a language with English