Key Stage 3 languages · Grammar and vocabulary

KS3 languages: the present tense in French and Spanish

The present tense is the first tense students build on in Key Stage 3, and everything else rests on it. Students arrive in Year 7 with very different experience of languages. Over Years 7 to 9 they learn to use many more verbs correctly, across all persons, regular and irregular, and to describe what is happening now, what usually happens and what is in progress. Accurate present-tense verbs are the foundation for the past and future work that follows.

The present tense, explained

In Key Stage 3, schools teach any modern foreign language, and many choose French, Spanish or German. Whichever it is, the curriculum asks students to identify and use structures that convey the present, past and future. The present comes first because it is what students use to talk about themselves, their families, their routines and their opinions: what they do, what they like, where they live and what they are like. It is also the tense they meet in nearly every text.

Regular verbs follow patterns. In French, verbs ending in -er (parler), -ir (finir) and -re (vendre) have their own sets of endings; in Spanish, verbs ending in -ar (hablar), -er (comer) and -ir (vivir) do the same. Students learn to see the infinitive, take off the ending to find the stem, and add the right ending for the person: I, you, he or she, we, you (plural) and they. The really useful verbs are irregular, so they are learned as sets: être, avoir, aller and faire in French, and ser, estar, tener, ir and hacer in Spanish. Teachers aim for students to use these quickly, without stopping to work each form out.

There are several wrinkles that need attention. Reflexive verbs, such as se lever (to get up) or levantarse, need a small extra word that matches the person: je me lève, nous nous levons; me levanto, nos levantamos. Some verbs change their stem in some forms, as in the Spanish quiero (I want, from querer) or puedo (I can, from poder), and French has smaller spelling changes such as nous mangeons. Written endings can be silent in French, so parle, parles and parlent sound the same while being spelled differently. Spanish usually drops the subject pronoun (yo, nosotros and so on) because the ending already says who is meant.

English has two present forms, “I play” and “I am playing”, while French uses one form for both: “je joue”. Spanish uses the simple present for routines and can add estar and a present participle for something happening right now, as in “estoy comiendo”; in French, “je suis en train de manger” is a way of stressing the action in progress. Students learn to judge when each is needed. Accuracy matters here: a correct, well-formed present tense in every person is worth more than a long sentence with endings that are wrong, because the same verbs and endings come back in every other tense.

Words your child will hear

Tense: The form of a verb that shows when something happens: present, past or future.
Infinitive: The basic form of a verb, such as parler or hablar, meaning “to speak”.
Stem: What is left of the infinitive when the ending is removed: parl- or habl-.
Irregular verb: A verb that does not follow the usual pattern, such as être, aller, ser or ir.
Reflexive verb: A verb used with an extra pronoun that points back to the subject, such as se lever.
Stem-changing verb: A verb whose stem changes in some forms, such as querer becoming quiero.
Present participle: The -ing style form used in Spanish with estar, as in comiendo.

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
Teaching should focus on developing the breadth and depth of pupils’ competence in listening, speaking, reading and writing, based on a sound foundation of core grammar and vocabulary.

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

Try it: a morning routine in the present tense

Write in French: “My sister gets up at seven and eats cereal. We go to school by bus.”

Split the English into three clauses, and find the verb and the person in each: my sister (she) gets up; my sister (she) eats; we go.
“Gets up” is a reflexive verb, se lever. For she, the reflexive word is se, and the verb takes the accent change this verb has in every form except nous and vous: elle se lève (note the è). Check it against the pattern: je me lève, tu te lèves, elle se lève, nous nous levons, vous vous levez, elles se lèvent.
“Eats” is manger, a regular -er verb. For she, take off -er and add -e: elle mange. The join, “and”, gives et. To avoid repeating the subject, the second verb can follow straight on: “elle se lève à sept heures et mange des céréales”.
“We go” uses the irregular verb aller. The forms have to be remembered: je vais, tu vas, il va, nous allons, vous allez, ils vont. For we, it is nous allons. “To school” for a secondary student in France is au collège, and “by bus” is en bus.
Read the sentence back and check each verb for the right person and the right ending, then check the accents.

French: “Ma sœur se lève à sept heures et mange des céréales. Nous allons au collège en bus.” Spanish: “Mi hermana se levanta a las siete y come cereales. Vamos al instituto en autobús.”

Common mistakes and how to help

Translating “I am playing” word for word: “je suis jouant”

English has a separate present continuous, so students expect every language to have one. French uses the simple present for both “I play” and “I am playing”.

What helps: Point out that je joue covers both meanings. If the stress needs to fall on the action in progress, use en train de, as in “je suis en train de jouer”. For Spanish, estoy jugando is correct and common for something happening right now.

Using the -er endings for every verb, as in “je fine” or “nous finons”

-er verbs are the largest group and the first one taught, so the pattern becomes automatic.

What helps: Say each group’s endings aloud as a set: je finis, tu finis, il finit, nous finissons, vous finissez, ils finissent. Sort verbs by their infinitive ending before conjugating.

Forgetting stem changes or reflexive pronouns: “quero” instead of “quiero”, or “je lève” instead of “je me lève”

Students treat the infinitive as the stem and add the ending, or overlook the reflexive word because English “I get up” has none.

What helps: Learn the first person of stem-changing verbs as a chunk, and look for the “boot” pattern in Spanish, where the stem changes in four forms and stays the same in nosotros and vosotros. For reflexives, learn the verb together with its pronoun, se lever not lever.

Mixing up ser and estar in Spanish

English has one verb, “to be”, for both ideas, so students have nothing to guide them.

What helps: As a starting rule, use ser for what someone or something is like, and estar for where it is or how it feels: soy alto (I am tall), estoy cansado (I am tired), estoy en casa (I am at home). Use a handful of fixed examples as models.

How to help at home

Say what everyone does. Ask your teenager to describe a typical day for each person in the family in the language they are learning. Using different persons, I, he, she, we and they, in a few quick sentences makes them practise the full set of forms.
Make verb families. Pick a verb and write out all its forms on a sheet. Then ask them to colour the endings and spot which verbs share them. Spending ten minutes on one verb pattern is more use than skimming a long list.
Talk through the corrections. Look at a piece of marked work in their exercise book together and ask your teenager to explain each verb the teacher corrected: what was wrong and why the new ending is right. Explaining a mistake is strong revision, and you do not need to know the language to ask.
Weekend routine in a short diary. Ask for five lines about a normal Saturday written in the present tense, using at least one irregular verb and one reflexive. You do not need to know the language: ask them to read it aloud and explain it.

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