1 of 7

Être: Je suis & tu es

To be | being: I am & you are

2 of 7

I am & you are

Victoria Hobson / Emma Marsden

To say ‘you are’, use tu es. This is the second person singular.

You are small.

Je suis

Je suis français.

You are French.

Tu es français.

I am French.

Je suis petit.

I am small.

Tu es petit.

Je suis malade.

I am unwell.

Tu es malade.

You are unwell.

Tu es

‘am’ and ‘are’

are part of the verb ‘to BE’

Remember, don’t pronounce the ‘s’.

Silent Final Consonant!

In French, to say ‘I am’, use je suis.

This is the first person singular of the verb être.

Remember, don’t pronounce the ‘s’

Silent Final Consonant!

3 of 7

Opposites attract?

You have read interviews where boys discuss their friendship. Look at the verb. Work out whether ‘I…’ or ‘you...’ is being described. Then, write the English adjectives.�Are the friends similar or different?
Interview 1		Interview 2
1	es grand	5	suis grand
2	suis petit	6	es petit
3	suis anglais	7	es français
4	es français	8	suis anglais

Lire

Victoria Hobson

small

English

big

French

big

English

small

French

I

You

I

You

Interview 1

Interview 2

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

4 of 7

Hit or miss?

You are in a noisy café. You can only hear parts of the conversations. �Listen carefully to the verb. �Is the person is describing themselves (‘I’…) or the person they are talking to (‘you…’)?

Écouter

Victoria Hobson

I

You

I

You

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

5 of 7

Hit or miss?

You are in a noisy café. You can only hear parts of the conversations. �Listen carefully to the verb. �Is the person is describing themselves (‘I’…) or the person they are talking to (‘you…’)?

1	es grand	5	suis malade
2	suis petit	6	es calme
3	suis anglais	7	es aimable
4	es cool	8	suis français

Écouter

Victoria Hobson

I

You

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

6 of 7

Talking! Parler!

Parler

Victoria Hobson

Partner B

Pick a pronoun (‘je’ or ‘tu’).

Pick an adjective.

Create a sentence.

Partner A

Translate into English

“Tu es

français.”

“You are French.”

Remember, don’t pronounce the ‘s’

Silent Final Consonant!

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes

See separate set of cards (word doc)

Note: The cards do not have to be printed, but they provide a model for the speaking activity. Pupils can easily be given one sheet of A4 white paper, fold it in half (lengthways), then again in half (widthways), then again into three, so that 12 equal-sized rectangular shapes are created. In 3 of them, they write ‘I’, in 3 others, they write ‘you’, then they write: ill, cool, big, small, English, French once on each of the other six. They tear (with or without use of a ruler, and certainly no scissors – it doesn’t need to be neat!). The first time students create their own flashcards takes about 5 mins, but they get quicker and quicker. It saves copying, cutting…�

Separate the cards into two piles – one pile of the pronoun pictures (‘I’ and ‘you’) and one pile of adjectives.

Partner A picks a pronoun (I or you) and then an adjective; partner B gives the translation.

Remind the pupils not to pronounce the final ‘s’ on ‘suis’ and ‘es’. This shouldn’t be a problem as they have had lots of exposure to the spoken form by now in the listening activity.

Students then swap roles.

Pairs can time themselves, repeating the activity to see how quickly they can complete all the sentences and translations.

With each new game, different sentences will be generated.

Note: the pupils will be creating sentences as per the cards only, and so will not need the feminine form of the adjectives.

7 of 7

Writing! Écrire!

Écrire

Victoria Hobson

Material licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0�

Rachel Hawkes