French Teaching Resources: Essay Writing Support Sheet.

I give this double-sided sheet to my students to encourage them to add sophistication to their written work by adding a range of grammatical structures and tenses and have found it to be very effective.

Worksheet extract:

Des expressions et du vocabulaire.

Complex sentences
et = and, mais = but, parce que/ car = because, donc = therefore, cependant = however, malheureusement = unfortunately, qui = who, où = where/which.

Adjectives
amusant = fun, passionnant = exciting, ennuyeux/ barbant = boring, nul(le) = rubbish, pénible = awful, génial/ formidable/ chouette = great, ridicule = ridiculous, paresseux/euse = lazy, marrant(e) = fun (person), bavard(e) = chatty, casse-pieds = annoying, propre = clean, sale = dirty, effrayant(e) = frightening, utile = useful, facile = easy, difficile = difficult, chic = stylish.

Adverbs
très = very, assez = quite, un peu = a little, vraiment = really /truly, plutôt = rather. extrêmement = extremely, gentiment = kindly, heureusement = happily, generalement = generally.

Useful expressions
C’est = it is, c’était = it was, ça sera = it will be, ça serait = it would be
Ce n’est pas = it isn’t, ce n’était pas = it wasn’t, ça ne sera pas = it won’t be, ça ne serait pas= it wouldn’t be
Il y a = there is/ are, il y avait = there was/ were, il y aura = there will be, il y aurait = there would be
Il n’y a pas de = there isn’t, il n’y avait pas de = there weren’t any, il n’y aura pas de = there won’t be, il n’y aurait pas de = there wouldn’t be.


Je l’aime bien = I really like it, je l’adore = I love it, je ne l’aime pas = I don’t like it, je le/la/ les déteste = I hate it.
Je l’ai aimé(e) = I liked it, je ne l’ai pas aimé(e) = I didn’t like it, je l’ai déteste = I hated it.
Je le/la/les trouve= I think it’s, je pense que c’est = I think that it’s, à mon avis c’est = in my opinion it’s…

Other strucutres and tenses included:

Comparatives

Superlatives

Negatives


Present
Present with depuis
Future
Near future
Perfect tense (completed actions in the past)
Pluperfect tense
Imperfect tense (used to)
Imperfect tense and perfect tense together ( I was ***ing when something else happened)
Conditional tense
Subjunctive
Present participle

Expression with the infinitive

Useful words linked to tenses