How to Plan a French Lesson: A Template for Online Tutors

May 2026  ·  8 min read

French tutors lose more hours to planning than to teaching. Working out what comes next, finding examples that show liaison and gender clearly, assembling exercises, and keeping the grammar in a sensible order can quietly swallow an evening. A planning template you trust removes that drag: you drop the day's objective into a structure that already works and spend your energy on the live lesson instead.

This guide gives online French tutors a reusable planning framework, timings for a typical 50- to 60-minute one-to-one lesson, advice on adapting by CEFR level, a fully worked example lesson on the passé composé, and the planning mistakes that trip French tutors up.

A reusable framework for planning a French lesson

The dependable structure for a language lesson is a warm-up, present, practise, produce and review arc, the familiar PPP (Presentation, Practice, Production) shape with a review loop bolted on. It carries the student from receiving new language to using it freely inside one lesson. French rewards this because its grammar interlocks, and its sound system needs constant exposure, so a clear arc keeps both moving.

Begin every plan with one sentence: By the end of this lesson the student will be able to.... If that sentence runs on, your lesson is overloaded. The single objective then shapes every stage.

How should I time a 50-60 minute French lesson?

• Warm-up (5 min): A French-only exchange, Qu'est-ce que tu as fait ce week-end? Activate the language and tune the ear.
• Review (5-10 min): Recycle last lesson's grammar and vocabulary. French verb forms and gender need frequent revisiting.
• Presentation (10-15 min): Introduce one new point, a tense, pronoun placement, the subjunctive trigger, through clear, example-led input.
• Practice (15-20 min): Controlled drills moving to freer use, with you as the conversation partner.
• Production (10 min): An open speaking or writing task that uses the new language for real meaning.
• Wrap-up (5 min): Summarise, praise specifics, set one focus, and preview the next lesson.

Platforms like Derstina provide ready-made French lesson plans built on this sequence, so the timing and exercises come prepared rather than assembled by hand.

How do I adapt a French lesson for different CEFR levels?

The framework holds; the objective and input shift. A1-A2: present tense, gender and articles, adjective agreement, the passé composé with avoir, and survival vocabulary, with heavily modelled tasks. B1-B2: the imperfect and its contrast with the passé composé, the subjunctive and its triggers, pronoun placement, the conditional, and connected speech with liaison and elision. C1-C2: coach with authentic material, France Inter, Le Monde, film, refining register, idiom and subtler subjunctive uses through discussion and self-correction.

A worked example: planning a passé composé lesson (A2)

The passé composé is where many French learners stall, because it has three moving parts at once. A good plan tackles them in order rather than all together.

Objective: By the end, the student can talk about what they did last weekend using the passé composé with avoir.

• Warm-up (5 min): Ask, in the present, Qu'est-ce que tu fais le week-end normalement? to surface weekend vocabulary you will reuse in the past.
• Review (8 min): Refresh the present tense of avoir, the auxiliary the whole lesson depends on, plus a handful of common verbs.
• Presentation (13 min): Tell a short personal story: Samedi, j'ai mangé au restaurant et j'ai regardé un film. Break the structure into two clear pieces, the auxiliary avoir conjugated for the subject, then the past participle. Show how regular -er verbs form their participle in -é, and flag a few high-frequency irregulars (fait, vu, pris). Deliberately leave être verbs and agreement for a later lesson.
• Practice (18 min): A gap-fill that drills participle formation, then a transformation task turning present-tense sentences into the past. Finish with a guided question-and-answer: Tu as mangé au restaurant? to rehearse the form in dialogue.
• Production (10 min): The student describes their real last weekend for two minutes while you note participle errors. Ask follow-ups, Et après? to keep them producing the tense.
• Wrap-up (5 min): Recap the two-part structure, praise correct participles, preview être verbs for next time, and load the new verbs into spaced-repetition review.

By limiting the lesson to avoir verbs without agreement, the student leaves able to actually use the tense, rather than half-knowing all of its rules.

Common French lesson-planning mistakes

Doing the past tenses at once. The passé composé, the imperfect and their contrast each need their own lesson before you compare them. Ignoring pronunciation in the plan. If liaison, nasal vowels and silent endings are never timetabled, students read well but cannot follow speech. Over-explaining. If you talk for half the lesson, the student is not producing; aim for them to speak 60-70 percent of the time. Skipping prerequisites. Teaching the subjunctive before the present tense is automatic guarantees frustration. No review loop. Without recycling, gender and verb forms slip away between lessons.

How a structured curriculum removes most of the planning

A ready-made French curriculum bakes the right sequence into your teaching, so you assign the correct lesson for each level in seconds and trust that prerequisites are met and vocabulary recycles through spaced repetition. Derstina's curriculum provides hundreds of structured French lessons with built-in exercises, a student portal and progress tracking, turning planning into a few minutes of personalising. For grammar sequencing and engagement in depth, see our guide on teaching French online, and compare the approach with planning an Italian lesson.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I structure a French lesson for an online student?

Use a warm-up, review, presentation, practice, production and wrap-up flow across 50 to 60 minutes. Set one objective, activate prior language, present a single new point such as the passé composé, drill it from controlled to free, and finish with an open speaking task. Keep the student talking for most of the lesson.

How do I plan a lesson on the passé composé?

Plan around the three moving parts: choosing the auxiliary (avoir or être), forming the past participle, and agreement. Start with avoir verbs only, present the structure through a short personal story, drill participle formation, then have the student recount their weekend. Save être verbs and agreement for a follow-up lesson to avoid overload.

How do I adapt a French lesson for different CEFR levels?

Keep the same lesson flow and change the target. At A1-A2 cover present tense, gender and articles, and the passé composé with avoir. At B1-B2 add the imperfect, the subjunctive, pronoun placement and connected speech with liaison. At C1-C2 use authentic audio and text, refining register, idiom and nuance through discussion.

What is a common French lesson-planning mistake?

Teaching the passé composé, the imperfect and their contrast in a single lesson. French past tenses each need their own session before you compare them. Another common mistake is neglecting pronunciation and liaison in planning, so students read French well but cannot understand or be understood in speech.

Can a curriculum reduce French lesson-planning time?

Yes. A structured French curriculum sequences grammar correctly so you do not have to decide the order yourself. Derstina offers ready-made French lessons with exercises, a student portal, progress tracking and spaced-repetition review, so most of your planning is done and you simply assign the right lesson and personalise it.