On the important topic of which tense to use when asking a story, which has been muddled for a long time now, I have thought of another reason – a really good one – to ask the story in the past and do the reading in the present, and this may only apply to French teachers:
We have to write out the stories after we get them from the story writer, and sometimes we don’t have a lot of time. I find myself taking the time to write out separate readings: the generic stories for all five classes is for many of us a requirement because of time but not for me this year so I am fortunate.
Anyway, the additional reason to support using the past tense during the creation of the story and writing the story out in the present tense, I am able to to insert a lot less accent marks, since the present tense verb forms don’t have many accents but the past tense verb forms are loaded with them. That is a dang good reason to write the stories out in the present, for French teachers anyway.
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