How do I even start going about learning the verb conjugations when there are so many different moods, tenses and endings?

When I was tutoring GCSE students at my school, this was often the first question I was asked. To a GCSE student, the prospect of learning a vast array of conjugation tables seems daunting and verbs tend to be the part of language learning that inspire the most fear amongst students. Furthermore, I believe misconceptions about the "need" to rote learn long lists of verbs discourages students from continuing to study languages past GCSE. My response to this question is to make verbs manageable. Personally, I think there are two main ways to do this. First, it is necessary to demonstrate that verbs are not the be-all and end-all. As a fundamental part of language, verbs allow our language to become much more complex and multi-dimensional, whilst from an exam viewpoint, it is true that high-level structures such as the conditional or subjunctive do help a student to score more highly in terms of 'Range' and 'Quality of Language'. However, there is no point having a theoretical grammatical knowledge if you are not able to apply this and as such the learning of verbs should take place in context. Second, the learning of verbs must be simplified and carried out in the most natural way possible. It is very useful to highlight the patterns that can be found within different verb groups. For example, a simple trick like knowing that the same verb endings are used to form the imperfect and the conditional (-ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient) reduces the number of verb lists to memorise. In summary, the key to approaching verbs with a GCSE student is to make the learning relevant and manageable; the student must know why they are learning all these conjugations and be given the best tips to make the process as stress-free as possible!