3.3
À l’école du cirque
3. À l’école du cirque
At the circus school... and in your PE lessons! This section builds on the work pupils did in Early Start French 2, “Les passe-temps” when they found out how to talk about their leisure activities, as well as ch.3.2 “Les parties du corps”. Using the context of “the circus school”, this section develops simple language to help you use French in lively PE lessons, mainly instructions, e.g. playing “Simon says...”. You can turn PE activities into a ‘circus performance’, where pupils’ ‘acts’ are introduced and described to an audience by the ‘ringmaster’ - in French. Pupils, as ‘performers’, can also comment on how difficult they find the activities.They may produce extended sentences using words like “parce que...” (because). Your PE lesson/“show” becomes an opportunity to say what ‘I’ and ‘we’ are doing, and also to tell an ‘audience’ what other people are doing, i.e. ‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘they’.
Films to see Part A: Circus activities A1. 5 circus acts A2. More acts A3. Q and A -at the Circus School A4. Talking about other people’s acts Part B: What I like doing... B1. ... and why B2. ... difficult or easy? Part C: Preparing your own “show” C1. Making a human centipede C2. Jacques a dit... C3. Warm-up instructions C4. Acrobatics: balancing and rolling C5. Joke about a clown
Find transcripts online
Part A: Circus activities
Planning your lessons
Films A1 and A2 introduce the class first to the names of some circus activities, many of which are also appropriate for PE lessons, using everyday equipment. Then they learn to talk about what ‘I’m doing...’ (‘Je fais..’) and what ‘we are doing...’ (‘nous faisons...’).
Activities Warm up
Film A1: “Je fais de l’assiette chinoise”.
Before showing film A1, warm up by playing one or two games from Early Start French 2, Ch.2.13 “Les Passe-temps”. This will remind pupils of how much they can already say about sports and hobbies, e.g. “J’aime le football”. n Display some of the new words from this section to the class, and ask them to anticipate how they should be pronounced.
Watch film A1: 5 circus acts
❑ Film A1 starts with the title song sequence, which the class can join in singing. It shows children at the circus school (‘l’école du cirque’) at Lomme, a suburb of Lille. They do five circus activities in its ‘grand chapiteau’ ( big top): le trapèze; la boule; le diabolo; le mat chinois; l’assiette chinoise.
3.1