MFL DVD Resource TOPIC EDUCATIONSCHOOL Au Revoir Les

MFL DVD Resource TOPIC: EDUCATION/SCHOOL

Au Revoir Les Enfants is Louis Malle’s film about life in a French boarding school during WWII. Excerpt from the film: 04: 42 > 07: 00 Jean, a new boy, is introduced to the other boys in the school dormitory.

Au Revoir Les Enfants • Write a short description of the scene on the screen. What words would you use to describe the friendships between the boys? • Work out what rules you think might be important to this school. What makes you think that? • Discuss what are the biggest differences between boarding and day schools and what are the main arguments for and against?

Au Revoir Les Enfants • A new student arrives in your school. Describe your first impressions of them. Write a brochure for the new arrival with advice on how to fit in at your school. • What do you think of the school? What adjectives would you use to describe it? • What do you think about how the boys react towards one another and what does this reveal about the school environment? • In two groups come up with reasons for and against religious schools. Discuss whether religious schools should be allowed.

Entre Les Murs This is a semi-autobiographical account of a teacher, François Marin’s, experiences as a French language and literature teacher in a middle school in the 20 th arrondissement of Paris. Excerpt from the film: 04: 08 > 04: 23, teachers look down a list of the class.

Entre Les Murs • A teacher looks down his class lists with another member of staff who simply describes the pupils as either nice or not nice. This is from a teacher’s point of view rather than a student’s. What questions does this provoke regarding the way students can be seen by teachers? • Do you think students form accurate assumptions about teachers’ characters? • What personality traits do you like in your teachers? Strict? Respectful? Fair? Funny? What traits would you like them to have? What must they have?

Entre Les Murs • Choose three of your teachers. How would they describe you based on what they know of you? What elements of your character might they overlook? • Are there certain parts of your personality that you do not reveal, purposefully or otherwise? Why do you do that?

Entre Les Murs Excerpt from the film: 17: 25 > 19: 52 A teacher tries to teach the class the imperfect subjunctive.

Entre Les Murs • François explains a grammatical tense to the class. They debate the importance of learning something that only “snobs” use, and that knowing this tense does not apply to them in every day life. To what extent do you think that what you learn in school should reflect what you do in every day life? • Having watched this clip, why do you think they seem to accuse their teacher of being posh? Do you agree? • Do you think the teacher is right that there might be an advantage to knowing about this kind of language? What might that be? If not, why not?

Entre Les Murs • Describe what you see in the classroom. Is it different or similar to your own school? How would you feel if you were in this class? • Do you believe he is a good teacher? Why/why not? What do you think his students feel about him? What makes you believe this? • Do you agree with François, that you need to understand something before you can fully criticise it? Is it harder to learn something if you cannot relate to it? How far do you think language itself highlights and causes social conflict?

Les Choristes Set in a correctional house for ‘wayward boys’, the film charts the progress of new music teacher Clement Mathieu, and his attempts to instil a little love and hope into his challenging students. Excerpt from the film: 06: 45 > 09: 44 A teacher is injured by a prank and a school assembly is called.

Les Choristes • In this scene we are introduced to the protagonist, the new teacher – how does he appear to differ from the other teachers and the headteacher? Do you think he will command respect from his colleagues and the students? • Do you think it’s fair that the children are punished at random and collectively, encouraging someone to ‘snitch’ on the culprit? Justify your answers.

Les Choristes • For a selection of characters, write a sentence describing their personality using superlatives, i. e. le plus, le moins. • Research the slightly different construction of the superlative for saying “the worst” and “the best” and write a sentence using them. • Now using modal verbs (vouloir / devoir / pouvoir), identify how those characters want to / should or could develop their personality to be better behaved and more pleasant.

Les Choristes Excerpt from the film: 11: 51 > 13: 12 The new supervisor enters his classroom for the first time.

Les Choristes • With a partner, pick a character from this extract who interests you, and prepare ten creative questions. Your partner then prepares a series of answers to the questions; some answers will be based on the film but they can be as imaginative as you like. • Perform or video your interview with the rest of the class.

Les Choristes • Now try “hot-seating”. One member of the class goes to the front and plays the role of a character who's name is randomly picked out of a hat. They must answer on the spot and in character the questions from the rest of the class. • What happens next? Choosing another character, use expressions of opinion such as ‘je pense que’, ‘a mon avis’ etc. and if possible the future tense to write a paragraph on what you think will happen to the character next. (Future tense can be immediate or simple).