French Theatre Production

On Wednesday 5^th May a touring French theatre company came to Amesbury and performed a comedy called ‘La chambre de Jean-Paul’ (Jean-Paul’s bedroom).  Years 7 and 8 were entertained for an hour by two native speakers who spoke only in French throughout the performance.  The children were concerned prior to the event that they would be unable to understand what was happening but through clever use of repetition, gestures and sentiment, they were mesmerised from start to finish and were clearly able to understand most of the dialogue.

The play is set is Jean-Paul’s bedroom.  He can’t understand why he can’t get a girlfriend, although there is one girl he really likes.  One evening, to his amazement, ‘Fashion Girl’ bursts into his room through the window!  She is a sort of free advice service for single teenagers and she immediately takes over.  Jean-Paul gets a completely new look and eventually ends up with the girl of his dreams!  Audience participation was encouraged and several Amesburians were given the opportunity to show off their musical and dancing abilities, much to the amusement of everyone else!  This was an excellent way to reinforce key topic vocabulary and verb tenses that pupils had already learned as well as boosting their confidence in terms of how much of a foreign language they can actually understand.  We will certainly be looking to book a similar event next year.