Lesson plan for KS3 French -Unit 13 Ça va?

Teaching context: This class is for a year 9 group which consists of 13-14 year olds. The class
size is roughly 20 pupils. The lesson should last 50 minutes; and will include: the starter
activity, main development activity and the plenary. Pupils receive 2 French lessons per
week. This class is based on part 3 of the Scheme of Work. The learning objectives are: A) To
ask and answer questions about specific illnesses or complaints. B) Initiate and develop
conversations about illness. C) Use language creatively in the context of health.
Prior learning: the names of the body parts and the use of imperative phrases.

Starter (5-6 minutes, 10% of the lesson)

After the students have entered the classroom and have responded in French “présent” to
the register, a starter exercise of Jaques a dit… (Simon says) will be played. The pupils will
rise to their feet and the teacher will play a practice round, so that all the students
understand the rules. Example phrases that the teacher could say: “Jaques a dit: levez les
mains” (Simon says: raise your hands) “Jaques a dit: touchez vos oreilles” (Simon says: touch
your ears) and “Jaques a dit: ouvrez votre bouche” (Simon says: open your mouth). Pupils
will sit down if they are caught out and the game will end after the allotted time, or once
there is only one student left standing.

The aim of this exercise is to engage and focus the pupils’ attention. This activity is
necessary to link back to prior learning If necessary, the teacher could put a diagram similar
to Appendix A on the interactive whiteboard to jog the pupils’ memories.

Main development activity (40 minutes, 80% of the lesson)

The teacher begins by underlining the learning objectives of this class.

The teacher will write on the board phrases how to ask if someone is unwell (which the
pupils will copy into their workbooks), and how to respond and pronounce them and get the
class to repeat them together. The phrases to be learnt are:

“Tu as mal?”

“ J’ai chaud/froid (etc.)”

“Je suis un peu malade.”

“Tu souffres?”

“Oui, jai mal à l’estomac/ à la tête/ aux dents (etc) ”

The teacher will distribute flashcards such as the following:

 In
pairs,
pupils
will
mime
out
the
illness
or affliction depicted on the flashcard, and the partner must guess what is the illness.
Students should follow the format provided on the whiteboard by the teacher and strive to
use full-sentences, for example: Pupil A:“As-tu mal?” Pupil B mimes out the flashcard
depicting toothache, and Pupil A asks them “As-tu mal aux dents?” If this is correct, pupil B
should respond “Oui, j’ai mal aux dents.” This activity should take 10 minutes.
Once this activity is complete, with the students feeling comfortable with these phrases, the
teacher should reiterate the rules of “au, à la, aux” which need to accord with masculine,
feminine and plural nouns. To tie back to prior learning and to solidify this information, the
teacher should refer back to prior knowledge of “aller à…” (to go to…) which also uses this
grammatical feature.
Following this first activity, the teacher will provide each student with the following hand
outs (Appendix B)
(https://jaimelefle.blogspot.com/2016/11/la-sante_5.html)

Five minutes will be spent with dictionaries so that students can clarify and add English
translations if necessary. And the teacher will once again write on the board and explain the
basic questions regarding asking questions with health.
These will be:
“Pourquoi êtes-vous malade?” (Why are you ill?)
“Combien de temps avez-vous été malade?” (How long have you been ill)

Followed by the appropriate responses:

“... parce que j’ai mangé trop de bonbons (etc)” (Because I ate too many sweets [etc])
“... depuis deux ou trois heures (etc)” (For two or three hours [etc])

After the teacher reads them out and gets the class to repeat together, the pupils will be
tasked with writing a short dialogue between a doctor and a patient detailing the doctor
asking what is wrong, the patient’s response, the doctor asking why and since when the
patient is ill. The last part of the dialogue will be the doctor’s advice. This will solidify the
pupil’s prior knowledge of imperatives so offer advice such as “Prenez du sirop” (Take some
medicine) or “Allez à l’hôpital.” (Go to the hospital)

For higher-attaining pupils who might finish before the allocated time, they should continue
the dialogue with further advice from the Doctor “Si ça continue…” (If it continues) This will
solidify the use of imperatives and will help them improve their grammar by forming more
complex sentences.

Plenary (5-6 minutes, 10% of the lesson)

The teacher will ask what has been learnt today, by referring to each learning outcome. A
quick group Q&A session where the teacher asks pupils to say some phrases learnt in class.
Following on from the medication vocabulary learnt, the teacher will describe the next class
in which the pupils will learn about advertisements about health and medication.