L'Euro 2016!

As host country France competes against Portugal in the UEFA Euro 2016 final at Stade de France in Saint-Denis this evening of 10th July 2016, I thought I would share what we have been learning in primary French lessons during this summer half-term in our “L’Euro 2016” topic. 

The unit “L'Euro 2016” links French to football.  It has been inspired by the Euro 2016 to enhance language skills since sport can offer a really motivating focus for language work in addition to uniting countries and breaking down barriers!

In our introductory lesson to this unit, the children learnt a few key facts about the Euro 2016.  We discussed the official slogan of Euro 2016: Le Rendez-Vous.  The children thought that this slogan was pretty catchy as it refers to the fact that France was hosting the tournament for a third time and that the best football teams would meet once again.

We looked at the logo which shows the trophy which is awarded to the champions of the tournament.  The pupils were quick to point out that trophy contains the blue, white and red colours of the French flag.

Next, we talked about the Official Euro 2016 Mascot, Super Victor!   

The children enjoyed discovering this mascot who is half child and half superhero.  Again, they were quick to note that he wears the French kit with a red cape, completing the national colours of France.  The children enjoyed watching this clip which tells the story of Super Victor, and how he found a cape, boots, gloves and ball in a treasure chest which gave him superpowers and enabled him to fly. 

Some children then created their own mascots, supporting France and described them in French to the rest of the class!  

We looked at a map of France and discovered which French cities were hosting games in their stadiums:

Saint-Denis – Stade de France

Marseille – Stade Vélodrome

Lyon – Stade des Lumières

Lille – Stade Pierre-Mauroy

Paris – Parc des Princes

Bordeaux – Stade Bordeaux-Atlantique

Saint-Étienne – Stade Geoffroy-Guichard

Nice – Allianz Riviera

Lens – Stade Félix-Bollaert

Toulouse – Stadium Municipal

The pupils then focused on correctly pronouncing the names of these cities before locating and labelling the 10 stadiums on a map of France.

The pupils learnt a few facts about the stadiums from this video clip which is a compilation of all the stadiums featured in UEFA Euro 2016:

We revised numbers whilst discussing ticket prices.  The pupils were interested to learn that the cheapest price for a Euro 2016 ticket was €25 and was available for 43 of the 51 matches whilst the most expensive ticket for the Final cost €895.

Many pupils were excited to tell me that they watched French DJ David Guetta perform the official Euro 2016 song live at the opening ceremony at the Stade de France on 10th of June 2016.  David Guetta produced and wrote the song which came out on the 13th of May.

After having learnt a few facts about the Euro 2016, we learnt some basic football terminology in French: 

We then learnt how to name the 24 competing countries in French and discussed which ones are Francophone countries.  Pupils enjoyed completing a crossword and a spiral activity from the Lightbulb Languages website.

http://www.lightbulblanguages.co.uk/resources-euro2016.html#french 

Some pupils followed on by learning nationalities and then stated the nationality of players from the 24 teams.  

All pupils revisited basic numbers and then named player squad numbers in French.  

Pupils also revised colours and use them to describe the home football kits from the 24 competing teams.  

Pupils then built on this by using colours and shapes to describe flags from the 24 competing countries.  Upper KS2 pupils had great fun playing a version of the game “Hedbanz” where a pupil wearing an unknown flag image had to guess the correct country by the description of the flag given other pupils in French! Younger pupils enjoyed playing a similar guessing game “C’est quel drapeau?” where they had to quickly identify the correct flag displayed on the board after listening to a description in French and then they coloured in some flags following the colour code given in French.  

The children were excited to conclude this enjoyable topic by using their knowledge of colours, shapes, numbers and forming plural nouns by designing and describing their own football shirts before presenting it to the rest of the class.  Many Y5 & Y6 pupils produced a very impressive piece of written work by including adjectival agreements and adding opinions! 

Bravo les enfants!

Vive le football!