La Mulâtresse Solitude was a historical figure and heroine in the fight against slavery on French Guadeloupe. She is a true icon of female rebellion against oppression and a symbol of women’s resistance in the struggle against slavery in the history of the island. La Mulatresse Solitude is a great role model for young people with her tragic life story and opposition to the armed forces sent by Napoleon. This lesson plan is to focus on French language learning with a strong emphasis on black history month, intersectionality, feminism and the arst in a decolonised perspective. The content is mostly for Ks4 with GCSE tasks even though some elements that can be used for Ks3 or Ks5 depending on your students’ levels. There are picture description, reading comprehension, listening tasks and writing tasks. The content is rich in cultural knowledge but also functional language learning.

This lesson plan is about dancing. It starts with a very famous piece of French classical music written by Saint Saens to amuse his students. It became one of his most famous pieces. Then it inspired a Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova with the dying swan dance in her iconic white feather tutu. It finally took flight with Lil’ Buck’s jookin adaptation with Yo Yo Ma’s warm cello sounds. This is about international excellence, where dance and music meet to inspire us all. Through this lesson plan, all the regular GCSE skills can be practiced: picture description vocabulary of job vocabulary of physical description reading comprehension translation There are videos to watch in order to complete the whole lesson plan. There are links to YouTube homework included although you can always ask the students to find 10 facts on each person and to present them to the class en français.

WHAT IS ‘DECOLONISING’ THE CURRICULUM First, ‘decolonising the curriculum’ asks us to look at our shared assumptions about how the world is. It is questioning the impact of colonisation in history, economy and cultural representations. Second, ‘decolonising the curriculum’ asks us to think about the implications of a more diverse student body in terms of pedagogy and achievement. Third, ‘decolonising the curriculum’ means making BAME public and historical figures more predominant, making BAME artists seen and heard. I have developed a principle, the elastic band method, which can be applied in lesson planning in order to make language and history teaching inclusive, universal and decolonised. It is time to decolonise our worldview and our practices. The Elastic band method offers simple steps to bring up change. Through clear activities with a strong cultural content, your students will be able to improve their language skills while enriching their general knowledge. This resource contains a PowePoint with many slides offering an overview with activities presenting Les Misérables, le roman by Victor Hugo to Les Misérables, le film by Ladj Li. There are also glossaries to hand out to students and step by step lesson plan guides.