The classroom you've been waiting for your students to understand is right there on screen. François Bégaudeau adapted his own novel, then played himself — a French teacher at a Paris middle school in a challenging neighborhood — in a film that is so naturalistic it was shot with the actual students over a year. Entre les murs (The Class) is the documentary that isn't a documentary, the fiction that feels more real than most non-fiction, and the most honest portrait of what teaching actually looks like that exists in the French film catalog.
For French students, the film is immediate: they recognize the classroom, they recognize the power dynamics, they recognize the language students use when they think they're safe. The classroom French in Entre les murs ranges from multicultural Paris vernacular (Wolof-influenced, Arabic-inflected, housing-project slang) to standard academic French — and the teacher navigates those codes constantly, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Students watching it learn something no grammar book ever teaches: how French actually works when people are trying to get through a difficult day together.
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Key Themes for the Classroom
- Authority and dignity — François loses his temper at two girls and calls them "skanks" (pétasses). The fallout is the most honest portrait of a teacher's mistake that French film has produced. Ask: A-t-il le droit de se tromper? What does a student deserve when a teacher fails?
- Language and belonging — Khoumba refuses to participate. Esmeralda argues too much. Souleymane is about to be deported. Each student's relationship to the classroom is a relationship to language itself. Ask: Pour qui est cette classe?
- What school is for — The film never answers this directly, which is why it's so good. Ask at the end: Qu'est-ce que ces élèves ont appris cette année? And be prepared for a long silence before the discussion starts.
Scene to use: The conseil de classe — the meeting where teachers evaluate Souleymane's performance and Esmeralda reports what she overheard. The formal French of the institutional meeting collides with the informal French of the students in the corridor, and the consequences of that collision are severe. Ask: Comment la langue formelle de la réunion diffère-t-elle du français des élèves? That question bridges French linguistics and social justice simultaneously.
Low-prep classroom activity: Students write a brief "self-evaluation" in French — as a student in François's class would write it, answering honestly: what did you learn this year? What didn't you learn? What was the teacher's job in that, and what was yours? Formal French, first person, honest.
What to listen for: The film was shot with actual students from a Paris middle school, which means the French is genuinely adolescent: multiethnic, code-switching, punctuated by the specific energy of a classroom where the social stakes are as high as the academic ones. Ask students to identify one moment where a student's French reveals something about their background that a French teacher would immediately understand. The exercise teaches students that French is never one thing — it carries everyone who speaks it.
The full French lesson plan for Entre les murs is ready at filmarobics.com/products/entre-les-murs — $29.95.
Students walk away from Entre les murs having seen themselves from the other side of the desk — and having heard the French that happens when nobody thinks they're being tested.
The full French lesson plan for Entre les murs is ready at filmarobics.com/products/entre-les-murs — $29.95.
📥 Want a free lesson plan? Get a complete FilmArobics sample — pick your language. Subscribe for your free lesson →
Students walk away from Entre les murs having seen themselves from the other side of the desk — and having heard the French that happens when nobody thinks they're being tested.
