Have you ever been to a circus? What did you see there? Do you know the names of any acts at the circus?

It's the holidays and Billy is going to the circus. He sees the usual things, and he also sees elephants - but one of the elephants isn't so happy! Watch and listen to the story. You can do a puzzle while you wait for the story to download.

WANT SOMETHING TO DO NOW? The circus in this story has elephants and lions. Many people do not like seeing animals in a circus - animals don't perform in nature, and it is not fair to keep animals like this in a cage. What do you think?

Read what some LearnEnglish kids think, and tell us what you think too!

Camila (from Brazil) says:
I think it isn't a good idea to keep animals in a circus, because they deserve to be free and because they have the rights to play outside in the nature. They were born to be free.

Maysan (from Singapore) says:
I think it is really exciting to see animals perform in the circus. As long as they are well treated, with love and kindness and respect, I think it is ok to give them a chance to "show off" what they can do, albeit with a little coaching.

Kelvin (from Singapore) says:
I think that what has happened to the elephants and other animals are not really very cruel as they are well taken care of and are not in a torture chamber. The people who worry about the animals are just paranoid and just completely crazy. Not all people treat them badly.

Françoise (from France) says:
Wild animals are made to live in nature, and not in a cage. To get wild animals not too dangerous and easy to train, they often kill mothers to take baby animals, It's not the same when animals in circus are domestic animals, like dogs or horses.

Furthermore, animals ALWAYS seem to be well treated in circus when spectators are presents, so that spectators may be abused and believe animals are treated with kindness. But it's only appearance. Bad treatment and cruelty are always hidden, so that the spectators can't see it. It's true that not all people treat animals badly but unfortunately a lot of them. To make sure that animals are well treated, one would have to go and see the training regularly. It's rarely allowed by the trainers.

I love circus when there is either not any animals or when animals are only domestic animals.