Form a queue!

by Katie Thwaites,
Teacher of Modern Foreign Languages

To celebrate National Poetry Day, Year 9 students of French explored a poem in the target language. After having read and listened to the poem, the majority of students were given the English translation of a word which appeared in their text. Their challenge was to work together as a class to find the correct order of the words and ‘form a queue’ accordingly- within the time limit of five minutes! Those without words were encouraged to act as group coordinators and it was interesting to observe how the students interacted without teacher guidance. The activity developed team-building and communication skills and each student took an active role in bringing the poem to life.