A five-piece group from UK is poised to win La France a du talent! The other finalists don’t think a British group should win as they know nothing about French language and culture, so they lock them in dressing room. If the UK group doesn’t get to the stage within 40 minutes, they will be declared disqualified. To get out of the room they must solve puzzles to show their ability in French, get the code to unlock the door and make it to the stage. The puzzles have been set by the other contestants but only one has deliberately locked them in the dressing room.

Learning objective:

• To develop engagement with language learning through a fun and enjoyable activity
• To develop  cooperation and communication skills within a meaningful context
• To develop skills using a bi-lingual dictionary to decode unfamiliar language
• To develop resilience in language learning through challenging reading and listening activities

Topics

Countries & nationalities, adjectives of shape, simple mathematical terms, instructional vocabulary when listening and reading

Grammar

Comparative and Superlative

Resources

• PowerPoint presentation
• Five challenge activity sheets
• Information sheet All Flags Europe
• Information sheet la tour Eiffel
• Downloaded version of song Tous Les Garcons Et Les Filles by Francoise Hardy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty-4kYPbEX8 – Audio only version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPkBMqehr5k – Video version but subtitles need disabling
• Follow up activity

USEFUL TO HAVE BI-LINGUAL DICTIONARIES IF AVAILABLE

Pupils have 40 minutes in teams of 5/6 to work through the five activities and solve the puzzles. Each puzzle will give them a code which they will need at the end to see if they can unlock the door. Depending on class size, teachers may wish to have a carousel system with each group working on a different activity at the same time. One of the activities (Françoise Coupable) involves listening which may be done as a whole class activity if preferred, or as an individual group activity if resources allow.