Professional Development for Quality Teaching

Using a birthday party game of pass-the-parcel in a KS2 modern languages lesson helps Year 3 pupils build their vocabulary and discover a fun way to learn French.

Helen Foot, at Hitchin Primary School, demonstrates her great idea for primary MFL lessons, beginning with asking her pupils to repeat in French the months of the year and asking the pupils their birth dates.

Helen then plays a game similar to pass-the-parcel to help her class learn vocabulary and structure short question and answer sentences.

Holding her parcel aloft, Helen asks her class "what's in the parcel?" The pupil who correctly guesses what's in each layer from a set choice of objects, gets to open the layer.

Key Stage 2 children of all ages and abilities enjoy the game, while learning French at the same time. This is a quick, simple, fun and effective means of engaging your class.