Paralympic Game Changers

This sequence for a Terminale class included different types of writing, both journalistic and creative as well as pupils expressing their reactions to a documentary in writing, and making a short video. Pupils’ reactions to the Paralympic athletes they discovered was very enthusiastic and they seemed to take on board the Paralympic values of courage, determination, inspiration and equality.

The sequence took place over 8 classes in the theme Fictions and realities. To begin with, they were asked to think about “heroes and heroines” and write a short text about their definition of what makes a hero or heroine.

Pupils then learned about the Paralympic Games, its symbols, motto and the poster for the 2024 Paris Paralympics (reading and listening comprehension).

As an intermediate task, pupils were invited to “Meet some of the Game Changers”. This task was integrated into this year’s Semaine de langues and the theme “L’important c’est de communiquer”.

Pupils were provided with a list of parathletes in different disciplines, from different English-speaking countries, and with different impairments. They were challenges to write a 200-word article presenting the sportsperson so other pupils could discover them during an exhibition at the school library. Each portrait also included a QR code that allowed viewers to access a short video about the sportsperson.

As a final task, pupils were asked to draw on all they had learned to produce a different type of writing: they participated in the creative-writing contest organised by Speakeasy News on the theme of sport. They came up with stories about parathletes participating in the games or dreaming of it, fighting for the right to compete or participating in the Opening Ceremony, really putting themselves into the shoes of their characters. Chloé, whose text was chosen as a winner in the B2 category, imagined the story of a fan’s encounter with one of the parathletes they had studied, British sprinter Thomas Young, after he has come second in a race.

Finally, the class was evaluated on their written reactions to extracts from the Netflix documentary Rising Phoenix.

Throughout this sequence, the history of the Paralympic movement interested my pupils, and the life stories of the parathletes touched them profoundly. They were keen to share their interest and their emotion through an exhibition in the school library, an article in the school newspaper and their participation in the Speakeasy competition. Above all, they looked forward to following the Paralympic Games, which open on 28 August in France. This project gave real meaning to foreign-language learning, allowing pupils to really experience the topic in the classroom and in their normal lives.