The Other Tongue competition

Supplementary guidelines and information for Other Tongue entries

• Teachers may issue appropriate support materials to help learners write their poems just as they normally would in writing activities.

• It is acceptable for a similar approach to be used in a number of poems entered by the same centre, but efforts should be made to ensure poems represent learners' own work.

• It is acceptable to use approaches that draw from published materials like novels, poems, films, adverts, leaflets, newspapers, etc. provided that poems produced represent learners' own work.

• Very restricted approaches may disadvantage learners in terms of originality. 

• Teachers should encourage learners to aim for accuracy in terms of spelling, grammar, syntax, etc.

• Judges will be mindful of the fact that poems may play with language or use non-standard structures for effect. However, where it is obvious that there are errors and/or these detract from the overall effect, judges may take this into consideration.

• Learners are invited to provide a brief summary of their poem in English. This is not compulsory but it may assist the judging process to know more information about the poem/poet. This should require no more than a few sentences. The competition does not prescribe the content of these summaries but some examples may be;

• The learners reasons for choosing to write about a particular subject

• Their general feelings about the poem or the experience of writing a poem in another language

• The thinking behind their choice of words and/or use of figurative language

• Details of any materials they have drawn upon and what they thought of these