French

Intent

It is our intent at Little Kingshill Combined School to provide all of our children with a high-quality education in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL), which develops their love of learning about other languages and cultures. Our current MFL taught is French. It is our intention to ensure that by the end of our children’s primary education, they have acquired an understanding of both spoken and written French, confidence to speak in French with others and know how important other languages can be in their future.

Implementation

We teach French as our Modern Foreign Language in KS2. It is taught in a whole-class setting, using Language Angels scheme of work. The lessons are designed to engage children and have clear, achievable objectives and incorporate a variety of activities to reinforce learning.

We focus on speaking and listening in Year 3, gradually developing skills in reading and writing throughout KS2 in order to lay the foundations for foreign language teaching in KS3. In each lesson, children build on the skills that they have already learned and develop new ones through a range of fun, exciting and engaging activities, including:

• learning French vocabulary

• asking and answering questions, and following instructions in French

• reinforcing memory with mime and physical actions

• playing games and learning songs

• video clips

• using bilingual dictionaries

• teaching of basic French grammar, sentence structure and spelling patterns

• learning French phonics

• researching and learning about life in France

• writing phrases and sentences

• reading stories

• creative tasks to demonstrate learning.

We have mapped out the units of learning across the year groups to ensure that pupils gradually develop their language knowledge as well as providing opportunities to build upon previous learning. Within the scheme, the units are classified as:

• Early Language teaching
• Intermediate
• Progressive teaching

The ‘Early Language teaching’ units are generally most appropriate for those who are at the early stages of learning. For this reason, they are used predominantly in Year 3 but they also feature in Year 4 (and Year 5 to a lesser extent).  Intermediate units increase the level of challenge by increasing the amount and complexity (including foreign language grammar concepts) of the foreign language presented to pupils. These units are used predominantly in Years 4 and 5. Progressive units are the most challenging units and are suitable for those with a good understanding of the basics of the language. For this reason, they are used only in Year 6.  There are also ‘Extra Teaching’ units of learning interspersed throughout the curriculum to reinforce key language and concepts (e.g. French phonetics or classroom commands).

Our progression of units ensures children will be taught how to listen and read longer pieces of text gradually in French and they will have ample opportunities to speak, listen to, read and write the language being taught. It also ensures that children will build on previous knowledge gradually as their foreign language lessons continue to recycle, revise and consolidate previously learnt language whilst building on all four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Grammar is integrated and taught throughout units. If required, teachers can also use the specific ‘Grammar Explained’ units to ensure pupils are exposed to all of the appropriate grammar so they are able to create their own accurate and personalised responses to complex authentic foreign language questions by the end of the primary phase.

Each teaching unit is typically divided into 6 fully planned lessons, each with its own objectives and aims. Each lesson will incorporate interactive whiteboard materials to include speaking and listening tasks within a lesson. Lessons will typically include an independent activity to reinforce taught concepts.

Impact

Our MFL curriculum will ensure all pupils develop key language learning skills set out by the national curriculum, as well as a love of languages and learning about other cultures.

These are as follows:

• understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources
• speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation
• can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt
• discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Observing children speaking and listening in another language.
• Feedback on independent learning.
• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
• Formative and summative assessment
• Learning walks.
• Subject tracking and monitoring

The MFL subject leader will continually monitor the impact MFL teaching is having on the children’s learning to ensure the curriculum is being taught.  They will also ensure the knowledge taught is retained by the children and continually revisited and that the learners are able to apply the skills they have been taught to a variety of different settings, showing independence with their learning. Impact will also be measured through key questioning skills built into lessons, child-led assessment, formative assessment and summative assessments aimed at targeting next steps in learning.