Modern Foreign Languages  

Intent

We aspire for the children of the Phoenix Federation to be confident linguists and appreciative of other cultures.  Many of our children have already experienced learning English as a second or even third language. Our school is linguistically extremely diverse, and we aim to foster a culture in which the home languages of our children and their families, and the accomplishments that our bi and multi-lingual children have already achieved are recognised and celebrated.

Alongside this, we hope the journey of learning a language together will be fun and rewarding and give children the confidence and motivation to develop their communication skills in different languages throughout their time with us and far beyond.

 Language teaching also provides opportunities for them to deepen their understanding of how systems of language work and differ, communicate for practical purposes, learn new ways of thinking and equips pupils to study and work in other countries.

Implementation

Modern Foreign Languages are taught each term throughout Key Stage 2. Embedded in the curriculum are opportunities for cross-curricular links wherever possible. Each unit and each lesson revisits key knowledge or misconceptions from past learning ensuring that all children can consolidate and build upon what they have in previous lessons.

At Grinling Gibbons, children study French following the Kapow scheme of learning. The curriculums are delivered through lively, participatory lessons developing knowledge and skills across the areas of speaking and listening, reading, writing, grammar, language learning strategies and intercultural understanding. Each lesson covers essential vocabulary; audio clips provide children with the opportunities to hear a native French or Spanish speaker and listen to the pronunciation of words.   Interactive resources, the use of games and songs, also give our children the opportunities to practise speaking French or Spanish and to respond to written language. Role play is also incorporated in each unit, allowing children to practise real life scenarios.

Through engaging lessons, children are encouraged to speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, find ways of communicating what they want to say, discuss their ideas and ask questions. Children are also taught to write for different purposes using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt.

We ensure we create a safe environment for children to be confident speakers and to foster a “I will have a go” attitude towards their learning.

The knowledge content of our curriculum is assessed through quizzes that take place at the end of each unit and enable us to identify any misconceptions.

Impact

The impact of our language curriculum is evident in the way that our children can speak  modern foreign language confidently and enthusiastically.

By the time our children leave the federation we want them to:

• Listen attentively to spoken language and show understanding by joining in and responding.
• Explore the patterns and sounds of language through songs and rhymes.
• Engage in conversations; ask and answer questions, express opinions and respond to others. Seek clarification and help.
• Speak in sentences, using familiar vocabulary, phrases and basic language structures.
• Read carefully and show understanding of words, phrases and simple writing.
• Broaden their vocabulary and develop their ability to understand new words.
• Appreciate stories, songs, poems and rhymes in the language.
• Write phrases from memory and adapt them to create new sentences.
• To describe people, places, things and actions orally and in writing