MFL

Intent

At St Anthony’s, the intention of our MFL curriculum is to develop an interest in and thirst for learning other languages. We aim to introduce the learning of the French language and the understanding of the French culture in enjoyable and stimulating ways. We hope to embed the essential skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing. We aim to build the children’s ‘culture capital’ so that they are aware of similarities and differences between cultures. Learning a foreign language is a necessary part of being a member of a multi-cultural society and provides an opening to other cultures. A high-quality language education should foster children's curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. As a school where we all strive to be our best, we believe that all learning should be adapted to the needs of all children (SEN, EAL, more able, disadvantaged) and that the curriculum should be carefully planned to take account of everyone in the class so that we can all ‘Do something beautiful for God, each and every day’.

The teaching should enable children to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. It should also provide opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes, learn new ways of thinking and read great literature in the original language. Language teaching should provide the foundation for learning further languages, equipping children to study and work in other countries.

The national curriculum for languages aims to ensure that all pupils:

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.

Implementation

Children have weekly lessons in French across KS2, using the Primary Languages Network programme of study in addition to other resources. Areas covered include:

Talking about ourselves and families, numbers, colours, house and home, in town, food and drink, the classroom, clothes and hobbies.

Pupils are taught 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 and link the spelling, sound and meaning of words.
Engage in conversations; ask and answer questions; express opinions and respond to those of others; seek clarification and help.
Speak in sentences, using familiar vocabulary, phrases and basic language structures to develop accurate pronunciation and intonation so that others understand when they are reading aloud or using familiar words and phrases.
Present ideas and information orally to a range of audiences.
Read carefully and show understanding of words, phrases and simple writing.
Appreciate stories, songs, poems and rhymes in the language.
Broaden their vocabulary and develop their ability to understand new words that are introduced into familiar written material, including through using a dictionary.
Write phrases from memory, and adapt these to create new sentences, to express ideas clearly.
Describe people, places, things and actions orally and in writing.
Understand basic grammar appropriate to the language being studied, including (where relevant): feminine, masculine and neuter forms and the conjugation of high-frequency verbs; key features and patterns of the language; how to apply these, for instance, to build sentences; and how these differ from or are similar to English.
Have a cultural understanding of the country including geography, art, music, food

Impact

Through the high quality first teaching of French we will see the impact of the subjects in the following ways:

Children will enjoy learning a foreign language and about a different culture.
Children will be able to communicate with each other.
Children will become aware that a language has a structure, and that the structure differs from one language to another.
Children will develop their language through development of the four key skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing.
Children will enrich their language learning by developing an understanding of the culture.
Children will transfer to KS3 effectively and successfully and will be well prepared to continue and develop their language skills.