Intent

“Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world” (National Curriculum 2014 programme of study for Languages).

The 2014 National Curriculum for Modern Foreign Languages aims to ensure that all children:

•         Understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources.
•         Are able to speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and that they are 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.

At Caldecote CE Academy we are committed to enabling the children to experience another language.  It also helps children develop skills that will open further opportunities later in life. The teaching of French in years 3 – 4, provides an appropriate balance of spoken and written language and lays the foundations for further foreign language teaching at middle school. 

Implementation

Children are introduced to French from Year 3 and receive a weekly 30 minute lesson, throughout their time in school. This enables the children to develop early language acquisition skills that facilitate their understanding of the patterns of language and how these differ from, or are similar to, English.

•         Lessons across the Key Stage support the skills of speaking and listening
•         Children are taught to listen attentively to spoken language and respond, joining in with songs, rhymes and games.

Teaching and Learning 

•         We recognise that language learning in its broadest sense has three core strands - oracy, literacy and intercultural understanding. We also recognise that children should be encouraged to apply their knowledge and that we should equip them with strategies for language learning that they can use in the future, when studying another foreign language.
•          We use a variety of techniques to encourage the children to engage actively in the modern foreign language: these include games, role-play and songs (particularly action songs). We frequently use mime, pictures and games to accompany new vocabulary in the foreign language, as this teaches the language without the need for translation.
•          We use a multi-sensory approach to teaching. Research has also shown that physical responses planned into lessons help to improve enjoyment, provide opportunities for reinforcement through actions, help memory through actions, increase confidence as movement and games can provide safe ways of speaking aloud and it helps learning through creating a positive atmosphere.
•          We make the lessons as entertaining and enjoyable as possible as we realise that this approach serves to develop a positive attitude in the children to the learning of modern foreign languages. We build children's confidence through praise for any contribution that they make in the foreign language, however tentative.
•          We allow for differentiation, with a range of strategies, which include:
•          Providing resources and setting tasks of different complexities, matched to the ability of the child.
•          Setting common tasks which are open-ended and can have a variety of responses.
•          Providing speaking and writing frames to scaffold responses.
•          Using a range of questioning

Impact

Our MFL curriculum ensures that children develop their knowledge of where different languages, including the range of home languages spoken by the families of the school, as well as French, are spoken in the world.

Varied learning experiences, also ensure that languages are celebrated throughout the school community whilst providing a context for language learning and develop the children’s understanding of different cultures. 

The children are assessed continually throughout the year, with the teacher giving feedback through  verbal feedback.