French

Intent

At St Michael’s Junior school, 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 its culture in enjoyable and stimulating ways which encourage and challenge children. We hope to embed the essential skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing as a vehicle to build the children’s curiosity so that they are aware of similarities and differences between cultures. Our aim is to lay the foundations for future language learning in KS3.

Implementation

Our MFL curriculum has been designed to progressively develop skills in French to ensure development is progressive and builds on previous knowledge from units already studied. All children in KS2 are taught French in a weekly discreet lesson for 45 minutes per week by a qualified teacher.

In addition to learning the French language, children also learn about French culture and links are made to other cultures that children may belong to. Children are thereby encouraged to be curious about both the language and the country as a whole.

Pupils are taught to;

•  Express their thoughts and ideas in a different language and understand and respond both in speaking and writing with increasing independence
•  Use bi-lingual dictionaries to challenge them to investigate new words and patterns of language
•  Speak with increasing confidence and fluency, finding ways of communicating what they want to say in a creative way, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt translating short written passages from French into English with increasing independence
•  To recognise patterns in both written and spoken language and to challenge themselves to ‘have a go’ at both reading and writing new words.

Impact

Teachers assess French throughout lessons using assessment through learning. This helps the teacher plan for future lessons. Children are encouraged to challenge themselves in both their reading and writing.

At the end of each term, the teacher will complete an overall assessment of who has met objectives for that term and that will be stored centrally for all members of staff and SLT to view.

Progression Document