At St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, our MFL curriculum focuses on French, and enables children to learn a foreign language that is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. A high-quality curriculum fosters pupils’ curiosity and deepens their understanding of the world. Pupils at St Mary’s can express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. We provide opportunities for our pupils to communicate for practical purposes, learn new ways of thinking and read great literature in the original language. Language teaching provides our children the foundation for learning further languages once they leave us.
Intent
French has been designed to serve young linguists in the modern world. Key areas of focus have been deliberately selected to ensure that pupils are equipped with knowledge and language that will serve them in engaging with important and useful topics such as the environment, wellbeing and travel. The curriculum focuses not just on vocabulary acquisition but also on the building blocks of learning a new language
The National Curriculum states, ‘Teaching of any foreign language should focus on enabling pupils to make substantial progress in one language. The teaching should provide an appropriate balance of spoken and written language and should lay the foundations for further foreign language teaching… It should enable pupils to understand and communicate ideas, facts and feelings in speech and writing, focused on familiar and routine matters, using their knowledge of phonology, grammatical structures and vocabulary.’
Implementation
CUSP French is taught from Years 3 – 6. Each year group has 6 blocks of 5 weeks teaching.
Each block includes study of key MFL linguistic concepts and previously learnt language concepts to enable pupils to build on known themes and vocabulary. The core content overview outlines the substantive and disciplinary knowledge and key vocabulary that pupils will learn throughout each block of study. This includes the vocabulary, phonics and grammatical constructs that pupils will learn, as well as the opportunities to develop their reading, writing and oracy skills.
Our lessons are centred on a learning focus, meaning new vocabulary and knowledge is recycled and reused in modern foreign language sessions, meaning sessions can have an explicit grammar or oracy focus. In addition to this, we use the spelling and grammar patterns in French towards the etymology of words within our spellings in the English and wider curriculum.
Impact
As a result of our teaching of MFL you will see:
Children that are skilled, confident and enthusiastic linguists. The impact on our children is that they have the knowledge and skills to be able to speak and write successfully in French for a purpose and in front of an audience. With the implementation of the learning sequence being established and taught in key stage two, children are able to:
Listen attentively to spoken language and show understanding by joining in and responding to questions and activities. Children can explore the patterns and sounds of French through songs and rhymes and link the spelling, sound and meaning of words. Our pupils engage in conversations; ask and answer questions; express opinions and respond to those of others; speak in sentences, using familiar vocabulary, phrases and basic language structures. Across key stage 2 children can accurately use appropriate pronunciation and intonation so that others understand when they are reading aloud or using familiar words and phrases. Pupils have a broad vocabulary and understand new words that are introduced into familiar written material. In addition to this, children are able to write phrases from memory, and adapt these to create new sentences, to express ideas clearly and can describe people, places, things and actions orally and in writing.
Our learners go into the world able to communicate effectively, are confident and take their linguistic knowledge onto the next stage of their education and into their adult lives.
Enrichment
- Children have cooking opportunities that immerse them into the culture of France, make links to other cultures and to apply their oracy and vocabulary skills taught in lessons.
- Children have access to literature and other cultural media to further enhance their enrichment of French.
- Themed days where children partake in conversations in a setting that is linked to French culture.
- Opportunities to apply their oracy and vocabulary skills with staff who speak fluent French.
Long Term Plan
