MFL

Intent

At Alsager Highfields Primary, we provide a nurturing environment, where every child can believe in themselves. We believe that learning a language enriches the curriculum, providing excitement, enjoyment and challenge for children and teachers, helping to create enthusiastic learners and to develop positive attitudes to language learning throughout life.

We intend to give a language education that will foster our pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world.

At Alsager Highfields we are committed to ensuring our MFL teaching provides the foundation for learning further languages, as well as the means to access international opportunities for study and work later in life. The teaching of French provides an appropriate balance of spoken and written language and lays the foundations for further foreign language teaching at KS3.

Implementation

At Alsager Highfields, French is taught using the Primary Languages Network scheme of work to ensure that each students’ knowledge of phonics, vocabulary and grammar is introduced systematically and revisited regularly. In KS2, each class has a timetabled French lesson for half an hour each week. Between years 3 and 6, threads of content will be repeated, practised and built upon to show a clear progression in understanding of how to speak, read, write and listen in French. During each unit:

• new learning builds on prior knowledge and understanding

• phonics, vocabulary and grammar are introduced systematically and explicitly

• students are encouraged to answer questions and express themselves in French, both verbally and through written work

• students are given the opportunity to use and manipulate their acquired French language vocabulary skills to show a clear understanding of grammatical structures that have been introduced

• in addition to the teacher speaking French, native speaker videos and sound files are used, giving students the chance to hear a variety of French voices

• At the end of each unit of work, a summative assessment is carried out and children are given the opportunity to reflect on and record their learning. Students are given the opportunity to demonstrate their learning by shared talking and performing small role play performances in their class. To show progression, each student has an exercise book that is used to record written work. This gives students the opportunity to refer to previously acquired vocabulary and grammar in order to apply it to their new learning.

Impact

By the time they leave Alsager Highfields, the majority of pupils will have developed core skills across the four strands of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Pupils will be able to:

• understand the main points and some detail from a shortspoken passage.

• take part in a simple conversation and express simple opinions with generally accurate pronunciation.

• understand the main points and simple opinion of a longer written passage (e.g. letter, recipe, poem, story, or account).

• use a bilingual dictionary to access unfamiliar language.

• write a short text attempting to use accurately nouns, adjectives and some commonly used and regular verb in the present tense on a familiar topic using reference materials.

As well as developing the key language skills above our children will also:

• Develop a love of languages and learning about other cultures 

• Apply their knowledge of language rules and conventions to new situations 

• Demonstrate understanding of and respect for cultural diversity 

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