Modern Foreign Language - French

Intent

We believe that learning a foreign language can enrich the life and experience of our children. Modern Foreign language teaching at Teesville Academy aims to introduce children to cultures and an additional language, fostering their curiosity. We aim to deepen their understanding of the world, enabling them to communicate their thoughts and ideas in another language. The teaching should provide the foundation of language learning so children can express themselves both in writing and speech. While learning another language, children access ideas and experiences from other cultures and communities, which in turn encourages children to have an understanding and appreciation of diversity in society.

 The learning of a foreign language provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for the pupils. Pupils develop communication and literacy skills that lay the foundation for future language learning. They develop linguistic competence, extend their knowledge of how language works and explore differences and similarities. Learning another language raises awareness of the multilingual and multicultural world and introduces an international dimension to pupils’ learning, giving them an insight into their own culture and those of others. The learning of a foreign language provides a medium for cross-curricular links and for reinforcement of knowledge, skills and understanding developed in other subjects.

Implementation

Through the French scheme, pupils are given opportunities to communicate for practical purposes around familiar subjects and routines. The scheme provides balanced opportunities for communication in both spoken and written French, although in Year 3 the focus is on developing oral skills, before incorporating written French in Year 4 and beyond. The scheme is a spiral curriculum, with key skills and vocabulary revisited repeatedly with increasing complexity, allowing pupils to revise and build on their previous learning. Cross-curricular links are included throughout our French units, allowing children to makeconnections and apply their language skills to other areas of their learning.

Impact

The impact of the scheme can be monitored continuously through both formative and summative assessment. 

 Children will:
➔ Be able to engage in purposeful dialogue in practical situations (e.g., ordering in a cafe,
following directions) and express an opinion.
➔ Make increasingly accurate attempts to read unfamiliar words, phrases, and short texts.
➔ Speak and read aloud with confidence and accuracy in pronunciation.
➔ Demonstrate understanding of spoken language by listening and responding
appropriately.
➔ Use a bilingual dictionary to support their language learning.
➔ Be able to identify word classes in a sentence and apply grammatical rules they have
learnt.
➔ Have developed an awareness of cognates and near-cognates and be able to use them to
tackle unfamiliar words in French, English, and other languages.
➔ Be able to construct short texts on familiar topics.
➔ Meet the end of Key Stage 2 stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for
Languages.