Foreign Languages
Intent
Modern foreign languages teaching at St Joseph’s aims to introduce children to an additional language which fosters curiosity and deepens children’s understanding of the world. Children learn to communicate in speech and writing and respond to speaker’s thoughts and ideas. We aim to provide the foundation for further learning of languages. 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.
We aim to ensure that all pupils:
- understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources;
- speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and 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;
(National Curriculum 2013)
Programmes of Study
MFL teaching at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School focuses on the teaching and learning of French. The teaching provides an appropriate balance of spoken and written language and lays the foundations for further foreign language teaching at key stage 3. There is no requirement for Foreign Languages to be taught in key stage 1, however our children learn some basic language, including numbers and colours through the medium of speaking and listening, using songs.
In Key Stage 2 pupils are taught to:
- listen attentively to spoken language and show understanding by joining in and responding.
- explore the patterns and sounds of language through songs and rhymes and link the spelling, sound and meaning of words.
- engage in conversations; ask and answer questions; express opinions and respond to those of others; seek clarification and help.
- speak in sentences, using familiar vocabulary, phrases and basic language structures.
- develop accurate pronunciation and intonation so that others understand when they are reading aloud or using familiar words and phrases.
- present ideas and information orally to a range of audiences.
- read carefully and show understanding of words, phrases and simple writing.
- appreciate stories, songs, poems and rhymes in the language.
- broaden their vocabulary and develop their ability to understand new words that are introduced into familiar written material, including through using a dictionary.
- write phrases from memory, and adapt these to create new sentences, to express ideas clearly.
- describe people, places, things and actions orally and in writing.
- understand basic grammar appropriate to the language being studied, including (where relevant): feminine and masculine forms and the conjugation of high-frequency verbs; key features and patterns of the language; how to apply these, for instance, to build sentences; and how these differ from, or are similar to English.
(National Curriculum Programmes of Study 2013)