Intent

‘Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world.’ (National Curriculum – 2014)

At Littlebourne, we believe that a high-quality education in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) is key in enabling learners to deepen their understanding of the wider world. It is important to us that our learners develop a positive attitude toward other languages and cultures and the teaching of MFL plays a valuable part in this goal. The skills, knowledge and understanding gained through learning to speak, read and write another language not only builds upon our creative curriculum but also contributes towards the development of their spoken and written English.

It is our intent that the children’s early acquisition of the French language will not only enhance their education now but also prepare them for learning other foreign languages in later life and facilitate a confident and successful transition to the KS3 language curriculum.

Implementation

Through regularly taught lessons in KS2, our MFL curriculum in designed to foster the love of learning a new language as well as developing key language skills. MFL is taught regularly by the class teacher to ensure that children are able to acquire new language, have the confidence to use it and are able to apply their knowledge in a range of scenarios and topics. It is based upon a progressive programme of study that ensures the children cover a wide range of subjects in French across years 3-6. This allows our learners to develop their speaking and listening skills with steady progression throughout their time in KS2 through a range of techniques such as conversation, singing, activities and games.  As they grow in confidence, the children will begin to record their work through pictures, labels, captions and sentences. These pieces of work, along with photographs and pupil voice will be recorded in the relevant class floor books to evidence their learning. We teach MFL in line with the 2014 National Curriculum.

Impact

Through the high quality first teaching of French at Littlebourne Church of England Primary School we will see the impact of MFL in the following ways:

• Learners will be able to communicate with each other in French
• Learners will be able to read aloud and understand simple sentences written in French
• Learners will be able to understand and appreciate songs, stories and rhymes in French
• Learners will be able to understand that language has a structure and these structures differ from one language to the next
• Learners will be well prepared to engage in the KS3 language curriculum by the time they leave primary school