Modern Foreign Languages
The intention of the Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) curriculum at Hook Junior School is that pupils learn to develop an interest in other languages. Learning a foreign language is a necessary part of being a member of a multi-cultural society and provides an opening to other cultures.
Here at Hook Junior School, we teach pupils the French language; lessons delivered are exciting and engaging to ensure that pupils enjoy the experience of learning a new language. A native French speaker teaches high-quality language lessons to our pupils. We encourage pupil’s confidence, we strive to stimulate and encourage pupil’s curiosity about language. Planning links to our school overview, which uses the National Curriculum. Though the high quality lessons taught and the culture embedded across the school pupils, gain an awareness of cultural difference in other countries. We strive to embed the skills of speaking, listening, read and writing, to enable pupils to apply their French learning in a variety of context and lay foundations for future language learning.
MFL learning at Hook Junior School aims for children to develop their understanding of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, verbal and written forms of the French language.
‘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. The teaching should enable pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. It should also provide opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes learn new ways of thinking and read great literature in the original language. Language teaching should provide the foundation for learning further languages, equipping pupils to study and work in other countries.’ National Curriculum
Our MFL curriculum design is progressive; it develops children skills in languages, through regular taught lessons. Pupils are taught to use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary organised around topics. We follow the MFL curriculum overview, which is mapped out using the National Curriculum, our overview is a working document, which is used to fit the needs of our pupils and can be changed and adapted to meet pupil’s needs, while following statutory requirements.
The national curriculum for languages aims 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
First Languages in our School
MFL Implementation
At Hook Junior School we follow the National Curriculum, In line with legal requirements and our policy MFL is taught for 30 minutes weekly in years 4 and 6 and 45 minutes a weekly on a half termly rotation in years 3 and 5. Delphine Kay, French specialist HTLA, teaches MFL during teachers PPA time. MFL lessons are taught using a mixture in a mixture of both verbal and written form.
Learning in MFL needs to allow time for children to practise their pronunciations and have conversations, understanding the ways in which the sounds are made before pupils move onto the written form. The learning can take place through discussions, games, songs, stories, role plays and written outcomes such as vocabulary matching, sentence writing, translating a piece of writing from French to English, drawing a picture and labelling or annotating in French. Where needed there are a large number of French resources available, which include story books, dictionaries, sound clips, DVD’s and schemes of work (which can be used for reference). When written outcomes are used key vocabulary and spellings are provided for pupils.
Outcomes for children are a mixed throughout a unit and allow children to express themselves and their responses in a variety of ways. Where needed, tasks are adapted and scaffolds provided to support children working at a lower ability or with special needs. Lessons are adapted for individual pupils using the progression of skills document to outline skills for each year group. Challenge tasks are included to extend learning and allow children to deepen their understanding and knowledge.
MFL Impact
The curriculum overview and guidance from the SHARP alliance are used to assess pupils in MFL. These summative assessments support the monitoring of pupils progress and attainments in MFL as they move though Key Stage 2, ensuring that pupils are supported and challenged where appropriate. This data is analysed on a termly basis, and an action plan is draw up to address any gaps.
Pupil voice is also used to further develop the MFL curriculum, through questioning of pupils’ views and attitudes to learning a language.