Intent

At St John’s, we aim to provide a high quality education in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) which develops children’s love of learning about other languages and cultures and helps to provide them with an understanding of the world. It should also provide opportunities for them to communicate on a regular basis, for practical purposes. Our aim is for pupils to feel confident engaging in spoken French, develop skills in reading, listening and writing, and know how important languages will be in their future. We hope that all pupils will develop a genuine interest and curiosity about languages, finding them enjoyable and exciting and show a desire to continue their language learning past KS2.

The National Curriculum for languages aims to ensure that all pupils:

1. Understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources
2. 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
3. Can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt
4. Discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.

At St-Johns, we use the Language Angels scheme of work and resources to ensure we offer a relevant, broad, vibrant and ambitious foreign languages curriculum that will inspire and excite our pupils using a wide variety of topics and themes. Where possible cross-curricular links are made to other topics being studied. For example, covering Ancient Britain in lower KS2 and planets and habitats in upper KS2.

Implementation

At St-Johns, children start their language learning journey through the introduction of songs, rhymes, greetings, simple phrases and vocabulary in EYFS and following through to KS1.

In KS2, children have a weekly lesson using the Language Angels scheme of work and resources. Children will progressively acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary, language skills and grammatical knowledge organised around age-appropriate topics and themes – building blocks of language into more complex, fluent and authentic language. Through this scheme pupils will continuously build on their previous knowledge as they progress in their foreign language learning journey through the primary phase. Previous language will be recycled, revised, recalled and consolidated whenever possible and appropriate.

Our school has a unit planner in place which serves as an overall ‘teaching map’ outlining for all teachers within the school what each class in each year group will be taught and when it will be taught. Each class in each year group has an overview of units to be taught during the academic year to ensure substantial progress and learning is achieved.

Units are progressive within themselves as subsequent lessons within a unit build on the language and knowledge taught in previous lessons. As pupils progress through the lessons in a unit, they will build their knowledge and develop the complexity of the language they use.

In line with the National Curriculum for MFL, pupils at St John’s are taught to:

1. listen attentively to spoken language and show understanding by joining in and responding
2. explore the patterns and sounds of language through songs and rhymes and link the spelling, sound and meaning of words
3. engage in conversations; ask and answer questions; express opinions and respond to those of others; seek clarification and help
4. speak in sentences, using familiar vocabulary, phrases and basic language structures
5. develop accurate pronunciation and intonation so that others understand when they are reading aloud or using familiar words and phrases
6. present ideas and information orally to a range of audiences
7. read carefully and show understanding of words, phrases and simple writing
8. appreciate stories, songs, poems and rhymes in the language
9. broaden their vocabulary and develop their ability to understand new words that are introduced into familiar written material, including through using a dictionary
10. write phrases from memory, and adapt these to create new sentences, to express ideas clear
11. describe people, places, things and actions orally and in writing
12. understand basic grammar appropriate to the language being studied, including (where relevant): feminine, masculine and neuter 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.

Children will build on previous knowledge gradually as their foreign language lessons continue to recycle, revise and consolidate previously learnt language whilst building on all four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Impact

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Observing children speaking and listening in another language.
• Marking of written work.
• Images and videos of children completing speaking and listening activities.
• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
• Learning environment reviews
• Assessment tracking
• Whole school subject moderation to check expectations are the same for each year group and for pupils of similar starting points

The MFL subject leader will continually monitor the impact MFL teaching is having on the children’s learning, to ensure the progress of knowledge and skills is being taught.  They will also ensure the knowledge taught is retained by the children and continually revisited and that the learners are able to apply the skills they have been taught to a variety of different settings, showing independence with their learning.

As well as language learning in lessons, we aim to increase the profile of languages across school and help deepen pupils’ understanding of the world. We want to inspire pupils to develop a love of languages, encouraging them to embark on further language studies. Opportunities for language-based competitions and the introduction of an extra-curricular Languages and Culture club aims to promote the importance of language learning and linguistic diversity.