Languages
‘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.’
DFE, National Curriculum
Intent
At Moorfield Primary School, we believe that the learning of a language provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for our children. We aim to build the children’s cultural capital so that they have the knowledge and understanding of the richness and diversity between cultures. A high quality languages education encourages children’s curiosity and deepens their understanding of the world and cultures. It helps them to develop communication skills, including key skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing. It also enables children’s knowledge of how language works to be developed and extended.
One way in which we build the children’s cultural capital is through our annual whole school Spanish day; which totally immerses the children in the culture of other countries. This fosters their curiosity and provides a deeper understanding of the world. We strive, where possible, to involve the wider community in the children’s learning and utilise the skills of parents who are native Spanish speakers. We also recognise the benefits of career-related learning (CRL) for children in primary school and our ‘ MFL curriculum seeks to include activities/ opportunities designed to give children from an early age a wide range of experiences of, and exposure to, the world of work.
We chose to teach the children Spanish as it is one of the top five most spoken languages in the world and as the local high school that the majority of our children feed into also teaches Spanish from Year7 onwards, this allows for continuity, progression within the subject
Weather Forecast Using Technology in Spanish lessons – Introducing myself -Year 4
Children will
- Develop resilience in language learning as well as enjoyment of it through a challenging scheme of work
- Acquire language learning strategies for memorisation and retrieval as well as for listening, reading and understanding, laying foundations for further study
- Develop the skill of how to use a bi-lingual dictionary to decode unfamiliar language
- Be able to manipulate language to speak or write sentences creatively using prior knowledge of grammar and key features; with and without a dictionary
- Have a sound grasp of some of the key sounds of the Spanish language and their corresponding graphemes and be able to apply this knowledge when speaking, listening and reading aloud
- Recognise some of the language patterns of Spanish and how these differ or are similar to English
- Appreciate and be able to copy the sound of the language at text level through songs, raps, stories and rhymes
- Have a deeper understanding of cultural differences and similarities
- Demonstrate substantial progress in learning Spanish and work towards or meet the targets of the KS2 Programme of Study for Languages
Role play
Implementation
Children in EYFS and KS1 are taught Spanish greetings and use this language daily during registration time. KS2 children use simple Spanish greetings, questions and phrases during registration time
Year 3/4 Year 5/6
KS2 children have discrete MFL (Spanish) lessons taught weekly by the MFL lead /class teacher . Teaching is based on the Janet Lloyd, Primary Languages Network scheme, which ensures coverage of the National Curriculum. Planned coverage of vocabulary, ensures that children are exposed to all key phonic sounds and are given the opportunity to manipulate language and build sentences, increasing in complexity, using a knowledge of grammar. Alongside the planning provided, the scheme is enriched with accompanying power points (including vocab spoken by native speakers), songs, raps, games and culture points of reference. It provides creative ways to extend, embed and combine language skills. Children progressively acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary, language skills and grammatical knowledge organised around age-appropriate topics. Children acquire language learning strategies for memorisation and retrieval and make use of bi-lingual dictionaries to decode unfamiliar words. The children also have the opportunity to practice what they have learned with their class teacher. Days of the week, months of the year and greetings are practised on a daily basis in class (see non-negotiable list of vocabulary.) Experiencing language every day helps children to memorise new words and structures, giving children the confidence to respond to what they hear and to use the new language for real purposes. This is done by the class teacher. Examples include: Doing the register or lunch menu/choices in Spanish.
During the Summer term, a “Spanish Day” gives all Moorfield children opportunity to develop intercultural understanding. This is an enjoyable day which is carefully planned to ensure that progression is appropriately mapped out and gives the children an opportunity to use language that they have learned throughout the year. The children are immersed in different cultures; they eat Spanish food, do Spanish dancing, have a visit from a native Spanish speaker/teachers from a local high school and learn about other countries that have Spanish as their language.
Impact
Children at Moorfield Primary School enjoy MFL lessons. They develop in confidence and evidence in work books and on Seesaw shows progress in all four areas: speaking, listening, reading and writing. We assess the impact of the MFL curriculum on the children in order to ensure that they make progress in this subject. During each lesson, children are assessed informally and at the end of each unit they are assessed more formally. Children leave Moorfield with a good foundation on which to build on in Key Stage 3 and a love of learning languages.
