MFL Lead: Mrs F. Kew
You live a new life for every language you speak. If you only know one language, you only live once.’
Czech proverb
‘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’.
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,
At Our Lady Immaculate aim to develop children’s experience of language acquisition and encourage curiosity about languages as a means of communication in our modern world. We aim to support children to be able to express themselves in French in speech and writing.
Curriculum
At Our Lady Immaculate we teach French using Language Angels. Language Angel approach the teaching and learning of foreign languages like ‘language lego’ – start with small blocks of language knowledge, increase the number and complexity and encourage pupils to put the blocks together to create complex, adventurous and amazing linguistic structures. Each teaching units contain 6 teaching lessons with each lesson designed to run for between 30 to 45 minutes.
Throughout their French journey at Our Lady Immaculate, children are encouraged to speak with 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.