Modern Foreign Languages

At Royal Rise Primary School all children, including SEN and Disadvantaged, will develop the following skills through studying French throughout KS2

Concepts

• Different countries may have different languages
• Languages have their own phonics, grammar and sometimes script systems
• We can learn languages in fun and engaging ways
• - Listening : to be able to listen to new vocabulary and sentences to acquire new understanding and retain new vocabulary, and to hear a simple or more complex text to get meaning.
• - Speaking: to be able to say words and sentences with correct pronunciation and intonation so as to be understood by others.
• - Reading: to be able to read words and sentences and gather meaning from them. To be able to use previous knowledge to semantically understand new vocabulary within a known topic or sentence.
• - Writing: to be able write words and sentences by using recollection, French phonics and grammar.
• - Grammar: to understand the particularities of the French language, especially word order, negation, adjective accord, pronouns to conjugate regular verbs, as well as core auxiliary and irregular ones.
• - Phonics: to know that some letters have a different sound to English ones, including digraphs and trigraphs, and to be able to use that knowledge to read and write French words with accuracy.

Themes

• - To be able to greet others and present oneself.
• - To be able to know core vocabulary of interest that may be particularly pertinent when meeting a French person, like one’s family, pets, interests, talking about routines and ordering foods in a French setting.
• - Cultural Capital: 14 July/ Bastille day - Mardi Gras (pancake day)  - La Galette des Rois/ Epiphany

Intent

Our intent is for children to know that learning a different language can be fun, useful and something that they can do without dread, with the aim that they will feel excited to learn any new languages and be ready for language learning at KS3 level and beyond. We intend for our children to gain the skills and knowledge that enable them to communicate with confidence when they happen to meet a French person or encounter French texts, programmes or songs.
Through learning French they will also be exposed to French culture through food, customs, songs, texts and TV programmes, compare and contrast it with their own and know that many people speak French around the world. Learning French phonics and grammar will reinforce their knowledge, skills and understanding of English grammar, as well as comparing it with the languages they may already speak. They will learn techniques to help memorise and use new learning that can be applied to many other areas of their learning.

At Royal Rise Primary School all children, including SEN and Disadvantaged, will develop the following skills through studying French throughout KS2:

Skills:

• I will understand and respond to an increasing range of spoken and written language.
• I will speak with increasing confidence, through discussions and asking questions, improving in the accuracy of my pronunciation and intonation
• I will write at increasing length and in different genres, using a variety of grammatical structures.
• I will read native texts that will teach me both about language and literary culture.
• I will gain knowledge of French culture, noting differences and similarities, and gain inquisitiveness and respect for these.

We connect our teaching of French to our British Values through by exploring the right for people to speak their mother tongues, and to speak to others in the language of their choice, and by respecting others for their language and culture, and expecting respect for our own.

French language learning follows from English language learning and works wonderfully in pairs to have a better understanding of grammar, word categories and grammatical role within sentences. It reinforces that different graphemes may have different phonological pronunciation, and different pairings. We have chosen French as our MFL as France is our nearest geographical neighbour, with an extremely strong shared history. French is also the language that is most prominently taught in KS3 in our local secondary schools.

We want pupils to be able to use the language they have learnt with confidence and clarity. We want them to be able to speak, write and read the language related to what they have learnt, and make predictions when encountering a new word using their knowledge of the other words within a sentence or unit. We want them to build on their knowledge and skills, enabling them to use the language to express facts and opinions. We want them to compare and contrast both language structures and cultural traditions with their own.

This is achieved by:

EYFS and KS1

We do not formally teach French at this stage, but encourage teachers to sing simple songs with children to develop children's interests and their auditory recognition of the French pronunciation. Children get to participate in the whole school French culture day.

Year 3

We begin the formal teaching by learning to greet and introduce ourselves by name and age and asking linked questions. We gain knowledge of numbers to 10 and colours in core vocabulary. We discover that French nouns have gender and specific determiners. We learn simple adjectives and make up simple sentence using the first personal pronoun 'je'. We learn the similarities and difference in letter phonological pronunciation.

Culturally, we learn the different ways that French people greet each other (handshakes and kisses on the cheeks) and that French children also know the traditional tale 'Little Red Riding Hood’.

 Year 4

We build on previous knowledge by introducing ourselves in more details, including our ages, where we live and which nationality we belong to. We learn about our pets, using negative sentence structure.  We increase our vocabulary through learning about how to order different types and flavours of ice-cream. We grow our understanding of verb ending still using the personal pronoun 'je'. Our sentence writing becomes more complex with some simple connectives and et and but mais.

Culturally we learn more about French food and how important it seems to be for them (most children's nursery songs are about eating!).

Year 5

We keep on building on our previous learning by adding more members of our family and extending numbers to 100 and the vocabulary related to date and weather. We begin to read longer texts, listen to longer recorded extracts, discussing what was read or heard. We use these as a basis to write longer sentences and short paragraphs. We continue to our French food experience with ordering breakfast or lunch from a café.

Year 6

 Our grasp of numbers will extend to reading and telling the time. We will be able to share our views and discuss, using positive and negative statements (e.g.  J'aime... Je n'aime pas)  relating to our hobbies. We use more complex sentences to express ourselves, using increasingly correct gender and plural agreement and connectives, and understanding the stem of verbs to ensure accurate conjugation.  We will start to use our general knowledge of healthy eating and habits to develop our French skills and reading in French using inference.

All of these skills are learnt through a range of creative and enjoyable tasks, with the aim of creating a love of learning a language so the children are ready to flourish when they reach secondary school.