Primary Foreign Language – French

Purpose of study

We aim to develop a love and understanding of other languages and cultures. At St Joseph’s, French is taught from Year 3 to Year 6.  We believe that the early acquisition of a foreign language enhances and reinforces all other curriculum areas.  We believe that learning a foreign language provides a valuable educational, social, and cultural experience for our pupils. It helps them to develop communication skills, including key skills of speaking and listening and extends their knowledge of how language works. Learning another language gives children a new perspective on the world, respects and celebrates our unique identity as a school, and helps to prepare our children to be productive citizens in an increasingly global and competitive world. Our French curriculum helps to develop the pupils’ reading skills and mathematics skills.

Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. The teaching enables pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and 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 provides the foundation for learning further languages, equipping pupils to study and work in other countries.  At St Joseph’s Key Stage 2 pupils are taught, French.

Aims

Our curriculum for Languages ensures 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.

Progression of Skills, Knowledge and Vocabulary

MFL Skills and Knowledge Progression

Year 3 French Progression of Skills, Knowledge and Vocabulary

Year 4 French Progression of Skills, Knowledge and Vocabulary

Year 5 French Progression of Skills, Knowledge and Vocabulary

Year 6 French Progression of Skills, Knowledge and Vocabulary

Curriculum Impact

Speaking and Listening

The children will:

  • encounter a range of situations, audiences and activities designed to develop competence, accuracy and confidence in speaking and listening;
  • develop their oral abilities;
  • develop listening and comprehension skills through a variety of means to include both reciprocal and non-reciprocal situations;
  • be able to express opinions, articulate feelings and formulate appropriate responses to increasingly complex instructions and questions;
  • produce short presentations, which involve speaking in French at their own level.

Reading

The children will be given opportunities to:

  • read stories for enjoyment and to practice vocabulary and linguistic structures;
  • read stories to gain awareness of the structure of written French and begin to learn the grapheme-phonic relationships;
  • read in other contexts, e.g. magazines, comic books, audio transcripts, posters etc.

Writing

The children will be given opportunities to:

  • copy/write high-frequency words in KS2, e.g. days, months, name, age etc.;
  • write sentences/phrases from memory;
  • develop short texts using writing frames;
  • produce short presentations with a partner or peer group.

Intercultural Understanding

The children will be given opportunities to learn about the culture of the countries where French is spoken.

Language Learning Skills and Knowledge about Language

The children will build up their skills, which will later be applied to learning an additional language. These skills also reinforce the understanding of their own language and how it works, making links with grammatical structures, vocabulary, and etymology.

Curriculum Impact

By the end of KS2, children will:

  • understand simple spoken and written language, to speak aloud and take part in short conversations and to write short paragraphs on areas learnt;
  • have and insight or awareness of other cultures and have an idea about how languages work and how to learn them;
  • become confident users and learners of a new language with an international outlook which stems from greater knowledge and understanding of other cultures;
  • in teaching French to our pupils, we are laying the seeds for their future language learning in either French or other languages and, therefore, laying the seeds to a bigger and wider world of experience and opportunity.

Children will also be able to:

  • ask and answer questions;
  • use correct pronunciation and intonation;
  • memorize words;
  • interpret meaning;
  • understand basic grammar;
  • use dictionaries;
  • work in pairs and groups, and communicate in the other language;
  • look at life in another culture;
  • Read short stories or passages in a variety of mediums;
  • Write short passages on various topics in the target language.

Attainment targets & End of Year Expectations

By the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the matters, skills and processes specified in the relevant programme of study.

Key Stage 2 End of Year Expectation