Tregony Community Primary School

Languages

At Tregony, our goal is to develop an interest in and thirst for learning a different language by providing an enjoyable and exciting French curriculum. This curriculum teaches French language and culture. By the end of KS2, we aim to provide pupils with the skills needed to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond, both in speech and in writing.

Intent

We teach the four areas of MFL: spoken language, reading, writing and cultural understanding.
By providing an enjoyable and exciting French curriculum, we aim to develop an interest in a language and appreciation of a culture other than our own
We aim to provide pupils with the skills needed to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond, both in speech and in writing.

Implimentation

The Kapow French scheme of work is designed with six strands that run throughout.

These are:

Speaking and pronunciation
Listening
Reading and writing
Grammar
Intercultural understanding
Language detective skills

Through Kapow Primary’s French scheme, pupils are given opportunities to communicate for practical purposes around familiar subjects and routines. The scheme provides balanced opportunities for communication in both spoken and written French, although in Year 3 the focus is on developing oral skills, before incorporating written French in Year 4 and beyond.

The Kapow Primary scheme is a spiral curriculum, with key skills and vocabulary revisited repeatedly with increasing complexity, allowing pupils to revise and build on their previous learning. Cross-curricular links are included throughout our French units, allowing children to make connections and apply their language skills to other areas of their learning.

Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work including role-play, language games and language detective work. Our scheme of work focuses on developing what we term ‘language detective skills’ and developing an understanding of French grammar, rather than on committing to memory vast amounts of French vocabulary. Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that lessons can be accessed and enjoyed by all. In order to help pupils, retain their French learning, we provide information about how to incorporate French into the classroom environment every day in our ‘During the week’ sections.

Strong subject knowledge is vital for staff to be able to deliver a highly effective languages curriculum. Each unit of lessons includes multiple teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD. Kapow has been created with the understanding that many teachers do not feel confident delivering the full languages curriculum and every effort has been made to ensure that they feel supported to deliver lessons of a high standard that ensure pupil progression. Lessons include a section entitled, 'Teacher knowledge - language points' to explain key grammar and other details to the teacher before the lesson, together with a Key vocabulary and pronunciation presentation with sound files to demonstrate the correct pronunciation. Many of the other presentations included in the lessons also include sound files, supporting teachers who are less confident with their own pronunciation to deliver the lesson and support the children's learning.

At Tregony, pupils progress through KS2, focussing on different topics and skills, but also using and building on vocabulary that has been previously taught. Pupils will be provided with the vocabulary needed to begin to ask and answer topic related questions and eventually move onto conversational French. Work will be evidenced in books through WALT’s, pictures and in some cases, writing. Each year we celebrate ‘European Day of Languages’ by learning about the cultures of chosen countries and some basic language. We use our MAT links by inviting teachers from The Roseland Academy to work with us for the day.