Modern Foreign Languages | Birchwood Community High School

Modern Foreign Languages

Vision

We want our students to feel confident about speaking wider languages, but we also want students to have an appreciation for the culture surrounding the languages that we teach and beyond.

We want students to have a thoughtful understanding of the wider world and to feel confident within a global market. We want our students to view MFL as a tool for interacting with the world, rather than a barrier. We want to discourage any fears around elitism and make languages an enjoyable and enriching experience.

How do we build on what students learn at KS2?

We want to ensure that our students are thoroughly supported in their transition from KS2 to KS3 MFL. In order to do this, we work with local primary schools so that our curriculums complement one another. In year 7, we purposely prioritise revisiting and rebuilding on the following:

Recap key vocabulary that forms the initial building blocks of the language of study e.g. greetings, numbers, opinion phrases, articles and vey verbs.
Phonics – the pronunciation of key letters and pairs of letters
Encourage students to engage in short conversations in the target language, always aiming to speak in full sentences.
Show an understanding of the phonics of their language of study, focusing on the pronunciation of key letters and groups of letters.
Reading and listening to short passages in the target language with a focus on key words and reading/listening for gist.

Write phrases from memory to describe themselves, their family and their school.

How do we cover the KS3 National Curriculum and beyond?

We believe that covering the KS3 National Curriculum is hugely important but we also recognise how crucial it is for students to be exposed to wider knowledge beyond this.

We ensure that we cover the KS3 National Curriculum by covering the following:

Conjugation of both regular and irregular verbs into the present, past and future tenses.
A range of topic areas and vocabulary that goes beyond their immediate needs and helps them to confidently discuss their interests and the interests of others e.g. school, family, free time, holidays, food and drink, health and home/local area.
The phonics behind the languages of study – consolidating and embedding the pronunciation of key letters and pairs of letters.
Produce extended pieces of writing with increasing accuracy in spelling and grammar.
Expose students to a range of authentic texts and audio recordings including poems, songs, postcards and passages from children’s books in order to develop comprehension skills and encourage curiosity and resilience when encountering unfamiliar vocab.
Key questions for initiating conversations with others and encouraging students to respond to these questions in more detail, speaking with confidence and increasing accuracy in pronunciation.
Translating texts both from and into the foreign language.

We go beyond the National Curriculum by:

Organising trips abroad to practise speaking and encourage an appreciation of other cultures
Assemblies and house competitions for European Day of Languages
Cultural capital lessons which cover different aspects of the French and Spanish speaking world
Lunchtime culture clubs
A variety of assessment opportunities to allow all students to achieve.

What do we cover in KS4 and how do we aspire towards KS5?

We ensure that our curriculum revisits key ideas that are covered in key stage 3 and that a clear foundation for KS4 is created. Over the course of year 10 and 11, we cover:

A wide range of vocab and topic areas to cover the three GCSE themes.
A range of grammar points including imperfect and conditional tenses, direct/indirect object pronouns and idiomatic expressions to increase fluency and foster an ambition to engage with native speakers.
A range of authentic materials to allow students to refine their comprehension and translation skills, both through reading and listening.

Customs, festivals, geography and places of interest in the Francophone and Hispanophone world foster an appreciation of the culture behind the language being taught.

KS5

We want to ensure that our students are ready for life beyond KS4 so we foster an interest in languages to help them to aspire to study and engage with this through KS5 and beyond.

In order to encourage this, we: