Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) Intent, Implementation and Impact

MFL Intent

The core language taught to our Key Stage 2 pupils at Greatfield Park Primary School is French. Through our teaching, we intend to inspire pupils to develop a love of languages and to expand their horizons to other countries, cultures and people. We aim to help pupils[DS1]  grow into curious, confident and reflective language learners, thereby equipping them with the means to widen their horizons. Pupils will acquire basic skills and understanding of French with a strong emphasis placed on developing their speaking and listening skills, alongside reading and writing.

The scheme we follow offers a carefully planned sequence of lessons, ensuring progressive coverage of the skills required by the national curriculum. Our planning enables children to express their ideas and thoughts in French and provides opportunities to interact and communicate with others both orally and in writing with differentiation for more able and SEND pupils. The scheme ensures our curriculum will inspire and excite our pupils using a wide variety of topics and themes. At the heart of our teaching, is the desire to expose children to authentic French, so our approach offers regular opportunities to listen to native speakers to enhance their experience of learning a foreign language.

By the end of Key Stage 2, we aspire for our pupils to listen attentively to spoken language, show understanding by joining in, responding to and ultimately engaging in conservations by asking and answering questions.   We aim for them to be able to speak in sentences, developing their pronunciation to be able to present their ideas orally to a range of audiences. This will include describing people, places, things and actions.  When reading French, we encourage them to show understanding of words and phrases in the writing and broaden their vocabulary to understand new words.  They will be introduced to the basic grammar rules, how these differ or are similar to English and how to apply these to build sentences.

Learning a foreign language at Greatfield Park means our children show determination in learning a new language, respect for the country and speakers of that language, excellence in acquiring new vocabulary, whilst being mindful of their pronunciation and supportive of their peers in their learning journey. 

MFL Implementation

All Key Stage 2 classes will have access to a very high-quality foreign languages curriculum using the Language Angels scheme of work and resources. This will progressively develop pupil skills in foreign languages through regularly taught and well-planned weekly lessons in Key Stage 2, which will be taught by class teachers and/or by HLTA cover. The chosen language of French will be taught in 30/45 minute weekly sessions. Children will progressively acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary, language skills and grammatical knowledge organised around age-appropriate topics and themes/ building blocks of language into more complex, fluent and authentic language.

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Language Angels are categorised by ‘Teaching Type’ to make it easier for to choose units that will offer the appropriate level of challenge and stretch for the classes they are teaching. Early Language units are entry level units and are most appropriate for Year 3 pupils or pupils with little or no previous foreign language learning. Intermediate units increase the level of challenge by increasing the amount and complexity (including foreign language grammar concepts) of the foreign language presented to pupils. Intermediate units are suitable for Year 4-5 pupils or pupils with embedded basic knowledge of the foreign language. Progressive and Creative Curriculum units are the most challenging units and are suitable for Year 6 pupils or pupils with a good understanding of the basics of the language they are learning. Grouping units into these Teaching Type categories ensures that the language taught is appropriate to the level of the class and introduced when the children are ready. Children will be taught how to listen and read longer pieces of text gradually in the foreign language and they will have ample opportunities to speak, listen to, read and write the language being taught with and without scaffolds, frames and varying levels of support.

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Children will build on previous knowledge gradually as their foreign language lessons continue to recycle, revise and consolidate previously learnt language whilst building on all four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Grammar is integrated and taught discreetly throughout all appropriate units. Grammar rules and patterns will be taught and sequenced by level of challenge and teachers can access the grammar grid for a breakdown of how grammar progresses throughout the scheme.

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The ‘Progression of Skills’ document shows precisely how pupil foreign language learning across the key skills of speaking, listening, reading, writing and grammar progresses across Key Stage 2 and how previous concepts are built on.

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The Long-Term Overview document is in place to serve as an overall ‘teaching map’ outlining for all teachers within Key Stage 2 what each year group will be taught and when it will be taught. Each year group will have an overview of units to be taught during the academic year to ensure substantial progress and learning is achieved. Each teaching unit is divided into 6 fully planned lessons, except for Core Vocabulary modules, which are used as stand-alone lessons. 

For the first two years using Language Angels, 21/22 and 22/23, a bespoke catch up programme has been created which is outlined in the Long Term Overview. This to ensure that all Key Stage 2 pupils will be able to catch up as a result of lost learning due to the Covid-19 pandemic. After the two years, the unit planner will be reviewed and adapted as appropriate to allow for language progression across the Key Stage.

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• Each unit and lesson will have clearly defined objectives and aims.
• Each lesson will incorporate interactive whiteboard materials to include ample speaking and listening tasks within a lesson.
• Lessons will incorporate challenge sections and written activities at an appropriate level of challenge.
• Reading and writing activities will be offered in all units. Some extended reading and writing activities are provided so that children are appropriately challenged.
• Every unit will include a grammar concept which will increase in complexity as pupils move throughout their language learning journey.
• Extending writing activities are provided to ensure that pupils are recalling previously learnt language and, by reusing it, will be able to recall it and use it with greater ease and accuracy. These tasks will help to link units together and show that pupils are retaining and recalling the language taught with increased fluency and ease.

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Units are progressive within themselves as subsequent lessons within a unit build on the language and knowledge taught in previous lessons. As pupils progress though the lessons in a unit they will build their knowledge and develop the complexity of the language they use. We think of the progression within the 6 lessons in a unit as ‘language Lego’. We provide blocks of language knowledge and, over the course of a 6-week unit, encourage pupils to build more complex and sophisticated language structures with their blocks of language knowledge.

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Pupil learning and progression will be assessed at regular intervals. At the end of each 6-week unit, teachers will assess pupils in each language skill (speaking, listening, reading and writing) and there is also chance for pupils to self-assess using the pupil ‘I can’ documents. Teachers can also view the ‘end points’ document which is useful in highlighting which objectives have been covered in previous years.

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Impact

Our French curriculum will ensure all pupils develop key language learning skills, as set out by the national curriculum, as well as a love of languages and an appreciation for other cultures. By the time they leave Greatfield Park, pupils will have acquired basic skills in the 4 key strands of language learning – speaking listening reading and writing and will have acquired a solid foundation upon which to pursue further language study. Pupils will be assessed on their ability to do each of the following aspects:

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• 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

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Units within the scheme increase in level of challenge, stretch and linguistic and grammatical complexity as pupils move from Early Learning units through Intermediate units and into the most challenging Progressive units. Units in each subsequent level of the teaching type categories require more knowledge and application of skills than the previous teaching type. Activities contain progressively more text (both in English and French) and lessons will have more content as the children become more confident and ambitious with the foreign language they are learning.

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Early Learning units will start at basic noun and article level and will teach pupils how to formulate short phrases. By the time pupils reach Progressive units they will be exposed to much longer text and will be encouraged to formulate their own, more personalised responses based on a much wider bank of vocabulary, linguistic structures and grammatical knowledge. They will be able to create longer pieces of spoken and written language and are encouraged to use a variety of conjunctions, adverbs, adjectives, opinions and justifications.

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Pupils will continuously build on their previous knowledge as they progress in their foreign language learning journey through the primary phase. Previous language will be recycled, revised, recalled and consolidated whenever possible and appropriate.

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Teachers will have a clear overview of what they are working towards and if they are meeting these criteria. They will use the long-term planning documents provided in the form of Language Angels unit planners to ensure the correct units are being taught to the correct classes at each stage of the scholastic year. Short-term planning is also provided in the form of unit overviews (covering the learning targets for each 6-week unit) and individual lesson plans laying out the learning aims and intentions of each individual lesson within a unit. These planning documents ensure that teachers know what to teach and how to teach it in each lesson, across whole units and across each scholastic term.

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The opportunity to assess pupil learning and progression in the key language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) and against the 12 DfE Languages Programme of Study for Key Stage 2 attainment targets is provided at the
end of each 6-week teaching unit. Pupils will also be offered self-assessment grids to ensure they are also aware of their own progress which they can keep as a record.

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