Modern Foreign Languages

Intent

The aim of teaching children another language is to give them a broader understanding of the world, to encourage their curiosity about other cultures and to enable them to begin to communicate with those who speak another language. 

At Aylesham we teach children French in KS2 and hope to make language learning a fun and enjoyable experience that children will go on to develop further at secondary school. 

Children in KS1 will have exposure to the French language including key vocab and exploring cultural context to prepare them for their progression and development through KS2.  

Implementation

We begin with lots of speaking and listening activities, allowing children to use the language in a practical context. Games and role play exercises help to make the lessons fun and allow children to remember vocabulary and phrases more easily. Lessons include a range of vocabulary and basic language structures which children can use to communicate about everyday topics, such as numbers, colours, greetings, family and classroom routines.  

Children will have opportunities to listen to stories and songs in French, so they can hear the patterns and sounds of the language, helping them to develop their own pronunciation. 

As well as a weekly language lesson, we encourage teachers to include French in parts of the daily classroom routine, such as taking the register or giving simple instructions. This means that the language is being embedded in everyday routines and communication to secure learning in the long-term memory.  

Impact

By the end of KS2 children should be able to do the following in French: 

• engage in conversations; ask and answer questions and express opinions 

• write phrases from memory, and adapt these to create new sentences, to express ideas clearly 

• describe people, places, things and actions orally and in writing 

• understand basic French grammar and some of the ways it differs from English