It is our intent at Yeo Moor Primary School to provide all of our children with a high-quality education in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL), which develops their love of learning about other languages and cultures. Our current MFL taught is French, however we strive to provide children with opportunities to experience a range of other languages within our wider aim to enable our children to celebrate diversity. It is our intention to ensure that by the end of our children’s primary education, they have acquired an understanding of both spoken and written French, confidence to speak in French with others to help build community and know how important other languages can be in their future.

Every Yeo Moor Modern Foreign Language speaker will:

• listen attentively to spoken language and show understanding by joining in and responding
• explore the patterns and sounds of language through songs and rhymes and link the spelling, sound and meaning of words
• engage in conversations; ask and answer questions; express opinions and respond to those of others; seek clarification and help
• speak in sentences, using familiar vocabulary, phrases and basic language structures
• develop accurate pronunciation and intonation so that others understand when they are reading aloud or using familiar words and phrases
• present ideas and information orally to a range of audiences
• read carefully and show understanding of words, phrases and simple writing
• appreciate stories, songs, poems and rhymes in the language
• broaden their vocabulary and develop their ability to understand new words that are introduced into familiar written material, including through using a dictionary
• 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 grammar appropriate to the language being studied, including feminine and masculine forms and the conjugation of high-frequency verbs; key features and patterns of the language; how to apply these, for instance, to build sentences; and how these differ from or are similar to English

Rationale:

Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. The teaching should enable pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in 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 should provide the foundation for learning further languages, equipping pupils to study and work in other countries. 

Knowledge Choice:

Our MFL curriculum will ensure all pupils develop an understanding of a range of vocabulary suited to different situations they may encounter in life, as well as a recognition and appreciation of French people and culture.  Throughout a range of topics, they will learn about French grammar and spelling points which will deepen their understanding of both the French and English language.

Yeo Moor’s French curriculum consists of:

End Points:

At the end of Key Stage 2, all children should be able to:

• 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
• 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

Inspiration:

Throughout our curriculum, we will make use of stories, poems, songs and rhymes to aid our children with their learning.  Songs such as Le vieux MacDonald a une ferme (Old Macdonald had a farm) and stories such as Le chien tres gourmand (based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar) allow children to explore the new vocabulary within familiar media.