French

If you speak to someone in a language they understand it goes to their head. If you speak to someone in their own language it goes to their heart. - Nelson Mandela

Our Vision

The national curriculum for languages aims to ensure that all pupils

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.

Our Intent

Learning a foreign language is a necessary part of being a member of a multi-cultural society and provides an opening to other cultures. A high-quality languages education should foster children’s curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world.

At the Academy St James, we want our children to be fascinated about the world around them and have a thirst for learning other languages. We want them to be aware of the similarities and differences between different cultures. In order to do this, children are given the opportunity to communicate for practical purposes and learn new ways of thinking.

Our language teaching provides children with the necessary foundations and equips them with the skills for further language learning. Throughout their French lessons, children will be taught the essential skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing through a variety of different topics.

Subject Overview

Our curriculum has been designed to progressively develop skills in French. In line with the National Curriculum for MFL, pupils at The Academy St James are taught to:

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 clear
describe people, places, things and actions orally and in writing
understand basic grammar appropriate to the language being studied, including (where relevant): feminine, masculine and neuter 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.

This is done through a weekly French lesson, taught by a specialist MFL teacher. Due to mixed age classes and no previous language learning experience, some of the skills will be taught outside of pupil’s chronological age.