Modern Foreign Languages: French

French at St Charles is taught in KS2 as a stand-alone subject, split into the strands of speaking and listening, writing and reading, with a strong focus on vocabulary. Children are taught by a specialist Modern Foreign Languages teacher, using tailored resources and supported by the Primary Languages Network scheme of work. 
Over the course of their language learning at St Charles’, pupils will:
  • Demonstrate substantial progress in learning French and work towards or meet the targets of the KS2 Programme of Study for Languages.
  • Have a deeper understanding of cultural differences and similarities.
  • Acquire language learning strategies for memorisation and retrieval as well as for listening, reading and understanding.
  • Develop the skill of using a bi-lingual dictionary to decode unfamiliar language.
  • Be able to manipulate language to speak or write sentences creatively using prior knowledge of grammar and key features, with and without a dictionary.
  • Have a sound grasp of the key sounds of the French language and their corresponding graphemes and be able to apply this knowledge when speaking, listening and reading aloud.
  • Recognise some of the language patterns of French and how these differ or are similar to English.
  • Appreciate and be able to copy the sound of the language at text level through songs, stories and rhymes.
  • Develop resilience in language learning as well as enjoyment of it through a challenging scheme of work.

Implementation

  • Lessons are designed to be 30-45 minutes in length. There are follow-up activities to each lesson to increase the exposure time in a week.
  • The lessons are designed to be progressive and build on prior learning, moving from word to sentence level over the four years.
  • The lesson plans include ideas for support for the less able and to extend the more able.
  • The lesson activities are challenging, varied and interactive and develop listening, reading, speaking and writing skills.
  • The choice of vocabulary ensures exposure to all the key phonic sounds and ability to build sentences using grammatical knowledge
  • In each year group, the yearly plan allows time for revisiting and consolidating prior knowledge, both at the start of the Autumn term in discrete RECAP sessions and during the ongoing course.
  • It is expected that formative assessment in each lesson informs the planning and teaching of subsequent lesson plans

We use the ‘Primary Languages Network’ scheme to support our teaching of French: our Curriculum fulfils the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum Programme of study for Modern Foreign Languages.

Further information on our MFL Curriculum  including the current topics,  can be found below and in the half-termly newsletters sent home to each class.

French Curriculum Overview at St. Charles

French Skills Progression

Implementation of  French Lessons