MFL Intent

At Welford on Avon Primary School, our aim is to equip children to play an active role in multicultural society by promoting a love of language learning, an appreciation of other cultures and the willingness and resilience to develop skills in oracy, listening, reading and writing in another language. 

Our aims of teaching MFL are for children to:

• foster an interest in learning another language
• give children the confidence to communicate and express themselves in another language
• gain enjoyment, pride and a sense of achievement from their learning
• develop their speaking and listening skills
• become aware that language has a structure, and that this structure differs from one language to another
• explore and apply strategies to improve their learning
• explore their own cultural identities and those of others

Implementation

We use a variety of teaching and learning styles in our MFL lessons. Our principal aim is to develop children’s knowledge, skills, and understanding. Children will have the opportunity to support their work with a variety of resources. We aim for a balance of whole class, group and independent learning. Wherever possible we encourage children to use and apply their learning in other areas of the curriculum; ICT, PE and Music, for example, are particularly appropriate for cross-curricular teaching.

Our MFL lessons include:

• learning French vocabulary
• asking and answering questions
• teaching of basic French grammar and spelling patterns
• playing games and learning songs
• using language that has been taught in role play situations
• researching and learning about life in French spoken countries
• beginning to write phrases and sentences

We spend time exploring different aspects of French culture and these are often included in whole school celebrations such as Christmas and Easter.

Inclusion
In all classes, children have a wide range of abilities, and we seek to provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child. MFL is a highly inclusive subject and despite our principal aim of developing children’s knowledge, skills, and understanding, the initial focus will be on enjoyment. At our school we teach MFL to all KS2 children, whatever their ability and individual needs. MFL forms part of the school curriculum policy to provide a broad and balanced education to all children. Through our MFL teaching we provide learning opportunities that enable all pupils to make good progress. We strive hard to meet the needs of those pupils with special educational needs, those with disabilities, those with special gifts and talents, and those learning English as an additional language (EAL), and we take all reasonable steps to achieve this. For further details see the separate S.E.N. policy.

Assessment

Teachers assess children’s work in MFL in three phases.

Teachers make short-term assessments as part of every lesson which help them to adjust their daily plans. They match these short-term assessments closely to the teaching objectives. Written or verbal feedback is given to help guide children’s progress.

Teachers use medium-term assessments to measure progress against the key objectives, and to help them plan for the next unit of work.

Teachers make long-term assessments towards the end of the school year. With the help of these long-term assessments they are able to set targets for the next school year, and to summarise the progress of each child before reporting to parents.

Assessments are based on the Progression Statements and Learning Objectives from the Key Stage 2 Framework for languages. These are divided into three main areas, by year group: Oracy, Literacy and Intercultural Understanding.