Intent: In MFL, we believe that to learn a language is to open many doors: to new friendships, to unforgettable opportunities and to an exciting new way of seeing the world. We explore what it is to learn a language through four main skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, from year 7 until year 13, with the intention of making our students culturally sensitive, socially flexible and rich in tolerance of others. In year 7 and 8, the students have two lessons per week of German and French and progress through learning basic vocabulary and greetings to beginning the three tenses. In year nine, students choose one or two modern languages and we consolidate this grammar as well as adding detail and opinion to our language and building confidence in the spoken medium. At key stage 4, the vast majority of students study a modern language at GCSE and some of our top linguists even study both, dedicating their time after school in a twilight class. By the end of this course, they will be confident in basic transactional and conversational discourse and will have a good grasp of grammar and sentence structure. Students who speak a modern language at home are encouraged to sit a GCSE in this language independently, if it is offered by an exam board. At key stage 5, linguists are expected to leave with near fluency in the modern language, an ability to engage confidently in spontaneous discourse and a concise knowledge of grammar. Moreover, they will leave with a strong grasp on the target language culture, having completed an independent research project of their choice exploring an aspect of the country’s society and having written analytical essays on both a text and a film from the target language country.

 

Implementation: In MFL, we ensure there is a centralised bank of resources which are continuously revised, edited and renewed. As a group of native and near-native speakers of French and German, we have a strong subject knowledge as a department, which we share as much as possible as a team. Teachers have the freedom to edit and change lessons to fit their own interests and creativity as long as the end goal of each unit is reached. Students of all key stages will complete standardised and moderated assessments each half term and will receive detailed feedback on next steps to improve. Students receive feedback regularly, whether in class, in marking or as DIT after the assessment process.

 

Impact: Pupils in languages will leave not just learning the intricacies of one modern language, but a framework, with which they can go on to study other languages, appreciate other cultures and be tolerant, global citizens of the world. In terms of assessment, we have had huge success at key stage 4 with students completing additional (home) language GCSEs, many of whose results have been greatly boosted. Languages perform excellently at A level, always receiving Alps of 4 or less and our students develop their passion for languages, with many going on to study languages at university. Perhaps most importantly, all express a desire to learn more languages, travel, and engage with cultures outside of their own.

 

MFL

Keystage 3

 

Year 7

·     There are 2 lessons of French and 2 lessons of German each week.

·     Both French and German courses start with basics such as greetings and numbers, moving on to describe things such as family and animals, school, home and free time activities.

·     We follow the Expo1 textbook in French and the Echo 1 textbook in German.

 

Year 8

·     There are 2 lessons of French and 2 lessons of German each week.

·     In French we follow the Expo 2 textbook and cover topics including family, clothes, shopping as well as food and drink.

·     German – we follow the Echo 2 textbook and cover topics including the weather, the body, countries, and clothes.

Year 9

·     In Year 9 students choose to study two languages out of Latin, French and German.

·     There are 2 lessons of each language per week.

·     In French we follow the Expo 3 textbook and cover topics including TV and film, sports, injuries as well as future careers.

·     In German, we follow the Echo 3 textbook and cover topics including school, language learning, work, and the environment.

·     For information regarding the KS3 Latin content, please see the Latin Curriculum page here.

 

AQA French GCSE / AQA German GCSE

 

Listening (25%)

·     Written exam: 35 minutes (Foundation Tier), 45 minutes (Higher Tier)

·     Respond to audio in the target language

 

Speaking (25%)

A speaking exam including…

·     A roleplay (for example, a scene in a shop) where the student uses appropriate target language

·     A description of a photo in target language

·     A general conversation based on set topics

 

Reading (25%)

·     Written exam: 45 minutes (Foundation Tier), 1 hour (Higher Tier)

·     Respond to texts in the target language: Section A – questions in English, to be answered in English; Section B – questions in target language, to be answered in target language; Section C – translation from target language into English

 

Writing (25%)

 

·     Written exam: 1 hour (Foundation Tier), 1 hour 15 minutes (Higher Tier)

·     Foundation: one photo question, 2 bullet point questions on a range of topics (1x 40 words; 1x 90 words), translations into target language from English

·     Higher: 2 bullet point questions on a range of topics (1x 90 words, 1x 150 words) a paragraph in English to translate into target language

 

 

 

AQA French A Level / AQA German A Level

 

Paper 1 (50%)

·     2hrs 30 mins exam

·     Listening to texts in the target language and responding

·     Reading texts in the target language and responding

·     A paragraph translation from target language into English

·     A paragraph translation from English into target language

 

Paper 2 (20%)

·     2 hr exam

·     students write one analytical essay of about 500 words (with a choice of 2 questions) on a target language film they have studied during the A level course

·     students write one analytical essay of about 500 words (with a choice of 2 questions) on a target language book they have studied during the A level course

 

Paper 3 (30%)

·     Speaking exam – 20 minutes

·     6 minutes – responding orally to a card to a theme from the A level course book (choice of 2) including teacher questioning of opinion/standpoint in target language

·     12 minutes - a presentation of your individual research project in target language - a project you will have chosen and researched over the course of the year with a central analytical theme – introduction 2 minutes then 9-10 mins of teacher questioning on the project in target language