MFL

Modern Foreign Languages

It is our intent at St Peter’s Catholic 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. A high-quality languages education should foster children's curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. Our current MFL taught is French, however we strive to provide children with opportunities to experience a range of other languages. 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 and know how important other languages can be in their future.

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.

At St Peter’s children are taught four key concepts progressively from Year 3 to Year 6.

Read Fluently: Recognising key vocabulary and phrases.

Write imaginatively: Use key vocabulary and phrases to write ideas.

Speak confidently: Using key vocabulary and phrases to verbally communicate ideas.

Understand the culture of the countries in which the language is spoken: Developing background knowledge and cultural capital needed to infer meaning from interactions.

Year 6	Understand the main points and some detail from a short spoken passage e.g. someone talking about their friends, their home town, school, likes and dislikes etc.	Take part in longer conversations with increasing spontaneity and fluency. Can express simple opinions and their pronunciation is generally confident and accurate.	Understand the main points and some detail including simple opinions of a longer written passage e.g. email, postcard, story, poem, recipe, advert etc.	Write a short text on a familiar topic using reference materials / support. Write for a range of audiences and purpose. Use formal and informal ‘you’.	Use basic language structures accurately and with confidence e.g. apply correct verb endings to regular and some high frequency irregular verbs (faire, aller, avoir, etre). Use prepositions and use some adverbial phrases to talk about the past or future in a simple way e.g. there was / there will be. Understand the word tense and have an awareness that whether an event is ongoing or finished can be expressed differently in a FL compared to English.
Year 5	Understand the main points from a spoken passage with some repetition e.g. items from a shopping list, simple opinions about school depending on topics taught in Y5.	Ask and answer simple questions and use a negative. Take part in brief pre-prepared tasks e.g. a weather forecast, a short interview about school, interests / transactional role play with increasing confidence and fluency.	Understand the main points from a short written passage in clear printed script. Are beginning to use a bilingual dictionary independently with some success.	Write two or three short sentences as a personal response accurately and can use reference materials / support.	Understand some basic aspects of language structure e.g. how to use personal pronouns, an awareness of verb patterns, word order, use of adjectival agreement with accuracy and the conjugation of some regular high frequency verbs e.g. aimer, jouer, porter etc.
Year 4	Understand a range of familiar spoken phrases e.g. classroom instructions.	Ask and answer simple questions and give basic information (including a simple negative statement) based on topics covered in Y4. Take part in a simple conversation and their pronunciation and confidence is improving. Observe social conventions when speaking to someone i.e. formal and informal greetings and use of ‘you’).	Understand simple written phrases and match sounds to familiar written words as they become more aware of spelling patterns.	Write simple, familiar phrases accurately using a writing frame or scaffold.	Understand some basic aspects of language structure e.g. question words, how to use the negative, the position of the adjective in a sentence and an awareness of word order.
Year 3	Identify the meanings of simple words and phrases they hear by matching to an object / picture/ person etc.	Understand a few familiar spoken words and phrases and respond to simple questions e.g. What’s your name? How are you? etc. and others depending on topics covered. Say or repeat some familiar words and short simple phrases Year 3.	Identify the meanings of simple words and phrases they see by matching to an object / picture/ person etc. Recognise and read out a few familiar words and phrases and are starting to notice the sound spelling patterns.	Write or copy a few simple words or symbols accurately. Be aware that symbols e.g. accents, umlauts exist and what they do (also capital letters in German).	Understand some basic aspects of language structure e.g. gender, definite and indefinite articles, singular and plural, nouns, adjectives.
	Understand and respond to spoken language from a variety of resources (Listening)	Speak with increasing fluency, confidence and spontaneity continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation (speaking)	Understand and respond to written language from a variety of authentic resources and develop an appreciation of a range of writing (reading)	Write at varying length for different purposes and audiences (writing)	Use a variety of grammatical structures

Curriculum