Languages
Intent
At Christ Church, we aim to give our children a love for Modern (Foreign) Languages that continues into adult life, especially as it stimulates language development, social development and cultural awareness, as well as other areas of the curriculum. We are very aware of the importance for children of the acquisition of another language.
Our aim is that children learn French language, vocabulary and culture through creative teaching and learning, exploring and incorporating rhymes, songs, games, pattern and rhythm to link spelling, sound and the meaning of words.
Implementation
We teach French using the Modern Languages national curriculum framework to provide an outline of core knowledge, and we link this with our Curriculum topics when possible. To support our teaching, we use a resource called “Language Angels” which has been developed by specialists and we aim to develop exciting and stimulating lessons to promote the development of pupils’ knowledge, understanding and skills as part of the wider school curriculum.
Our lessons take place once a week and children progress from sounds to word level and then sentence level, learning language structures that allow them to use oral and written French language in many familiar and real situations, adapting for different contexts.
Being enthusiastic, positive and confident in languages helps children to build self-esteem and confidence in life.
Impact
Being enthusiastic, positive and confident in languages helps children to build self- esteem and confidence in life. Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides as opening to other cultures. It nurtures respect and trust. Our curriculum fosters pupils’ curiosity and deepens their understanding of the world. It develops their wisdom. At Christ Church we enable pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. We provide opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes, learn new way of thinking and encouraging them to look at great literature in the original language. We provide the foundation for learning further languages, equipping pupils to study and be curious about other countries.
Aims
The National Curriculum for languages aims to ensure that all pupils:
- understand and respond to spoken and written languages 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 learned
- discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.