Information and Documents

'Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. A high quality language education should foster pupils' curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world.' ( The National Curriculum)

Intent

At Christ the King from Year 2 to Year 6. Our children learn Spanish, the second most spoken language across the globe. We do this in a fun and creative way, expressing their ideas and thoughts in spoken and written communication.

We believe that a high-quality language education should foster children’s curiosity and deepen their understanding of the different cultures in the world. Culture and language are inseparable. Understanding this cultural-specific contexts along with linguistic principles is central to effective language acquisition.

Competence in another language enables children to interpret, create and exchange meaning within and across cultures. It also helps children develop skills that will open further opportunities later in life.

At Christ the King, we provide a well-balanced curriculum of spoken and written Spanish. Children leave our school with solid foundations and knowledge ready to develop their language skills further at their new KS3 schools.

Implementation

We have a native speaker specialist language teacher, Señora Dormi, who teaches the children weekly from Year 2 to Year 6. All children, including those with Special Educational Needs, take part in oral and written lessons.

We follow a customised scheme of work created by our MFL specialist teacher unique to our school which is in line with the National Curriculum guidance.

A variety of techniques and approaches are used to encourage the children to engage actively during the lessons. These include cooperative and competitive games, role-play, dancing, and songs (particularly action songs). We often use puppets and soft toys to demonstrate accurate pronunciation and intonation of new words.

In order to expose our children to more than one voice speaking Spanish, we regularly carry out listening activities where children can hear other native speakers talking. Speaking underpins listening in the same way that reading underpins writing and vice versa. For that reason, we believe that all four strands of the curriculum, speaking, listening, reading, and writing, should be taught in equal measure.

Teacher’s support Señora Dormi during the Spanish lesson, and throughout the week by continually practicing Spanish vocabulary, and by using Spanish during the register and for prayers.

Each year, we have a ‘Spanish Day’ where we celebrate the Spanish culture

Impact

Our children thoroughly enjoy their Spanish lessons. Through our approach our children develop a positive attitude and approach towards the learning of modern foreign language.

Oracy and literacy are assessed throughout the year. The assessments are carried out through assessments tasks. Assessment tasks (reading, writing, listening speaking) are recorded and kept in the children’s books. On completion of a task, children (under the teacher supervision) check and assess their performance against the success criteria to decide if they have been successful or not. The assessment’s outcomes are then recorded and dated on self-assessment sheets (kept at the back of each book). The MFL teacher marks and checks that there is agreement between the outcome of the tasks and the recording of such outcome on the assessment sheet.

When children leave Christ the King, they are able to speak, listen, read, and write in Spanish, this provides a great building block for their future learning in their new schools.