Modern Foreign Languages 

The intention of the Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) curriculum at The Willow is that children are taught in an enjoyable and stimulating way so they develop an interest in learning other languages. We aim to embed the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing skills necessary to enable children to use and apply their French learning in a variety of contexts and lay the foundations for future language learning. Our MFL curriculum is designed to progressively develop children’s skills in languages, through half termly taught lessons in KS2. In KS1, children take part in regular fun activities, games and songs to help them to develop awareness of basic French words and phrases.

Native French speakers deliver MFL lessons supported by planning from the Light Bulb Languages Scheme.  Children progressively acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary organised around topics and are encouraged and supported to develop their speaking and listening skills through conversational work, singing activities and games.

We Ensure that Children:

• Are exposed to the idea of learning a foreign language when they move into KS2 by beginning to explore the patterns and sounds of language through songs and rhymes in Early Years.
• Start to speak in the foreign language and work on building up their memory skills with a bank of core vocabulary that they can relate to and re-use in the foreign language.
• Engage in short, simple spoken tasks using supported short conversation scaffolds and role play activities.
• Understand very short passages of spoken language that they hear.
• Develop writing skills in the foreign language by filling in missing letters with relative accuracy for vocabulary taught in our Early Language lessons and start to attempt to write a short simple sentence with an article, noun and verb.
• 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.

Whole School MFL Map