“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”
Nelson Mandela

Subject Leader: Mrs Curwen. French in KS2 taught by Madame Cook. Madame Cook is a lead practitioner of ‘Aim’.

AIM (the Accelerative Integrated Methodology for Language Learning) is a Canadian method for learning languages, where children learn in a fun and natural way and are able to express themselves in French right from the first class. Incorporating story-telling, songs and plays it is one of the most popular and effective language programmes used in Canada and is also hugely popular in the USA, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands.

Intent

The intent is that all pupils will develop a genuine interest and positive curiosity about foreign languages, finding them enjoyable and accessible. Learning an MFL will also offer pupils the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of other cultures and the world around them with a better awareness of self, others and cultural differences.  The intention is that they will be working towards becoming life-long language learners, being confident to communicate with others.
We aim to embed the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing necessary to enable children to use and apply their French learning in a variety of contexts and lay the foundations for future language learning.  From the first lesson, we want children to feel comfortable to express themselves in French though learning language using visual, auditory and kinaesthetic tools.

We also seek to provide our pupils with basic skills in an additional language – German – to help with their transition to secondary school.

Implementation

Our MFL curriculum is designed to progressively develop children’s skills in languages, through weekly taught French lessons in KS2 delivered by our language specialist teacher Madame Cook.  Children progressively acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary organised around topics which build each year on prior learning and are revisited as a spiral curriculum.  Lessons are progressive within themselves as subsequent lessons build on the language and knowledge taught in previous lessons.  As pupils progress through the lessons, they will build their knowledge and develop the complexity of the language they use.  At Lindale C of E School, French is taught using AIM (Accelerative Integrated Methodology) where children use gesture method learning which helps maintain focus and gain understanding whilst working collaboratively with the teacher and other children. It is the gestures and speaking together (as a linguistic chorus) which are a key feature of language acquisition for our pupils.  The teaching method enables the teacher to stretch those more confident pupils whilst supporting those who need it using modelling and the gestures to reinforce the vocabulary. Children are encouraged and supported to develop their speaking and listening skills through conversational work, singing activities, drama and games.  As confidence and skill grows, children record their work through a range of tailored activities to ensure that all children can access the MFL curriculum that is outlined in the National Curriculum.  In addition to implementing the AIM method, children learn about France and its culture, this supports their general development of a love of language and introduces them to famous artists, key festivals, places and foods.

In year 5 and 6, pupils experience half a term of German basic skills to prepare them for the next step to secondary school where German is offered.

KS1 children benefit from some taster sessions with Madame Cook.

Impact

Early Learning units will start at basic noun and article level and will teach pupils how to formulate short phrases.  By the time pupils reach progressive units they will be exposed to more complex language and will be encouraged to formulate their own, more personalised responses based on a much wider bank of vocabulary, linguistic structures and grammatical knowledge.  Pupils will continuously build on their previous knowledge as they progress in their foreign language journey through the primary phase.  Previous language will be recycled, revised, recalled and consolidated whenever possible and appropriate.

Children will become aware that a language has a structure, and that the structure differs from one language to another. Children will enrich their language learning by developing an understanding of the French culture. 

We can see the impact that MFL teaching has on our pupils through the increasing confidence children show in lessons and the feedback from the secondary school about the engagement and knowledge in lessons in Y7.

National Curriculum Objectives:

In French, pupils will learn to:

• read fluently
• write imaginatively
• speak confidently
• understand the culture of the countries in which the language is spoken

We aim to ensure that 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.