“A different language is a different vision of life.”
Federico Fellini
Teaching and Learning in MFL
In order to effectively explain each of our subject areas, key documentation is established by the subject leader and shared with all relevant teaching staff. This documentation includes:
- The Subject Policy
- The Subject Long Term Plan
- The knowledge and Skills Progression Document
These documents collate, and clearly outline the expectations, coverage and implementation of the Modern Foreign Languages curriculum.
Subject leadership Documentation
In addition, subject leaders are required to monitor the effectiveness of their subject throughout each academic year. In order to do this with effect, the following documentation is updated regularly.
- Subject review – an audit of the subject is completed annually RAG rating the effectiveness of the subject identifying subject priorities.
- Subject Action Plan – Developed using the School Development Plan priorities and the end of year audit to establish next steps as we continue to strive to improve each subject area.
- Monitoring Cycle –Our Learning Enquiry approach ensures the monitoring of MFL. Our carefully scheduled book looks, learning walks, planning/resource checks, pupil voice and staff voice. All findings are collated; feedback is shared and next steps are actioned. Planning and resource checks are completed at the start of the unit for the MFL team to ensure no learning is lost.
Delivery of MFL
Our MFL curriculum is taught weekly in a shorter lesson which allows for repetition of learning in shorter bursts to allow the children to learn a new language while managing cognitive load. This is to ensure sufficient coverage so that the knowledge and skills are taught.
Lesson content
In support of foundational understanding of MFL, key components of lessons have been established in conjunction with teaching proformas to support class teachers with consistent delivery lesson-by-lesson.
The key components MFL lessons will include:
- Phonics – This involves us teaching how the sounds of the foreign language links to their written form.
- Vocabulary – each year group learns vocabulary for each of the topics that we are learning about. This allows the children to gain the building blocks of language for later use.
- Grammar – Children use the previously taught or recapped vocabulary to build a variety of sentences so that the children do not memorise set phrases.
- Culture – we teach the children about the lives of other people within different countries so that they get an understanding of what the wider world looks like.
- Listening tasks – Children listen to teachers who have been guided on how to pronounce the words through our phonetic starters and phonetic spellings of French words on each slide.
- Speaking – This is modelled and repeated throughout the lesson so that children use the language effectively and correctly. These can be recorded for monitoring.
- Reading – Every lesson has written words in the language that the children can read to begin to develop an understanding of how other languages can look as well as sound.
- Writing – this is final skill we teach where they use all of the skills to write down words in different languages that can create a sentence to express opinions, feelings, or simply identify vocabulary.
- Core 10 strategies – Evidence based, high quality teaching strategies are employed where appropriate encouraging modelling, retrieval strategies, accurate assessment and purposeful reflections by learners.
Performance and Learning Evidence
Evidence collation is key to support the learning process and the monitoring of teaching and learning by subject leaders and senior leaders. In order to evidence MFL effectively, the following strategies have been implemented:
- Year 3 to Year 6 – Individual MFL books, recordings whish are uploaded to the internal servers, End of Unit Quizzes.
The Class Teacher assesses children after each unit based on the knowledge and skills they have demonstrated over time with a focus on the progress they have made. This process uses evidence from the child’s workbooks, conversations with the child and observations within the lessons. This enables the Class Teacher to make judgements on whether the child is working towards age-related expectations, working at age-related expectations, or exceeding age-related expectations. The use of a bespoke end of unit quizzes, that have been designed by the subject leads, also assess knowledge. These judgements will be recorded termly on Arbour following each unit of work. The Subject Lead will moderate assessment judgements in-line with the school’s assessment calendar. All year groups use the MFL Progression document to plan lessons, ensure progression, and assess learning.