Modern Foreign Language (MFL)

Intent

Learning a foreign language provides an opening to another culture. At St. Joseph’s, we teach Spanish. We want our high-quality language education to foster our children’s curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. The teaching enables our children to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. It also provides opportunities for our children to communicate for practical purposes and learn new ways of thinking. Our language teaching will provide the foundation for learning further languages, equipping our children to possibly study and work in other countries.

Implementation

At St. Joseph’s, we base the teaching and learning of Spanish on guidance from the National Curriculum and adapt it to the needs of our children through the use of Rachel Hawkes Spanish programme. In Year 3, our teachers engage their children in their learning through the use of fun games, music, role-play and exciting presentations. In Years 4 to 6, the children have access to specialist Spanish teaching where the lessons are entertaining and enjoyable but delivered by an outside provider. The use of a native language speaker serves to build on the work done in Year 3 but emphasising fluency, vocabulary and ability to hear spoken Spanish.

The Year 3 teachers and the specialist teacher for Years 4, 5 and 6 teach a Spanish to our children for 30 minutes per week.

Impact

We assess the children in order to ensure that they make good progress in this subject from their starting points. We do this informally during the lessons. Our children leave the school able to ask and answer basic questions. They are able to use correct pronunciation and intonation and understand basic grammar. Our children develop an interest in the Spanish culture and many will name the country as a destination that they will want to visit in the future to experience the language and culture at first hand.