Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. A high quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. Our aim is to broaden pupils’ horizons and encourage them to step beyond familiar cultural boundaries and develop new ways of seeing the world. Our teaching should enable pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. It should also provide opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes, learn new ways of thinking and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.
Pupils should develop a competency that is both broad and deep in the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing based on a sound foundation of core grammar, vocabulary and phonics. They should also be able to understand and communicate personal and factual information that goes beyond their immediate needs and interests, developing and justifying points of view in speech and writing, with increased spontaneity, independence and accuracy.
Critical learning, high frequency language and key communicative functions are revisited receptively and productively many times as we progress through the curriculum. For example when learning how to describe activities done on a past holiday in French/German, we need to revisit previous teaching on how to conjugate the verbs ‘avoir and être’/’haben and sein’ in all forms.’ In Spanish, when talking about food and drink and using the idiom ‘tener hambre/sed’ we need to revisit the present tense of the irregular verb ‘tener’.
Our ultimate goal with our pupils is to develop their ability to be self-efficacious and to create the optimal conditions for learner success.
Intent
We aspire to expose our pupils to a broad and ambitious Modern Languages curriculum, which is rich in skills and knowledge, develops self-efficacy, kindles curiosity and promotes diversity and tolerance of other cultures. Our Modern Languages curriculum will give pupils the opportunity to:
- use language skills, receptively and productively, for communication in the real world, for practical purposes, for their immediate needs, interests and beyond and to express and justify opinions
- develop their confidence and autonomy to access new and unfamiliar language through the use of decoding skills brought about by the explicit teaching of phonics and sound patterns
- work towards becoming a fluent and spontaneous speaker of the foreign language
Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators
We are participating as a school in the Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators, which gives you the chance to try your skills at translating a document to the best of your ability, without the help from teachers, parents or online tools. Submissions will then compete against other schools in the country, judged by Queen’s College Oxford for most fitting translation in each language group.
If you are interested in entering, download the relevant resource from below for your stage and language you want to tackle. Translate the document using terms and grammar you believe conveys the most relevant meaning of the translation. Then hand your finished submission to your MFL Teacher or to Miss Ewing.
The deadline for submission is 27th March.
For more information – https://www.queens.ox.ac.uk/research-at-queens/translation-exchange/anthea-bell-prize/
(KS3 = Years 7,8,9; KS4 = Years 10,11)