Guardian Angels Catholic Primary School

Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) At Guardian Angels Catholic Primary School

At Guardian Angels Catholic Primary School, we believe that learning another language (perhaps the second or third for some of the pupils within our multicultural and multilingual school community) opens the doors to new and exciting cultures, fosters curiosity and deepens pupils’ understanding of the world. The weekly teaching of Spanish in KS2 enables pupils to develop their ability to express their ideas in another language and respond to its speakers both verbally and in writing. Children learn to communicate in Spanish for practical purposes and are exposed to books and songs in the target language. This early grounding in the basics of the Spanish language provides children with a firm foundation for further language learning and equips pupils to potentially study or work abroad in the future.

The sacred endeavour of Modern Foreign Languages enables pupils to appreciate and learn from the diversity and richness of other cultures. MFL provides a unique opportunity to bring about communication, inclusion, reconciliation, peace and understanding and the beauty of diversity and unity of all God’s family.

MFL Subject Handbook including Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement

MFL Progression Document

MFL Curriculum Map and Rationale

The MFL Curriculum

Through the teaching of Spanish, we aim to enable children to understand and respond to spoken and written language; speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity; write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt; and discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied. We also encourage children to engage with the culture of Spain and, importantly, the wider Spanish-speaking world through the celebration of festivals.

Key Stage 2

In Key Stage Two, pupils begin to develop the 4 skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing in Spanish.  Through the discrete teaching of phonics, they begin to understand the relationship between sounds (phonemes) and their written representations (graphemes) and use these to spell first words, and gradually more complex phrases and sentences, with accuracy and increased independence. Children are also introduced to key grammatical concepts, such as adjective and noun order and agreement; the conjugation of regular verbs; and gender. These build in complexity over the four years of study at Key Stage 2 and are regularly revisited to ensure that children can use them with increasing independence as they move further up the school. Spanish lessons continue to involve lots of games, songs, picture books and practical activities to maximise pupil engagement and embed key vocabulary and grammatical structures in an accessible and enjoyable way. After all, learning another language should be fun!

By the end of key stage 2, pupils should be able to:

1. Listen attentively to spoken language and show understanding by joining in and responding.
2. Explore the patterns and sounds of language through songs and rhymes and link the spelling, sound and meaning of words.
3. Engage in conversations; ask and answer questions; express opinions and respond to those of others; seek clarification and help.
4. Speak in sentences, using familiar vocabulary, phrases and basic language structures.
5. Develop accurate pronunciation and intonation so that others understand when they are reading aloud or using familiar words and phrases.
6. Present ideas and information orally to a range of audiences.
7. Read carefully and show understanding of words, phrases and simple writing.
8. Appreciate stories, songs, poems and rhymes in the language.
9. Broaden their vocabulary and develop their ability to understand new words that are introduced into familiar written material, including through using a dictionary.
10. Write phrases from memory, and adapt these to create new sentences, to express ideas clearly.
11. Describe people, places, things and actions orally and in writing.
12. Understand basic grammar appropriate to the language being studied, including (where relevant): feminine, masculine and neuter forms and the conjugation of high-frequency verbs; key features and patterns of the language; how to apply these, for instance, to build sentences; and how these differ from or are similar to English.

How can you support your child with Spanish?

The curriculum content may appear daunting, but do not panic! You don’t have to be able to speak Spanish to support your child with their learning at home. Simply talking to your child about what they have been learning in their language lessons that week and asking them to teach you some key words or phrases is a fantastic way of helping children recall previous learning. Perhaps they have a younger sibling or other family members that they might want to teach some key words, for example numbers, to as well?

Search YouTube for songs, clips or short TV shows in Spanish with your son or daughter. They could search for a song that they have been learning in school or the Spanish version of their favourite cartoon. If you want to have a go at some mindfulness activities with your child, try searching for ‘Es Irene’ on YouTube. Whilst children may not be able to understand everything that they are hearing, by simply listening to the lyrics of song or the words of a TV show, their ears are becoming attuned to the sounds and rhythms of Spanish and they may be able to eventually pick out familiar words or phrases.

Hunt for bilingual books at the library. Many libraries have a bilingual book section where children might find simple stories in Spanish. They can have a go at reading the Spanish parts whilst you provide the translation in English.

Keep your eyes open when out and about in town or the supermarket. Challenge your children to find Spanish or South American products on the supermarket shelves and see if they can read the packaging or work out exactly where the item is from. Do they recognise any ingredient names in Spanish? Perhaps they could make their own list of things to buy in Spanish? When you are walking around town, children might also try and spot words in English that have been similar to Spanish (café, restaurante etc.)

Encourage older children to create a resource for younger pupils in the school to use. This could take the form of a ‘Knowledge Organiser’ (which presents all the vocabulary for a particular unit of work), a game or a poster with key words on it.

Websites to support learning Spanish in school