MFL: Modern Foreign Languages

The focus of our MFL curriculum is heavily directed to the development of students’ communication skills, self-motivation, strong and durable retention of language, independence and autonomy. Through the 3 pillars of progression – phonics, vocabulary and grammar, students will gain a strong phonetic knowledge that enables them to converse (and pronounce new vocabulary) confidently and provides a reinforcement of many literacy skills from their first language. They will learn how to manipulate grammar to allow them to personalise information and retain core phrases that can be recycled in many real-life situations. Through this knowledge and confidence, they will become resilient and competent linguists who are open-minded and versatile communicators.

By the end of KS3, students will understand what it is to be a linguist. Students will have a curiosity and fascination in discovering the world and its people, as well as having an interest and intention to travel in order to deepen their understanding of different cultures and societies. They will have an understanding of the ways in which languages are interconnected and in which languages play a part in our daily lives. Students will develop an extensive core of vocabulary and grammatical structures which will be learned and regularly practised and retrieved so that students are confident communicators in a variety of contexts across all 4 language skills.

Students will leave the college with the knowledge and understanding that enable them to apply what they know to both familiar and unfamiliar contexts from family life to ethical issues and the world of work. This will help them to go on to achieve their potential, not just at A Level and in Higher Education but as global citizens living in a dynamic and interdependent world. Linguists at Torpoint Community College will have an appreciation for the world they live in and a deep understanding of their place in an ever-changing multi-cultural society. Through a knowledge- based and evidenced informed curriculum, students will acquire the skills needed to develop the four main skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening in the target language.   The invaluable communication skills and creativity developed through learning a foreign language will foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of other cultures on a local, national and international stage.

Implementation

Our languages department employs a range of strategies to ensure students learn in an enjoyable, positive and inclusive environment. All members of staff use a variety of resources but have studied and are applying Dr Gianfranco Conti’s approach (a respected MFL teacher, specialist and linguist) of his Extensive Processing Instruction (EPI) method. To enable our students to become successful language learners, we have reviewed our curriculum and created our own bespoke teaching resources to implement the EPI principles into our lessons as well as drawing on what works well from experience. We are constantly reviewing and adapting our curriculums in both French and Spanish to ensure that we deliver the most effective lessons to set students up for success in future years.

Our TCC MFL approach includes

• Sentence builders central to all lessons, enabling students to build accurate sentences
• Extensive drilling of chunks of language using engaging games and speaking activities
• Focus on listening and speaking skills at the start of every unit of work/sequence (phonics included on sentence builders to regularly aid and to practice pronunciation
• Use of texts that are at least 95% comprehensible(comprehensible input) to build fluency and to avoid cognitive overload
• Explicit teaching of language learning, decoding and parsing skill to support metacognition
• Regular ‘pop up’ grammar sessions
• Constant retrieval of knowledge to produce deep and durable learning

Sequencing the curriculum is essential to generate deep and durable learning in MFL

Where possible we replicate the order by which children naturally acquire their first language. We therefore start in Year 7 by learning key phonics. The learning of these sounds is reinforced in every unit of work, when we introduce new Sentence builders.

In Year 7 students learn the key grammatical ideas on which all languages are built. Students start by learning key verbs in the present tense, they learn to give opinions, use negatives and begin to be able to manipulate the language to talk about themselves, their family and pets. This allows students to learn how adjectives behave, and the importance of the genders of nouns. Students also learn about the infinitives and how verbs are conjugated, including common irregular verbs such as ‘to be’ and ‘to have’. This knowledge is essential in order to be able to access the Year 8 and 9 curricula, where students learn to describe events in the past and future as well as complex structures.

When appropriate, we also ‘seed-plant’ chunks of language. Seed planting exposes students to common chunks of language before students are expected to understand the grammar behind the phrase. For example, students learn the important phrase ‘I would like’ from the first term, even though the conditional is not taught explicitly until Year 9.

Our students want to succeed, and, through hard work and achievement, they want to learn more. Modelling is a key aspect of teaching in MFL to support oracy and fluency. Teachers explicitly teach students how to learn, self-quiz and revise so that they can be successful in regular knowledge retrieval and vocabulary tests. This helps to ensure long-term retention of core vocabulary and skills from KS3 through to KS4 and beyond.

Hopefully, in the future, opportunities at KS3 and 4 will provide students with real world contexts to apply their knowledge. This will include visits from foreign students and speakers as well as drawing on the wealth of material available online to support cultural and social awareness. Key concepts are revisited over key stages as well as between lessons to ensure retrieval and recall and the development of long-term memory.

The impact of our curriculum

Progress is measured within lessons, and over terms, years, and key stages. In lessons, progress is measured through retrieval practice and regular formative assessments such as vocabulary and grammar quizzing, interactive and effective multiple-choice quizzes, effective questioning as well as through marking.

Retrieval and feedback play crucial roles in assessing depth of student knowledge and understanding – therefore supporting their own metacognition and self-regulation.

Analysing other students’ answers also allows students to assess their own progress based upon the feedback from the teacher. Feedback is also essential for the classroom teacher in terms of informing and adapting their lesson planning as appropriate.

Mastery is achieved through regular opportunities to practice recalling key information, and redrafting and improving work based on feedback from the teacher. Key vocabulary, knowledge and skills are tracked throughout the year and tested in a summative assessment at the end of each topic. Data from the summative assessments will be analysed by teachers, to review, inform the reporting system and reteach parts of the curriculum as appropriate. We also have a ‘feedback’ lesson after each summative assessment in order to address any misconceptions, to enable students to reflect and write targets and also to gain student feedback.

Gaps are addressed and closed not just at the end of each topic but also during lessons to ensure students have a solid understanding before another structure or topic is taught. This may lead to classes starting topics in different weeks but will ensure all students are secure in their understanding.

Key terms and structures will be learnt every lesson and retrieved at least 2 out of 4 lessons in KS3. Students will be tested/quizzed on phrases they learnt that week, but also on key terms/grammar from previous lessons/topics to practice recall and retrieval, ensuring interleaving and transfer of knowledge (i.e., students can apply their knowledge of tenses, adjectival endings etc. across variety of topics/context not just apply it during a specific unit, which often becomes a problem when ‘blocking’). Retrieval practice is an integral part of every lesson to inform students and teachers of any gaps in knowledge so these can be addressed swiftly.

Engagement in MFL will be evident in a healthy uptake for GCSE, and again on to higher education in the future.  We aim to invite linguists from business to talk to the students about how languages work in real life. Conversations about travel and holidays throughout the school year will show students how they can easily apply their language skills to real life experiences. The inspiring, evidence-informed and knowledge rich curriculum should develop confident and articulate linguists who want to discover more about the world around them.

Key Concepts

KS3 MFL

Curriculum Related Expectations KS3

KS4 MFL

The GCSE curriculum focuses on 3 themes which are then threaded throughout KS3 teaching:

Theme 1: People and lifestyle

• Identity and relationships with other
• Healthy living and lifestyle
• Education and work

Theme 2: Popular culture

• Free-time activities
• Customs, festivals and celebrations
• Celebrity culture

Theme 3: Communication and the world around us

• Travel and tourism, including places of interest
• Media and technology
• The environment and where people live