1. What is the curriculum rationale in Modern Foreign Languages?

Intent: purpose and values of MFL

Our intent is to open all students’ minds to the multicultural world in which we live. We aim to develop students' knowledge and understanding of the language and culture of the French, German and Spanish speaking worlds which will in turn prepare them to live and work in an increasingly international environment.

A high quality MFL curriculum opens doors for our students and helps them to flourish in life, learning and work. We believe that all students can learn and progress in a language. We therefore aim for all our students to gain at least substantial knowledge of the language they have chosen to study, supporting effective learning through appropriate scaffolding.

Our curriculum helps to build students’ cultural capital by incorporating key cultural aspects of the French, German and Spanish speaking worlds, including, but not limited to history, geography, the arts and customs. The ultimate aim of learning modern foreign languages is for students eventually to be able to use higher level thinking skills in order to think critically and debate a range of global issues from various perspectives, including political, historical and cultural matters.

Through the teaching of language skills, we also aim to develop young people of character who feel confident to communicate in a variety of situations.

2. What is the 'big picture' in MFL?

The ‘big picture’ outlines how the Big Ideas and areas of knowledge of each subject fit together:

Our ‘Big Ideas’ feature across every topic and are the four key skills:

• Listening
• Reading
• Speaking
• Writing

Students become successful in each of the ‘Big Ideas’ by mastering the ‘Three Pillars of Progression’ that feature in every lesson:

• Phonics – recognition and accurate application of sound-spelling patterns
• Vocabulary – the words or chunks of language in a unit of study
• Grammar – the rules behind the chunks of language and the ability to accurately apply them

There are three key areas of knowledge which are necessary to become a subject expert in MFL:

1. Conceptual understanding: That our students build declarative knowledge (knowing that) of e.g. vocabulary or cultural knowledge.

2. Procedural fluency: That our students build procedural knowledge (knowing how to), allowing them to apply their knowledge and follow processes, e.g. applying a grammatical rule or successfully using linguistic techniques to gain understanding.

4. Language: That our students gain fluency in metalanguage so they are able to understand and explain the rules and patterns of the foreign language studied.

3. What does knowledge look like in MFL?

4. What do we teach and when?