French

Subject Lead: Mr Bretton

At South Green Junior School, we use Language Angels to develop the love of learning for foreign languages. In particular, we study French. 

Why is it important to learn another language?

Learning a foreign language has been shown to improve concentration and learning capacity. As well as this, it opens children’s minds to new cultures. High-quality teaching of foreign languages helps develop pupils’ curiosity and deepens their understanding of the world. The teaching helps pupils' to express their ideas, both in speech and in writing. It provides wonderful opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes. If you ever go to France, they might be able to apply some of their learning. Also, it helps pupils’ learn a new way of thinking whilst providing them with great literature from foreign languages. Learning a foreign language helps build the foundations for future learning and the possibility of expanding to further languages like they will experience in secondary school.

In the future, if their love for languages is channelled and due to their foundations from primary school, some children may eventually seek the opportunity to work within languages or even abroad. The possibilities are endless. How amazing is that!

Curriculum Intent

At South Green Junior School, our curriculum is designed to inspire enthusiasm for learning, to ensure achievement and to support pupil wellbeing.

We provide learning experiences that allow children to develop interpersonal skills and build resilience. Our cross-curricular approach to topics enables our children to make meaningful links with their learning.

Our curriculum enables us to build strong relationships, celebrate diversity, encourage respect and build a sense of community. It provides and acknowledges success for all children, in all aspects of their development and it recognises, encourages and celebrates all types of talent.

Our values, PSHCE lessons and assemblies promote positive attitudes that reflect the values and skills needed for future learning and success. Teamwork and responsibility are an essential part of our wider curriculum and our pupils take on key roles that enable them to make a tangible difference to the school community.

At South Green Junior School, we encourage an enthusiastic and positive attitude to learning a language. Our aim is to promote a life-long love for learning languages opening up avenues of communication and exploration for our children. We encourage children to learn a language in order to enhance their understanding of the world as well as promoting, encouraging and instilling a broader cultural understanding of the world we live in.

 Aims

Here are some of the aims from the national curriculum, to ensure all pupils:

• understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources
• speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation
• can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt
• discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.

Through student surveys, we have found that the children thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to learn another language. We take great pride in this and will continue to ensure the children are being provided with high-quality teaching. If you have a moment, watch the video as to why it is beneficial to learn another language.

 MFL Policy

MFL Long Term Plan 

Why learn French?

7 Reasons to Learn French

1. Many people around the world speak French. French speaking people can be found on every continent except Antarctica. This means you could learn to communicate with lots of people.

Over 300 million people speak French worldwide!

2. French is a ROMANCE language. This means it has links to other languages like Spanish or Italian (and many others). There are still a fair amount of links between French and English words where you learn the patterns. Gerard Nolst Trenité wrote a poem called ‘Chaos’ that explores the complexity of the English language. Class points for anyone who reads it (you might have to read it with your parents as the English language can be quite hard, as shown in this poem).

3. French has lots of little ‘Knowledge Nuggets’ that link to vocabulary and tenses.

4. French has huge influences over food and drink. Did you know that France has the highest number of restaurants with Michelin stars? This means that the food is excellent…

5. France has many famous musicians and a wide variety of music, even from African-French speaking nations (like the Djembe drums we do in school which originated in Mali).

6. Being able to speak French will open up all new avenues of communication if you travel (even when you go away with your parents) and possible job opportunities later in life.

7. France is one of the most visited countries in the world with some of the most famous places. Did you know, the Eiffel Tower cost 7,799,401.31 French gold francs in 1889, or about $1.5 million. Was that cheaper than you expected?

At South Green, we want you to be inspired to learn another language and our long term goal is to link with a school in France to provide real-world opportunities for our children to succeed. Achievement for all.

Merci et au revoir!