Languages (MFL)
Intent
At Malpas Alport, we follow Kapow Primary Spanish scheme of work which aims to instil a love of language learning and an awareness of other cultures. We want pupils to develop the confidence to communicate in Spanish for practical purposes, using both written and spoken Spanish.
Through our scheme of work, we aim to give pupils a foundation for language learning that encourages and enables them to apply their skills to other languages, facilitates further language study and opens future opportunities to study and work abroad.
We support pupils to meet the National curriculum end of Key stage 2 attainment targets.
The lessons are carefully planned and sequenced to teach the three building blocks of a language system; phonics, vocabulary and grammar.
Pupils connect these building blocks of knowledge to create meaning in a variety of contexts, allowing them to develop their skills in the following strands:
- Language comprehension: listening and reading
- Language production: speaking and writing
Ample opportunities are provided to ensure that children practise new learning across all four modalities.
Implementation
Pupils are given opportunities to communicate for practical purposes around familiar subjects and routines. The scheme provides balanced opportunities for communication in both spoken and written Spanish. Pupils first develop confidence and accuracy with oral skills then increasingly apply their knowledge to extended reading and writing as they progress through Key stage 2.
The scheme is a spiral curriculum, with key skills, grammar and vocabulary revisited with increasing complexity, allowing pupils to revise, retrieve and build on their previous learning.
Cross-curricular links are included throughout our Spanish units, allowing children to make connections and apply their language skills to other areas of their learning.
Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work including role-play, language games and language detective work. Our scheme of work focuses on developing what we term ‘language detective skills’ and developing an understanding of Spanish grammar, rather than committing to memory vast amounts of Spanish vocabulary.
Each unit is based on a specific theme with a motivating end outcome which gives the children a context and clear purpose for their learning. Guidance for adapting the learning is available for every lesson to ensure that lessons can be accessed and enjoyed by all. To help pupils retain their Spanish learning, we provide information on incorporating Spanish into the classroom environment every day in our ‘During the week’ sections.
Kapow Primary’s Spanish scheme has been created with the understanding that many teachers do not feel confident delivering the full language curriculum and every effort has been made to ensure they feel supported to deliver lessons of a high standard that ensure pupil progression.
Accordingly, each unit of lessons includes multiple teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD. Lessons include sections to explain key grammar and language points to the teacher before the lesson, together with key vocabulary and a pronunciation sound guide. Lesson presentations include sound files, supporting teachers who are less confident with their own pronunciation to deliver the lesson and support the children's learning. In addition, there is also a comprehensive series of phoneme videos to build teachers’ and pupils’ speaking confidence.
Spanish is consistently taught for 45 minutes a week in every KS2 class.
Impact
The impact of Spanish teaching is monitored continuously through both formative and summative assessment. Pupils frequently evaluate their own and their peers’ performance, respond to feedback and recognise their own progress. Every unit has a unit quiz and knowledge catcher which is used at the end of the unit. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives.
Pupils should leave school equipped with a range of language-learning skills to enable them to study Spanish, or any other language, with confidence at Key stage 3.
The expected impact of following the Kapow Primary Spanish scheme of work is that children will:
- Be able to engage in purposeful dialogue in practical situations (e.g. ordering in a cafe, following directions) and express an opinion.
- Make increasingly accurate attempts to read unfamiliar words, phrases and short texts.
- Speak and read aloud with confidence and accuracy in pronunciation.
- Demonstrate understanding of spoken language by listening and responding appropriately.
- Use a bilingual dictionary to support their language learning.
- Be able to identify word classes in a sentence and apply grammatical rules they have learnt.
- Have developed an awareness of cognates and near-cognates and be able to use them, and other language detective skills, to tackle unfamiliar words in Spanish, English and other languages.
- Be able to construct short texts on familiar topics.
- Meet the end of Key stage 2 stage expectations outlined in the national curriculum for languages.
- Develop a greater awareness of the wider world and an appreciation for the role of language learning in promoting cross-cultural understanding