MFL teaching in the Ashington Learning Partnership reflects our guiding principles of partnership and opportunity and our focus on communication as a key skill for life. Learning a foreign language is a way to open up our pupils’ understanding of the world. It should allow pupils to develop their curiosity and equip children for a future in a globally connected workplace.
Our MFL curriculum is designed to foster an interest in learning another language, introducing young learners to a rich language environment in a way that is enjoyable and fun. It should help learners to understand cultural differences both here and in other countries. A language rich curriculum should also develop pupils’ speaking and listening skills.
The MFL curriculum for the Ashington Learning Partnership focuses on French as its primary language. In addition to this, there are opportunities as a school to celebrate the growing diversity of our pupils and the languages they speak. This is reflected, partly, through our ‘Language of the Month’ and by the children involved in our ‘Young Interpreters’ scheme.
It KS2, the scheme of work for MFL has a focus on speaking, listening, reading and writing skills, as well as making children aware of grammatical features of the French language. Children learn to engage with stories and songs written and spoken in French. They learn to read a range of texts in French and learn to present their ideas in French in both verbal and written contexts.
The scheme of work for MFL at Foundation Stage and KS1 is intended to complement the scheme of work for MFL at KS2 in a less formal way, concentrating mainly on speaking and listening. The aim is to begin to introduce our pupils to a language rich environment and to lay the foundation for successful language learning as they progress through