Modern Foreign Languages

Intent:

The aim of MFL at ICA is to provide students with an insight into other cultures and to embrace the differences that exist between the UK and French speaking countries worldwide. We believe learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and that in providing a high quality MFL curriculum helps foster our pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world around them.

We strive to teach new content in a creative and stimulating way to widen pupils’ knowledge through culture, history and literature of the new language. We hope that upon ending their language learning experience at ICA, students will have a love of languages and will want to continue to develop their language skills, seeing these as important aspects of lifelong learning.

Our MFL curriculum is underpinned by the following curriculum principles:

Entitlement:
Everyone has the right to learn the basics of another language and to explore the culture of the country or countries where it is spoken. Language learning at ICA enables students to express their ideas and thoughts in other languages, and to understand and respond to its speakers. Our curriculum also provides students with opportunities to develop their oracy skills. And to build their self-confidence by enabling them to communicate for practical purposes, build new ways of thinking and read authentic texts in the target language.

Coherence:
Our carefully sequenced curriculum ensures time is embedded to revisit, consolidate, and extend the language learnt. In Years 8 and 9 there are also opportunities for interleaving prior language. All units taught build on previous knowledge; the focus is always progression in the three pillars of language learning: phonics, vocabulary, and grammar.

Mastery:
The MFL curriculum at ICA has been designed with students in mind and it provides them with a secure foundation of the French language at the end of the school journey. Teachers at ICA insure linguistic knowledge and its application in context are secure before moving on to the next step & we implement Rosenshine’s principle of ‘Teach check practise’ into all our lessons to build the skills needed for communication and to develop competency in all areas of language learning.

Adaptability:
The core linguistic competence is an essential vocabulary are all the same in all contexts, but departments and teachers adapt lessons and tailor specific content to meet the needs of their students. For example for students who lack confidence in writing, teachers take steps to scaffold writing activities to support students in developing their independent writing skills.

Representation:
our curriculum presents French as a global language, spoken by diversity of people. From year seven students are aware that French is not only spoken in mainland France but also in many African countries and there are opportunities to explore this within our curriculum. For example, in yeah no students learn about Ivory Coast and Senegal which takes their imagines further afield than mainland France.