Modern Foreign Languages

Head of Faculty: Mrs L Brundle

MFL

Please see overview of our MFL Curriculum Plan here.

Our curriculum provides students with opportunities to engage in conversations discuss and give their opinions about a wide range of issues such as the environment and global issues through their curriculum journey. Students will gain an understanding of, and the skills to manipulate, the language, based on a sound foundation of core grammar and vocabulary. 

At KS3, students gain essential skills to communicate with others in a foreign language. They learn the fundamental elements of the language and can explore diverse topics and key grammatical structures through a curriculum that provides the foundations of language early on and then builds both in complexity and range of vocabulary.  We interleave and revisit key grammar points and language structures so that students can apply the structures they learn to a range of different topics and contexts with increasing complexity.   

The Key Stage 3 content has been carefully selected to provide an introduction to and a basis for the themes and grammar knowledge required for further study. With the emphasis on the grammar and language structures, the plan provides opportunities for interleaving and revisiting previous topics in greater depth. The focus has shifted from vocabulary to proficiency and depth of understanding of the language itself.  Regular interleaving encourages automatisation of the language, promoting resilience and self-confidence.  

We wish to inspire our students to have a curiosity and fascination in discovering the world and its people, deepening their understanding of different cultures and societies. We aim to develop a student’s understanding of the ways in which languages are interconnected and how languages play a part in our daily lives. Students are encouraged to support and respect each other, especially when speaking in the target language.  

The curriculum is challenging, and students have regular opportunities to extend their skillset further through access to extension tasks and complex materials such as authentic resources and listening to native speakers. The curriculum continuously develops written, spoken and listening skills which are highly transferrable skills for all careers and other subjects. Students also have opportunities to develop their grammatical knowledge, broaden their vocabulary and deepen their cultural knowledge and understanding.  

Year 7

By the end of year 7 they will be able to:

  • use cognates to help understand new words
  • explain the concept of gender for French nouns
  • seek and give personal information
  • explain differences in French word order (e.g. adjectives)
  • use a range of opinion words and phrases
  • extend my sentences using conjunctions and clauses
  • write a paragraph about themselves in French
  • understand words in a literary text
  • make comparisons
  • write creatively using the target language
  • ask and answer questions (using intonation)
  • use techniques to translate well into French (e.g. check word order, agreements etc)
  • can express ideas in more than one time frame.

To do this they will cover the following topics:

  • Mon collège
  • Ma famille et mes amis
  • Mon temps libre
  • Ma ville

Year 8

By the end of year 8 they will be built on their prior knowledge and learn how to: 

  • narrate events in the past
  • write in 3-time frames
  • justify opinions and giving opposing views.
  • use the imperfect tense to task about that they used to do (implicitly)
  • answer set questions with confidence (developing spontaneity)
  • take part in a structured dialogue
  • can use the conditional tense to talk about hopes and wishes
  • use modal verbs in sentences

To do this they will cover the following topics:

  • Mes vacances
  • Le monde est petit
  • Chez le médecin
  • À loisir

Year 9

By the end of year 9 they will build on their prior knowledge and learn how to:

  • Justify the advantages and disadvantages of being online and using social media – the core phrases they will then learn how to transfer and adapt to other topics.
  • Talk about their future aspirations
  • Have a working knowledge of 6 tenses and be able to use them in 3 different time frames.

To do this they will study the following topics:

  • La technologie
  • Les pays francophone
  • Mes ambitions
  • Le film et la musique

We want all French GCSE students to be well equipped to cope with the demands of the GCSE exam. To support students with their learning and prepare them for their exams we teach across four skills:  reading, listening, writing and speaking.   The KS4 Curriculum is designed to review and extend on students’ knowledge from KS3 and build on this.  To do this the curriculum is designed to: 

  • encourage and support students in expressing their ideas and thoughts in another language, and in return respond in spoken and written form. 
  • develop a greater understanding of French grammar.
  • communicate for practical purpose and learn new ways of thinking.
  • develop transferable skills such as the ability to decode another language.
  • develop a curiosity about the wider world.

The topics that they will study are:

 Theme 1: People and lifestyle

  • Topic 1: Identity and relationships with others
  • Topic 2: Healthy living and lifestyle
  • Topic 3: Education and work

Theme 2: Popular culture

  • Topic 1: Free-time activities
  • Topic 2: Customs, festivals and celebrations
  • Topic 3: Celebrity culture

Theme 3: Communication and the world around us

  • Topic 1: Travel and tourism, including places of interest
  • Topic 2: Media and technology
  • Topic 3: The environment and where people live

How will I be assessed? 

Over the course of an academic year students will complete a number of formal assessments, these will be used to assess where students are in their learning journey and will prepare them for their exam.   The GCSE exam is broken down into four components and each areas tests a different skill.

GCSE French has a Foundation Tier (grades 1–5) and a Higher Tier (grades 4–9). Students must take all four question papers at the same tier. All question papers must be taken in the same series.

Paper 1: Listening

  • Written exam: 35 minutes (Foundation tier), 45 minutes (Higher tier)
  • 40 marks (Foundation tier), 50 marks (Higher tier)
  • 25% of GCSE

Each exam includes 5 minutes’ reading time at the start of the question paper before the listening material is played and 2 minutes at the end of the recording for students to check their work.  Recording controlled by the invigilator with built-in repetitions and pauses.  

Questions

  • Section A – listening comprehension questions in English, to be answered in English or non-verbally (32 marks at Foundation tier and 40 marks at Higher tier)
  • Section B – dictation where students transcribe short sentences, including a small number of words from outside the prescribed vocabulary list (8 marks at Foundation tier and 10 marks at Higher tier)

Paper 2:  Speaking

  • Non-exam assessment (NEA)
  • 7–9 minutes (Foundation tier) + 15 minutes’ supervised preparation time
  • 10–12 minutes (Higher tier) + 15 minutes’ supervised preparation time
  • 50 marks (for each of Foundation tier and Higher tier)
  • 25% of GCSE

Questions

The format is the same at Foundation tier and Higher tier, but with different stimulus materials for the Role-play and the Reading aloud task. For the Photo card task, the same photos are used at both tiers.

  • Role-play – 10 marks (recommended to last between 1 and 1.5 minutes at both tiers)
  • Reading aloud task and short conversation – 15 marks (recommended to last in total between 2 and 2.5 minutes at Foundation tier and between 3 and 3.5 minutes at Higher tier)
    • Reading aloud task: minimum 35 words of text at Foundation tier and 50 words at Higher tier
    • Short unprepared conversation
  • Photo card discussion – 25 marks (recommended to last between 4 and 5 minutes in total at Foundation tier, and between 6 and 7 minutes in total at Higher tier)
    • Response to the content of the photos on the card (recommended to last approximately 1 minute at Foundation tier and approximately 1.5 minutes at Higher tier)
    • Unprepared conversation (recommended to last between 3 and 4 minutes at Foundation tier and between 4.5 and 5.5 minutes at Higher tier)

Paper 3: Reading

  • Written exam: 45 minutes (Foundation tier), 1 hour (Higher tier)
  • 50 marks (for each of Foundation tier and Higher tier)
  • 25% of GCSE
  • Section A – reading comprehension questions in English, to be answered in English or non- verbally (40 marks)
  • Section B – translation from French into English, minimum of 35 words at Foundation tier and 50 words at Higher tier (10 marks)

Paper 4: Writing

  • Written exam: 1 hour 10 minutes (Foundation tier), 1 hour 15 minutes (Higher tier)
  • 50 marks (for each of Foundation tier and Higher tier)
  • 25% of GCSE

Foundation tier

  • Question 1 – student produces five short sentences in response to a photo (10 marks)
  • Question 2 – student produces a short piece of writing in response to five compulsory bullet points, approximately 50 words in total (10 marks)
  • Question 3 – student completes five short grammar tasks (5 marks)
  • Question 4 – translation of sentences from English into French minimum 35 words in total (10 marks)
  • Question 5 (overlap question) – student produces a piece of writing in response to three compulsory bullet points, approximately 90 words in total. There is a choice from two questions (15 marks)

Higher tier

  • Question 1 – translation of sentences from English into French, minimum 50 words in total (10 marks)
  • Question 2 (overlap question) – student produces a piece of writing in response to three compulsory bullet points, approximately 90 words in total. There is a choice from two questions (15 marks)
  • Question 3 – open-ended writing task (student responds to two bullets, producing approximately 150 words in total). There is a choice from two questions (25 marks)