Modern Foreign Languages

@BHCSMFL

MFL Faculty staff and Key Contacts:

• Miss M Bright - Head of Foreign Languages Faculty
• Miss C Roggeman – Teacher of French, Spanish and Latin
• Mrs S Oates - Teacher of French and Latin
• Mrs S Hallum-Barnard - Assistant Headteacher
• Mrs S Baker - Teacher of Spanish and Latin

Our Vision

• The vision of the Faculty of Foreign Languages is based around communication. As linguists, we are committed to empowering students with the art of communication in terms of language knowledge and cultural savoir-faire.
• Our aim is to provide our students with a breadth of subject and cultural knowledge and skills that is built upon and enriched throughout their curriculum journey, and which prepares students to be responsible and aspirational, global citizens and communicators.

Click on the road map to see the learning journey for this subject.
Click on the road map to see the learning journey for this subject.

Key Stage 3

In Years 7 and 8, students study either French or Spanish. The Key Stage 3 schemes of learning contain 5 modules of work over each academic year, with a focus on grammar and vocabulary building and include both formative and summative assessments in each of the 4 skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing.  These enable students to see and track their progress. Key topics covered at Key Stage 3 include family, school, hobbies and free-time activities, food and drinks and places in town whilst key grammatical points cover adjective agreement, the present tense, the perfect tense (French) / preterite tense (Spanish) and the near future tense. 

Knowledge organisers / vocabulary lists support learners for each module of the curriculum, providing them with a precise list of the vocabulary to be learned. At Key Stage 3, knowledge organisers include newly-launched grammar points which are aimed at being portable across modules. In addition, memorisation, metacognitive and thinking skills and comprehension strategies are taught to students early on in Key Stage 3 and are repeatedly revisited to ensure that students have a repertoire of techniques at their disposal when decoding unfamiliar language.  

Home learning is carefully planned within the curriculum to provide students with an opportunity to practise, embed and apply the knowledge that they have been taught in lessons. Home learning is checked through retrieval practice quizzes and tests. We also include previously learnt portable vocabulary in home learning tasks to ensure that students commit these to their long-term memory.   

Key Stage 4

In Year 9, students may choose to continue with French or Spanish.  From September 2022, we are also excited to be able to offer a GCSE Latin course. We place great emphasis on grammar as a vital source of portable knowledge within the curriculum. As such, during Year 9 we dedicate one lesson per week to retrieving, recapping and reinforcing key areas of grammar covered at Key Stage 3 in order to ensure that they are fully embedded in students’ long-term memory to aid them as they embark upon the Key Stage 4 course.   

In Years 10 and 11, all students follow the AQA GCSE specification which tests their proficiency in the skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing in the foreign language which are assessed as final exams at the end of the two-year course. The GCSE course, which prepares students well for further study at AS and A2 level, comprises the following themes and sub-topics at Key Stage 4 in both French and Spanish: 

Theme 1: Identity and culture  

• Me, my family and friends 
• Relationships with family and friends 
• Marriage/partnership 
• Technology in everyday life 
• Social media 
• Mobile technology 
• Free-time activities 
• Music 
• Cinema and TV 
• Food and eating out 
• Sport 
• Customs and festivals in French-speaking countries/communities  

Theme 2: Local, national, international and global areas of interest  

• Home, town, neighbourhood and region 
• Social issues 
• Charity/voluntary work 
• Healthy/unhealthy living 
• Global issues 
• The environment 
• Poverty/homelessness 
• Travel and tourism  

Theme 3: Current and future study and employment  

• My studies 
• Life at school/college 
• Education post-16 
• Jobs, career choices and ambitions   

Enrichment Opportunities

We actively encourage our students to take their learning outside the classroom and thus offer an exciting range of enrichment opportunities. Our enrichment opportunities include a French boules club, Italian club, ad-hoc film screenings and theatre events. We are also running a Foreign Languages trip to France in April 2023 to provide an opportunity to experience a new culture and to practice language skills.

Within our curriculum plan, students also learn regularly about elements of Francophone and Spanish-speaking culture within each of the modules that they study, such as idiomatic expressions, literature, festivals and traditions, to expand their horizons and enable all pupils to become open-minded responsible global citizens.   

Assessment

The GCSE French and Spanish courses have a Foundation Tier (grades 1–5) and a Higher Tier (grades 4–9). Students must take all four question papers at the same tier. This qualification is assessed over 4 different papers, with each counting for 25% of the final GCSE grade: 

Paper 1 – Listening: a listening exam with answers in English and the target language 

Paper 2 – Speaking: an oral exam to include the description of a photo, a role play and a general conversation 

Paper 3 – Reading: a reading paper with texts in the target language and questions to be answered in English in the first section and the target language in the second as well as a translation from the target language to English 

Paper 4 – Writing: a written exam which will include short essays (depending on tier: response to photocard stimulus, 40-word & 90-word essays or 90-word & 150-word essays) and a translation from English to the target language