Modern Foreign Languages

KEY STAGE 3

Y7

The language studied in Y7 alternates between French and Spanish.

Whichever language is taken students cover several topic areas including talking about yourself and family, pets, school, free time activities, the weather, my home, holidays and buying snacks. In addition, students work on listening and speaking skills, improving their confidence through repetition and identifying gist and detail in spoken passages, stories and songs. Students use familiar structures and vocabulary to build short paragraphs and identify main points in written texts.

Y8

Students learn how to talk about what they and others look like, what they do after school, daily routine, spare time activities, about illness and about food and drink. Others topics include transport, past activities and planning a visit to France. Students also participate in unrehearsed exchanges and organise their ideas and information into a sequence of paragraphs. They will begin to use a range of verb forms referring to the past, present and future.

Y9

Students work to achieve accreditation through the AQA FCSE exam The FCSE prepares students for GCSE with an introduction to simple translation from English into the target language (Writing), from the target language into English (Reading) and role-play (Speaking) as well as reading and listening. Students will understand longer sequences of speech and deal with unexpected responses in order to sustain conversation and discussion. They will use their knowledge of word order, phrases and clauses to understand and build a wider range of extended sentences. They will also be able to use and identify a range of tenses.

KEY STAGE 4         

The course follows three main themes, which are:

Theme 1: Identity and Culture

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

Theme 3: Current and future study and employment  

CURRICULUM TIME (per week)

KS3: 3 hours (Y7), 2 hours (Y8), 1 hour (Y9)

KS4: 4 hours (Y9), 2 hours (Y10), 3 hours (Y11)

GCSE ASSESSMENT

Students sit all their exams at the end of the course. The examination has two tiers - Foundation (F) and Higher (H)

Listening: (25%) Written paper - F 35 mins, H 45mins

Speaking: (25%) Written paper - F 7/9 mins, H 10/12mins

Reading: (25%) Written paper - F 45 mins, H 1 hour

Writing: (25%) Written paper - F 1 hour, H 1.15 hours

HEADS OF DEPARTMENT: Mrs. D. Bassnett and Mrs. K. Hensby