Languages at White Rock

INTENT

It is our intent at White Rock Primary School to provide all our children with a high-quality education in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL), which develops their love of learning about other languages and cultures and fosters their curiosity and understanding of the world.

MFL teaching at White Rock provides excitement, enjoyment and challenge for children, helping to create enthusiastic learners and to develop positive attitudes to language learning.  The teaching enables children to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in writing and speech.

The natural links between languages and other areas of the curriculum can enrich the overall teaching and learning experience.

At White Rock we strongly believe in the importance of cultural capital and we provide the opportunities for our children to celebrate and embrace the difference backgrounds, heritage, language and traditions of all children living in this country.

We aim to prepare children for the KS3 language curriculum to enable them to transfer confidently and successfully and work towards becoming life-long language learners.

We have developed a working partnership with a local secondary school which will enable our children to meet and learn with KS3 children.

Our current MFL taught is Spanish, however we strive to provide children with opportunities to experience a range of other languages. For example, children have the opportunity to attend French and Mandarin clubs.  

IMPLEMENTATION

White Rock Primary School provides Spanish language learning from Nursery through to Year 6. KS2 Spanish is taught by Señorita Head, a Spanish Specialist Teacher on a weekly basis. In addition, class teachers deliver incidental Spanish during the week. For example: the target language is used to give simple classroom instructions, to ask questions and to take the register.

 Lessons across the Key Stages support the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. At White Rock, we use clear and comprehensive schemes of work which incorporate the three pillars of progression (vocabulary, grammar, phonics).

In EYFS and KS1, Spanish is introduced through topic related activities, focusing on practical games, stories with puppets and singing to develop an awareness of the language and vocabulary. In KS2, lessons are also active and highly focused, with children working as a whole class or in small groups.

A variety of language teaching methods are used by Señorita Head to match groups and individuals with different learning styles.  Activities include: -

• Games- to develop vocabulary through repetition, reading, writing, speaking and listening.
• Role-Play- these should relate to situations children may find themselves in the future.
• Songs- to develop phonetical skills, memory skills and key vocabulary.
• Authentic reading materials.
• ICT- to develop communication skills. At White Rock we have subscriptions to the language programmes Babelzone and Linguascope.
• Visual prompts are used to support children in translating new vocabulary.
• Word mats are also available for the children to have out on desks to re-cap previous learning.

KS2 SPANISH

Our KS2 Spanish curriculum aims to ensure that all children develop key language learning skills, as set out by the National curriculum as well as a love of languages and learning about other cultures: These are as follows:

• understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic resources.
• speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including asking questions and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation.
• write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt.
• discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.

Home Learning

All children have access to the interactive language learning websites Linguascope and Babelzone using the links below.

 The websites can be used independently by children to consolidate what they have learned in class and get a head start learning new vocabulary, or even introduce themselves to a new language! All children have the usernames and passwords written in their diary.