French

What does the National Curriculum say about teaching a foreign language?
The national curriculum for languages aims to ensure that all pupils:

  • understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources
  • speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation
  • can 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

How do we teach French in School?
At Hetton Lyons Primary School we are passionate about the teaching of French.
Our basic principles centre around the recognition and understanding of sounds and
speech patterns, key words and phrases through songs, games and interactive tasks
as well as the opportunities to develop these further in the upper key stage
through greater use of sentence writing and simple conversations

What skills are covered during lessons?
We aim to engage our pupils through carefully planned units, linking in with the
current curriculum whenever possible.
We try to focus on a range of speaking, listening, reading and writing skills, as well
as intercultural understanding through knowledge of France and the French
speaking world.
We use listening and repeating skills to encourage overlearning with the majority of
lessons tending to focus on a particular theme, thus giving children opportunities to
dissect questions and be able to respond accordingly in a range of different ways

How is progression achieved?
Progression is achieved through a wider range of questions asked and discussed
through the key stage. As children continue to develop, they will be exposed to a
greater variety of short texts, with the emphasis by the later stages being on
giving opinion of their own and making presentations. The structure of lessons is
designed to remain consistent throughout, however the nature of the tasks will
start to see movement from basic words and phrases, all the way through to
reading longer texts.

French Progression Document

French Policy