French at FPJS

‘A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world’ (National Curriculum, 2013).  At FPJS we believe learning another language is a valuable, life-enhancing skill. It opens doors for work and travel as well as developing better understanding and appreciation of other cultures.  Experiencing the thrill of successful communication, developing linguistic curiosity and having the knowledge of how to learn a language gives our children the motivation and skills needed to succeed in their future studies whilst also deepening their grammatical understanding of our own language.  We aim to foster a love of language and lay the foundation for further foreign language acquisition in Key Stage 3.

How we teach French at FPJS

At FPJS, we want to make learning French fun!  We do this by incorporating a variety of real world scenarios, songs, poems, games and rhymes to allow children to explore the language and make links in their learning.

Every year, we begin our French learning by focusing on a number of phonemes that will be utilised throughout the year and as the children continue their French development across KS2.  We incorporate the three pillars of language learning (phonics, grammar and vocabulary) into every unit of French that we teach, ensuring that children have the opportunity to practice their new learning regularly with the aim of them retaining a greater understanding of the language as a whole.  When introducing new vocabulary, we focus on speaking and listening skills before reading and writing in order to avoid phonetical misconceptions and support the childrens’ ability and confidence in spoken French.  Children progressively learn a core set of vocabulary and grammatical structures so they can confidently use them to communicate in speaking and writing. At the same time, they develop a bank of language learning strategies that will support their ongoing learning journey beyond KS2.