‘You live a new life for every language you speak. If you only know one language, you only live once.’ Czech proverb
Overview
The MFL department at King’s possesses a deep-seated passion for language and, more specifically, for language learning. We aim to instil the same passion and enthusiasm for languages in each of all students that resides within each teacher in the MFL department. Every student regardless of starting point, ability or home language will study Spanish to GCSE level as we believe learning a language not only helps to develop a new skill but also creates a tolerance and curiosity for other cultures as well as a deeper understanding of the world.
We endeavour to do this through a range of topics aimed at expanding both students’ cultural and language knowledge. Spanish at King’s allows students to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and provides opportunities to communicate for practical purposes, learn new ways of thinking and explore popular culture within the target language. This is done through a rigorous curriculum focusing on all four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing with a grammar and vocabulary lead approach.
Vocabulary Rich
The main focus of the Spanish curriculum is to develop and encourage fluency in target language. However, the ability to understand the semantics, etymology and grammatical integrity of a language is equally important. At King’s each Spanish lesson has a focus of a subject specific word, designed to increase pupils’ language proficiency and grammatical knowledge. This is done through a ‘Key Word’ of this lesson which also appears in the focus of the lesson hypothesis. Terminology is embedded through subject specialist teaching, using and applying vocabulary repeatedly throughout teaching and learning.
Academic skills/Independent Learners
Learners will speak with increasing confidence, independence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say. This includes discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation. The curriculum sees the development of all four language skills which can then be applied across the wider curriculum and lend themselves to other disciplines.
Intellectual Habits
The curriculum allows and plans for an extended, teacher assessed piece of work every fourth lesson. Students must then apply feedback to improve their original piece. One hour every fortnight is dedicated to students applying accuracy, reflection and strategic thinking to their work with guided, personalised tasks in place by the class teacher.
Diverse
The opportunity of language learning allows students to develop an informed understanding of their own language and culture as well as multi-cultural awareness. Throughout the curriculum there is opportunity to explore popular culture including music, art and literature therefore broadening their cultural knowledge.
Inclusive
All students with SEND should have the same access to a stretching and challenging curriculum as all other students and study GCSE to GCSE level. Teaching and learning is adapted for SEND students appropriately with an opportunity for students to receive more bespoke teaching towards their tiered exam from year 9 onwards. SEN, is a weekly focus in departmental meetings to ensure all students are receiving the best, tailored teaching as possible. The Spanish curriculum allows all students the ability to speak Spanish with some fluency and write at varying lengths for different purposes and audiences.
The King’s Leadership Academy Bolton Modern Foreign Languages curriculum has been developed to ensure that all pupils:
understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources in the original language
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
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