Modern Foreign Languages
Broadening the minds of pupils is exactly what the Modern Foreign Languages department aims to do. Learning a language at Corpus Christi helps pupils to develop the skills and confidence required to understand and communicate effectively in our multicultural society. We aim to promote resilience and a life-long love of language learning through engaging, yet challenging lessons, which help to give pupils a profound understanding of language. Learning about the mechanics of language, such as grammatical structures and a broad range of vocabulary, simultaneously supports their understanding of the English language, as well as developing knowledge about how people live and use language on a day-to-day basis. All pupils are taught German throughout Years 7, 8 and 9, and have the option to then continue their studies through to GCSE. The top two sets also study French in Years 8 and 9, allowing the option to choose French or German, or indeed both at GCSE. We are currently following the Pearson/Edexcel syllabus for both French and German. The school also makes provision for pupils who speak another language at home, to gain examination credit for these as well, providing that no additional support is required to develop this language. The department is also very pleased to be able to offer a host of extra-curricular opportunities to pupils, including an additional two year Spanish course that pupils can attend after school, in order to access a third language at GCSE, should they choose to pursue their Spanish. We have hosted a variety of cultural events and clubs as well, such as cross curricular extended learning days with a focus on “El día de los muertos” and after school French, German and Spanish film events. Pupils are also well supported in their learning, via revision classes and intervention sessions to improve their understanding and enable pupils to feel confident in their learning. Aside from the day to day language acquisition opportunities, we are also proud to host the biennial visit to Berlin, which always proves very popular with the pupils, and will be aiming to introduce a trip to France in the alternate year in the foreseeable future. We are very keen to facilitate travel and the opportunity to explore other cultures outside of the four walls of the classroom.
Aims
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.
Subject Content
Teaching may be of any modern foreign language and should build on the foundations of language learning laid at key stage 2, whether pupils continue with the same language or take up a new one. Teaching should focus on developing the breadth and depth of pupils’ competence in listening, speaking, reading and writing, based on a sound foundation of core grammar and vocabulary. It should enable pupils to understand and communicate personal and factual information that goes beyond their immediate needs and interests, developing and justifying points of view in speech and writing, with increased spontaneity, independence and accuracy. It should provide suitable preparation for further study.
Pupils should be taught to:
Grammar and vocabulary
- identify and use tenses or other structures which convey the present, past, and future
as appropriate to the language being studied - use and manipulate a variety of key grammatical structures and patterns, including voices and moods, as appropriate
- develop and use a wide-ranging and deepening vocabulary that goes beyond their immediate needs and interests, allowing them to give and justify opinions and take part in discussion about wider issues
- use accurate grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Linguistic competence
- listen to a variety of forms of spoken language to obtain information and respond appropriately
- transcribe words and short sentences that they hear with increasing accuracy
- initiate and develop conversations, coping with unfamiliar language and unexpected responses, making use of important social conventions such as formal modes of address
- express and develop ideas clearly and with increasing accuracy, both orally and in writing
- speak coherently and confidently, with increasingly accurate pronunciation and intonation
- read and show comprehension of original and adapted materials from a range of different sources, understanding the purpose, important ideas and details, and provide an accurate English translation of short, suitable material
- read literary texts in the language [such as stories, songs, poems and letters], to stimulate ideas, develop creative expression and expand understanding of the language and culture
- write prose using an increasingly wide range of grammar and vocabulary, write creatively to express their own ideas and opinions, and translate short written text accurately into the foreign language.
At Corpus Christi, our curriculum for KS3 is designed to both prepare pupils for GCSE, should they wish to continue with it, and leave them with a strong foundation in the language, which will still be purposeful, if they end their study of the language at the end of Year 9. The sequence of learning develops throughout years 7-9, as we introduce and embed grammatical concepts alongside topic vocabulary that we believe will be of interest and use to pupils. The units that we cover are also broadly in line with the themes that they would be expected to work with in the GCSE course as well, which enables us to give them some core vocabulary for a level of confidence as they begin their GCSE content.
As pupils start in Year 7, all pupils learn German, as it is a language that none of them tend to study at KS2, meaning that they all feel equal, and no pupils are standing out as knowing more than they do. This gives them the freedom and confidence to get their teeth into the lessons, freely asking and answering questions, happy in the knowledge that everyone is expecting to make mistakes, and we use them as learning opportunities. We start may talking about ourselves in Year 7, as this tends to be what pupils initially want to talk about: their name, age, birthday, where they live and family members. This content allows us to build in key, basic grammar rules for the study of German. Things like all nouns having a gender and needing a capital letter, the position of the main verb in a sentence, and how to conjugate it in the present tense. We have a verb drill, which is embedded into our learning, and used as reference material in pupil books, with key verbs that they will need throughout their studies. The verb drill includes some key irregular verbs, which they learn from Year 7, due to their importance in the language. The verbs “to have” and “to be” are the first to be studied, which they use when introducing and describing themselves and family members. There is also the verb “werden,” which becomes important towards the end of the year, as they study the future tense as part of the free time unit.
As pupils progress into Year 8, as well as reinforcing the present and future tenses through their first main unit, whereby they talk in detail about their home and local area, they then see the benefit of focusing so intently on the verbs “haben – to have” and “sein – to be” in Year 7, as we look to use them to help them to form the perfect tense. This tense allows them, during their second unit of this year, to discuss a past holiday at length.
By the start of Year 9, pupils will already have the ground work in place for them to converse in the present, future and past tenses, about a range of topic areas of interest to them. We therefor use this year to fully embed, reinforce and put these tenses into practice, via the topics of leisure, (giving the opportunity to recall some key vocabulary from the free time unit in Year 7) healthy and unhealthy lifestyle and finishing the year with education and future plans. Ending KS3 in this way, not only consolidates learning from the school topic covered in Year 7, but also fits nicely with the conversations and processes that Year 9 pupils are going through at that time, taking their options and thinking about their future.
In summary the KS3 course is designed to enthuse, excite and engage pupils, developing a life-long love of language learning, culture, travel and tolerance. It sets pupils up for success at GCSE, but also provides them with some useful tools at a foundation level, hopefully for use in later life. Our pupils demonstrate excellent attitudes to learning in the MFL department as they are inspired and are genuinely enjoying learning another language, in part, because they can see the point in it, and what we are trying to achieve. This culminates in excellent – and only improving – option numbers in MFL each year.
| Year | Autumn Term | Spring Term | Summer Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Greetings / Family In the first half of the term, pupils learn about how to introduce themselves and exchange key personal information with someone in a German-Speaking Country. In the second half, they begin to look at discussing their family and friends, including descriptions (both physical and personality). | Family and Friends / School The term begins by finishing the previous topic, looking at describing relationships in further detail and talking about pets. Pupils then learn to talk about their school; giving opinions about subjects and teachers, with justification; describing their school day; discussing school rules and saying what their plans are for the future. | Free Time and future tense The final topic of the first year of their language studies sees pupils learn how to talk about what they do in their free time. They learn how to give detailed opinions using a variety of adjectives and connectives and to be able to explain what they and other people normally do in their spare time. Alongside this topic, pupils will explore the formation of the future tense, to further develop their linguistic skills, allowing them to discuss their hobbies in two time frames, expressing their plans for the weekend for example. |
| 8 | House and Home / Local area The first term of this year sees pupils learn to talk about where they live. From room to house, house to town, town to region, pupils are asked to describe, give opinions and justify them. They talk about the various places which they have and do not have where they live and where they might like to live in the future. | Environment / Holidays Following on from discussing where they live, this interlinked second topic sees them discuss basic vocabulary for important environmental issues. They learn to recognise and discuss what is good and bad for the environment as a way of extending their opinion of their local area. After this brief extension of topic one, pupils will move into their new topic, which will be to discuss holidays. | Holidays/ Shopping and perfect tense In this third and final term, pupils will extend their work on holidays, by focusing on how to go shopping in a German-speaking country, including making complaints if there are problems with their purchases or their accommodation. A large proportion of this term will then be spent introducing the perfect tense in full, allowing pupils to finish the year by talking about a previous holiday that they have been on in detail. |
| 9 | Leisure The first half-term of this year sees the pupils learn how to describe what they do in their spare time. They learn to be able to do so in a variety of different tenses, allowing them to opportunity to reinforce and build on their work on future and perfect tenses from years 7 and 8. | Health and Fitness The next major topic of this year sees pupils learn how to discuss their lifestyle and whether it is one designed for a healthy life. They will discuss different foods and food groups, with a focus on a balanced diet. They compare previous habits with what they do now and also what they would like to achieve moving forward. At this point in Year 9, pupils will be better prepared to practise transactional vocabulary, and so will focus here on a café/restaurant-based role-play. Similarly pupils will build the necessary vocabulary for talking about illness and injury, including body parts and how they would communicate in a pharmacy/hospital in Germany if they were to feel unwell or get injured. | Education and Future Plans The final topic of the year sees pupils go into further detail in describing subjects, teachers and their own school. They will also be able to talk about school trips and their career plans. They will close their KS3 curriculum by discussing their ambitions for the future. This will provide them with the opportunity to use the conditional tense to look forward with their study, career and life ambitions. |
Introductions / Personal information
All pupils will:
- Understand the most common verb forms used in German.
- Understand and respond to basic German greetings.
- Understand and respond to questions enquiring about their personal information, including name, age, birthday and where they live.
Family
All pupils will:
- Understand and respond to questions enquiring about their family.
- Be able to talk about their pets.
- Be able to describe their physical appearance and personal characteristics, as well as those of other people in their family.
School
All pupils will:
- Describe their school, giving their opinion.
- Say what is in their school bag/pencil case, with a focus on the gender of nouns in German.
- Understand and discuss school subjects that they study, as well as give their opinions of them.
- Be able to tell the time in German, in relation to the school day.
- Talk about their school uniform.
Free-time
All pupils will:
- Understand and discuss sporting activities.
- Understand and discuss a variety of hobbies.
- Be encouraged to use adverbs of frequency to say how often they participate in various activities.
- Be encouraged to include qualifiers when expressing their opinions on different sports and hobbies.
- Understand and discuss online activities and how they use technology in their free time.
- Be able to use the future tense to discuss what activities they will do at the weekend.
Talking about your local area
All pupils will:
- Categorise and describe the place where they live, using a range of adjectives
- Describe what there is to do and see in their town, using the accusative case.
- Be able to form negative structures, to say what there isn’t in their town.
Talking about your house
All pupils will:
- Understand how to describe their house, talking about what rooms they have and don’t have, focusing on negatives.
- Look at adjectival agreements, and how these are dependent on the gender of the noun they are describing.
- Understand how to use prepositions to describe their bedrooms and furniture.
- Be able to use key verbs in the imperfect tense to describe what their bedroom used to be like and what Preston used to be like.
- Use the key verb “Ich möchte” to talk about what rooms they would like to have or to describe their dream house.
Your local environment
All pupils will:
- Understand common environmental problems that affect our society.
Holidays
All pupils will:
- Understand and be able to say a variety of countries in German, that they visit, visited or would like to visit for their holidays.
- Be introduced to the perfect tense, allowing them to say where they went on holiday last year and how they travelled. Pupils may be challenged with extended sentences here, as they discover the “Time, Manner, Place” rule in German.
- Understand how to use ‘weil’ clauses successfully, with the correct word order (this will be used in a variety of contexts throughout this year).
- Re-visit free time vocabulary from Year 7, but applying the perfect tense to say what activities they did on holiday.
- Re-visit the future tense established in Year 7, to express where they will go on holiday next year.
Leisure
All pupils will:
- Understand and be able to talk about any clubs that they/others attend.
- Be able to give a range of positive and negative opinions on leisure activities.
- Understand and be able to discuss different genres of TV programme, as well as films.
- Understand and be able to discuss reading habits, including book genres.
- Understand and be able to discuss music preferences, including trips to concerts or festivals.
- Understand and be able to use key vocabulary for talking about a visit to the theatre.
- Understand and be able to offer invitations to go out to various places, including accepting or rejecting these offers.
Health and Fitness
All pupils will:
- Understand the German for parts of the body, and how to describe a number of different illnesses and injuries related to them.
- Understand how to explain how you got ill or injured, and take part in a role-play style conversation with a doctor who will offer appropriate treatment.
- Discuss how healthy their lifestyle is, has been and will be, and what you could do to have a healthier lifestyle.
- Be able to compare their lifestyle now, to what it was like in the past.
- Have an understanding of key vocabulary referring to the consumption of drugs, alcohol and smoking.
Education and Future Plans
All pupils will:
- Understand and be able to talk in detail about their school subjects, including various opinions and what they have when in their school day.
- Be able to understand extended descriptions and describe their own teachers as a development of their opinions of subjects.
- Understand extended descriptions of schools, and be able to describe their own school.
- Be able to talk about a school trip and/or an exchange visit that they have been on.
- Be able to discuss their career plans, starting with their plans after they leave school, part time job.
- Understand and be able to discuss their future ambitions using the conditional tense.
| Year | Autumn Term | Spring Term | Summer Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | Greetings / Family In the first half of the term, pupils learn about how to introduce themselves and exchange key personal information with someone in a French-Speaking Country. In the second half, they begin to look at discussing their family and friends, including descriptions (both physical and personality). | Family and Friends / School The term begins by finishing the previous topic, looking at describing relationships in further detail and talking about pets. Pupils then learn to talk about their school; giving opinions about subjects and teachers, with justification; describing their school day; discussing school rules and saying what their plans are for the future. | Free Time and future tense The final topic of the first year of their language studies sees pupils learn how to talk about what they do in their free time. They learn how to give detailed opinions using a variety of adjectives and connectives and to be able to explain what they and other people normally do in their spare time. Alongside this topic, pupils will explore the formation of the future tense, to further develop their linguistic skills, allowing them to discuss their hobbies in two time frames, expressing their plans for the weekend for example. |
| 9 | House and Home / Local area The first term of this year sees pupils learn to talk about where they live. From room to house, house to town, town to region, pupils are asked to describe, give opinions and justify them. They talk about the various places which they have and do not have where they live and where they might like to live in the future. | Helping out at Home/Daily Routine/Holidays Following on from discussing where they live, this interlinked second topic sees them discuss basic vocabulary for how they help around the house. They will then learn how to describe their daily routine, introducing time and reinforcing locations around the house and in town. After this brief extension of topic one, pupils will move into their new topic, which will be to discuss holidays. | Holidays/ Shopping and perfect tense In this third and final term, pupils will extend their work on holidays, by focusing on how to go shopping in a French-speaking country, including making complaints if there are problems with their purchases or their accommodation. A large proportion of this term will then be spent introducing the perfect tense in full, allowing pupils to finish the year by talking about a previous holiday that they have been on in detail. |
Introductions / Personal information
All pupils will:
- Understand the most common verb forms used in French.
- Understand and respond to basic French greetings.
- Understand and respond to questions enquiring about their personal information, including name, age, birthday and where they live.
Family
All pupils will:
- Understand and respond to questions enquiring about their family.
- Be able to talk about their pets.
- Be able to describe their physical appearance and personal characteristics, as well as those of other people in their family.
School
All pupils will:
- Describe their school, giving their opinion.
- Say what is in their school bag/pencil case, with a focus on the gender of nouns in French.
- Understand and discuss school subjects that they study, as well as give their opinions of them.
- Be able to tell the time in French, in relation to the school day.
- Talk about their school uniform.
Free-time
All pupils will:
- Understand and discuss sporting activities.
- Understand and discuss a variety of hobbies.
- Be encouraged to use adverbs of frequency to say how often they participate in various activities.
- Be encouraged to include qualifiers when expressing their opinions on different sports and hobbies.
- Understand and discuss online activities and how they use technology in their free time.
- Be able to use the future tense to discuss what activities they will do at the weekend.
Talking about your local area
All pupils will:
- Categorise and describe the place where they live, using a range of adjectives
- Describe what there is to do and see in their town, using the accusative case.
- Be able to form negative structures, to say what there isn’t in their town.
Talking about your house
All pupils will:
- Understand how to describe their house, talking about what rooms they have and don’t have, focusing on negatives.
- Look at adjectival agreements, and how these are dependent on the gender of the noun they are describing.
- Understand how to use prepositions to describe their bedrooms and furniture.
- Be able to use key verbs in the imperfect tense to describe what their bedroom used to be like and what Preston used to be like.
- Use the key verb “Je voudrais” to talk about what rooms they would like to have or to describe their dream house.
Helping at Home/Daily Routine
All pupils will:
- Discuss their daily routine, including what they do to help out at home.
- Have an understanding of the use and formation of reflexive verbs.
Holidays
All pupils will:
- Talk about a recent holiday they have been on, using the perfect tense.
- Be able to use both “être” and “avoir” to form the perfect tense.
- Understand and respond to questions about how you travelled, where you stayed and what you did during your holiday.
- Some pupils will be able to use past, present and future tenses to discuss holiday preferences and plans as well (class dependent)
| Year | Autumn Term | Spring Term | Summer Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | Who am I / Daily Life Family and Friends are the focus at the start of the second term, and in particular looking to describe the variety of different relationships which exist. We then take the role of an exchange student visiting a German-speaking home, looking at house rules and daily routine | School / Cultural Life Building on the work already done in Key Stage 3, GCSE pupils begin by looking at School in greater detail. In particular, they look to be able to compare the German and English systems and make informed decisions for their future. The second topic expands pupils’ vocabulary and grammar about their free time activity and in particular encourages them to discuss events they have been to and cultural festivals from around the world. | Travel and Tourism The third topic of the first year builds on the work done talking about holidays, but goes into much further detail. Pupils are encouraged to research and present more detailed information about their destinations and what they do there. |
| 11 | Town, region and country / Ambitions and Work Following on from the work on tourism, this first topic of the final year sees pupils look to describe where they live in greater detail and in particular look at the issues which are most important for those who live there. Following that, and linked to the School topic, pupils begin to look at life beyond GCSE and what they and their peers might choose to do in the future. | Environment / Bringing the World together As we bring the GCSE syllabus towards a close, we look at issues which affect the whole world we live in. Firstly we look at the physical effects as we investigate in further detail our environment and the effect we have and can have upon it. Finally, we look at how we can make a difference in this world, and investigate the myriad of social projects undertaken by young people in German-speaking countries. | Revision / GCSE Exams The Speaking exam takes place at the start of this term, immediately before the main examination period. Pupils then undertake examinations in Listening, Reading and Writing during the main examination period. |
At Corpus Christi we believe that all pupils should be equipped with and supported in developing a high level of reading and literacy capability, as is required by each subject discipline. In MFL this looks quite different to other subject areas across the curriculum. Clear expectations as to how we demonstrate our knowledge and understanding through oracy and literacy are however shared with pupils, as to what this looks like in our German and French lessons. In MFL we work with four skills on a lesson by lesson basis, including listening, speaking, reading and writing. Literacy forms the basis for everything that we do. All four skills, yet particularly speaking and writing, are modelled by the teacher and continually reinforced. Often this will take the form of pronunciation and phonics practice, the use of sentence builders, model answers and structure strips for example, to ensure that pupils are improving their accuracy and including literacy features that will enhance their spoken and written work.
At Corpus Christi, we believe that high quality summative assessment must primarily enable pupils to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding acquired throughout the delivery of the curriculum. Subsequently, this will allow teachers to measure the progress made by pupils, in relation to learning outcomes set out in schemes of work. In measuring the extent to which pupils have acquired knowledge and a secure understanding, teachers will be able to identify gaps in learning, to inform future teaching and planned interventions.
All assessments are suitably challenging whilst meeting the needs of all pupils. Appropriate points for summative assessment are chosen by the Head of Department, ensuring that they are embedded into the planned curriculum. Assessments are differentiated, in MFL this is often by outcome, to ensure that all academic groups can demonstrate their understanding and have the opportunity to make outstanding progress across the curriculum. It is the responsibility of each individual teacher to ensure that their classes are suitably prepared for assessments, and that all content has been covered thoroughly, considering the needs of all pupils.
In MFL there is a clear, shared rationale and assessments are checked and verified with the line manager. There is also consistency across the department when it comes to awarding progress grades. This will incorporate the use of formative assessment, whilst also enabling teachers to use their daily feedback through questioning and marking, to inform their decisions.
The impact of our MFL curriculum is evident from the in-depth knowledge gained by our pupils, and the level of grammatical mastery acquired over the duration of their German and/or French studies. This quality of language skill culminated in our best ever set of GCSE results with our most recent cohort in both languages. The percentage of pupils achieving Grade 9-4 has increased from 50% in 2019 to 71% in 2024 in German, with 94% of the French cohort achieving Grade 9-4 this year.
With regards to progress, our German cohort in 2024 were in the top 20% of schools nationally, and our French cohort in the top 10%.
The engaging delivery of a well-sequenced and relevant curriculum has ensured that our option numbers have continued to increase.
Alongside curriculum time, we also have pupils attending an additional Spanish class after school each week, offering some of our pupils up to three modern foreign languages at Corpus Christi. Our biennial Berlin trip also boasts the largest uptake of pupils in the school, providing pupils with the opportunity to really experience the culture and language of the country they are studying, and this level of opportunity will be further enhanced as we take our first group of pupils to Paris.
For further information regarding our Modern Foreign Languages curriculum please contact:
Mrs Black, email: gbla@ccc.lancs.sch.uk or telephone school reception: (01772) 716912.
